Morning journal and courier., 1891-03-24
THE ADVENT OF SPRING.

The pastor eulogized winter, it's rugged strength, it's bracing air, it's storms and cold and speaking of yesterday said: "To- day by the memorable laws of mathe- matics and gravitation the balance of power hitherto on the side of winter changes to the side of summer. To-day winter fights her Waterloo" As one swallow doesn't make summer, so win ter may not be wholly vanquished yet, but spring is surely advancing. The speaker then brilliantly eulogized spring in glowing words touched with poetic fire, and gave testimony likewise to springs power to tempt one forth from books and studies to gather the trailing arbutus. ''To the poor school children the breath of spring was but delusion and snare" ''It is all we'll enough,' continued the speaker, for the flowers to appear on the earth and the trace of singing birds to come and the voice of the turtle to be heard in the land, but when base ball appears on the earth and the dip of oars is heard in the land and the singing bird riseth up early in the morning and dareth thee to go fishing, that is another thing. Oh! Give us winter, with snow to shovel and wood to saw, rather than battle with temptation like that"
 But l verify believe after all that winter and storms are better for the human soul, Greer from temptation than balmy airs or delicious ease"
 But spring is motion Mot only are flowers and mountain brooks bursting forth and all natures animal life teeming, but nations get their armies in motion in the spring, their navies afoat and the still greater and far nobler armies of farm CTS shoulder their arms. Oh! there is motion everywhere; and we love it, like to watch it even if peculiarity of heaven, that there is no win ter there, no night, no darkness of confu- sion, no cold of despair. But you say day is lovely only by contrast to night, spring beautiful in activity only in contrast to winter, and if heaven is all spring, then the heart can never leap for joy with the exul- tation of cold and torpidity past. Why, earth furnishes to heaven it's only winter I apprehend that we shall never forget this life, heavens one short, sharp winter, and then the heart will bound with springs ex- ultation forever. Spring is beauti- ful in itself, delicious in itself, adapted to feed and replenish passion of mans na- ture, and it would still be beautiful if there were never a winter in all the world.
 THE TRULY BEATIFUL NEVER CHANGES.
 It is quite the thing now; it is the fad with many women and some men to wor, ship the beautiful; they are devoted to the beautiful; they are always studying effects striving to produce that which is lovely, an object which would be worthy enough if there were any req, broad foundation or which they were endeavoring to build their theory of the beautiful, but the foundation is monstrous and ri diculous and is constantly changing anyway To bring forth to the light hide ous gimcracks and worship them, to bow before modern grotesque barbarism and pronounce them perfectly lovely is to get as far from the religion of the truly beau ful as it is possible to get. The founda- ton of your knowledge and worship of the beautiful is nothing more than fash ion and fashion changes every day. That which you pronounce perfectly lovely this year, next year you will declare per fectly hideous. There is no more mis- taken slave than the man or woman seek ing the beautiful through any reigning fad and making fools of themselves by devot- ing themselves to it. The truly beautiful never changes and needs not to change. The fashion of the spring has never alter ed in all these centuries, it still comes in the some dear old way, the flowers appear and the singing birds come and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land just as Job heard it thirty centuries ago. Nc wonder there is power in the spring, it belongs to the inner circle of the truly beautiful, a circle within which 8 modern maniac on the subject of taste never so much as stepped. You ladies must not let taste be to you in the place O. religion, there isn't so much danger for u. men for we are taught from childhood that we haven't any; but many 8 soul per suades itself that to be beautiful and tc act beautiful is to work with God. Il might be if that which you call the beauti full were the truly beautiful: for believe myself the truly beautiful is kin to God. What then is the truly beautiful why the good is the truly beautiful, good is al indefinite, broad work, but it is a dea1 old homely word, and we all know what il means and make it my definition of thu truly beautiful.
 THE TRULY BEAUTIFUL IS THE GOOD. And that alone, God is good and there is none other that is said Christ 'there il none good but one, that is God" Tn, spring is beautiful because it is good, goot | in itself for God made it. Your ideas o1 | the beautiful are not anywhere in it. Would | you be beautiful be good like God Would you be beautiful like the spring Then never mind high art, never mine taste, but bring the flowers and the singing birds and kind voices into the lives of me1 and women that meet you. Any of yot can sprinkle few daisies into lives, sing little short bird-song to some soldier marching by to his solemn doom. I an | not old, but many, many are the singing | birds I have to thank for their cheerJ fri11c T Iv,o b/ hill. Some of you can wear the more ma jestic beauties of spring, for springs is thu l mighty energy of the child bearing nature You remember Joe, the blacksmith, il "Great Expectations" who when Pip wal a little peeling boy used to fence him away in the corner of the fireplace with his grea leg and foot against the ever-ready switch
 'tickler." and sharper tongue of Joe's wife eating each together his allowance of bread and butter, and
 ALWAYS THE BEST OF FRIENDS, ANT US, PIP Well, Pip came into fortune, went te London, forgot his old Joe-wa ashamed of him. Then fortuna
 turned again, and Pip, pressed b, creditors was stricken down by fever ant knew nothing more till he awoke man, days after to find himself not in the debt or's prison, but his own neat room, hi debts paid and old Joe bending over th
 bedside with "always the best of friends
 ain't us, Pip?" That man was majestic il
 his beauty. You would have set him dowl
 in the kitchen, and you don't see the beau
 tiful in that, do yous No, you never shall
 It is as far beyond you as the eterna
 spring. You belong to the crazes of thi
 world time, few shifting seasons an,
 death
 Let me make one more remark abou
 this truly beautiful, of which there is n
 better illustration than the spring, so Te
 tanic in it's. terrific force, yet so gentle
 Many who are evil love what the worl,
 calls beautiful, and many things have al
 evil beauty. One of the most evil men
 ever knew-a man who reveled in count
 ing his victims
 WAS CoNNoIssEUR IN ALL MATTERS ARTS
 and man, in all his personal matters o
 faultless taste, almost worshipped by soci
 ety, but so evil! In what strange sense di'
 that man love the beautifuls do not know
 I only know he did not love the trul
 beautiful, for the truly beautiful is tn
 good, ,and like the spring, gentle in it's resist 1 less strength. And I warn you, and
 warn myself, that mere attraction to tn so-called beautiful has no kinship with tn
 divine A snake may be charming, bu
 never beautiful.
 Rnt T want to return again in closing t(