The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-08-06

ious endowments. We do not like
to be ugly or homely; we do not like
even to be called ugly or homely. No
one does, old or young, man or wo-
man; and no one need be ugly or
homely unless he wills to be. That
liking for comeliness is right. 1t is
no part of our depravity, to be rooted
out and thrown away, but Is to be
cherished and gratified.
1t cannot, however, be gratified by
beauty of the mortal order. AL
charms of physical person will fade
Wrinkles will come upon every brow,
and, at last, the youngest of us like
the Oldest, the faireSt like the least
fair, will be laid in the grave and our
bodies will decay. If beauty as COM
monty taken stood alone, If it did not
have the spiritual relationship which
we have alleged, il physical beauty
were aught more or less than this out
lying district in the principally OF
spiritual beauty. then mans esthetic
endowment would almost seem
mockery. 1t would be hard to resist
the suspicion that the power above Us
was somehow malevolent, having put
within us likings and strivings after
the beautiful, strong and intense, an
having permitted us up to certain
degree to crafty these by intercourse
with his splendid world and with the
art works of human geniuses whom
he has created and inspired, only at
last to dissipate cruelty the dream, to
dash TIE sweet cup from our lips, and
force us to continue our existence, II
at all, as shorn, meagre and COM
fortress thing.
ought to be we shall every one of us
develop more and more the longer W.
exist the power to enjoy the beautiful
and the art of being beautiful. We
shall personally take on beauty Of A
higher and higher order, the beauty
of the body giving way only to make
place for that of the spirit, perfect, i'm
material and fadeless. And this will
be to become partakers of the divine
nature, which is beauty itself.
The account which has been pre-
scented of the relation between the
esthetic and the spiritual brings out
still another lesson. We learn from
it, in considerable part, the nature of
the joy of perfected spirits must be,
supposing that finite spirits ever reach
Or approach perfection.
1t used once to be implied in pop
ular religious teaching that paradise
was simply a place; and representa-
tons of this sort are still extremely
common. The revulsion from that
notion has led to the frequent repre-
sentation, in our time, of paradise as
nothing but state. Because it is i'm
possible for one to attain bliss with
out being in correct inner condition,
it is inferred and urged that bliss
must consist solely in this proper in
ner condition. To enjoy in perfec-
ton, it is often said, you have simply
to be what you ought to be.
We cannot too strongly insist that
to enjoy in perfection one must be
what one ought to be. Ones heart
must be right; one must love the SUI
preme good; one must have vast
measure of spiritual development. But
it is in the highest degree irrational
to picture the best possible bliss of
finite being as merely subjective. For
creature like one of us, even IL
morally perfect, to be shut up to him
self, would be fate instead of a for
tune. Paradise is to be kingdom,
society, city of God. The perfected
are to be world and in world, each
to enjoy the ineffable privilege of
beatitic vision, of experimenting in
some manner analogous to sensuous
perceptions the glories of a moral
cosmos outside himself.
We know the joy of gazing at great
works of art. 1t is indescribable, CIV
ing uplift and ms. iration like moth
ing else Being asked where he
wished to be buried, Michel Angelo
replied: Where my eyes may for
ever rest on the works of Brunei.
leschi' He of course referred mainly
to the Florence Cathedral. But more
glorious far than any works of Bru
nelleschi or other mortal artist will
be the objects on which souls who at.
tain will have the privilege of gazing