Los Angeles herald., 1909-01-11
LOVE OF BEAUTIFUL
APPARENTLY INNATE
DR.. C. E. LOCKE SPEAKS OF
MANS SUPREME QUEST
Says the Human, No Matter How De-
PRAYED, Always Is Prepared to
Ascend to Empyreal
Heights

Dr. Charles Edward Locke, at the
First Methodist Episcopal church, yes
terday morning took for his subject:
MANS Supreme Quest" DR.. Locke
said in part:
1.-THE instructive reach of the soul
after the beautiful is an effort of the
divine in man to seek expression. This
love of the beautiful appears to be
innate. The American Indians used
to place their wigwams on the most
beautiful knobs of the most pictur-
eSque landscapes. Jacob Riis says that
more than once he has started from
his Long Island home with an armful
Of flowers for certain mission in the
city, but long before he could reach
his destination, in passing through the
crowded parts of the East Side, he
would give away his last flower to
some beseeching child. The beauty
hunger of the poor children is a pa
thetic demonstration of the God within
seeking to come to his own.
"In 1878 brilliant young English
man was graduated from Oxford uni
versity. He carried away the first
prize for English poetry. He became
a striking apostle of the beautiful and
Of aesthetic culture. Because of GER
tain extravagances he was satirized
lea. He speedily developed into dis
solute voluptuary, and at last found
himself deservedly in Jail, because of
his degeneracy. There he languished
for two years, and later he died.
Leaves Message in Poem
'In his last poem he left message
full of sadness and suggestion to those
who seek a substitute for God in the
indulgences of their carnal natures.
He wrote:
All, happy those whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?
And he of the swollen, purple throat
And the stark, staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
The thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
The Lord will not despise
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heardi
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a hattering word.
The coward does it with kiss
The brave with a sword.
Becomes Penitent
''Thus out of the depths of his filth
ness does Oscar Wilde penitentiy gasp
for God. The God in man cannot be
expelled. The image may be marred,
but man is ever and always a son of
God, prepared to ascend to the en-
pyreal heights of eternal power and
glory, or to sink into the inextricable
depths of everlasting depravity. How
terrible is the responsibility of living!
This God-endowed creature called man
needs a personal Christ to help carry
the load of his rich heritage and his
possible divinity
"The f1eet-footed deer escaped the
hunter, but the cruel arrow was stick
ing in its side. Satan hurls his deadly
darts. but if. with painting heart we
seek the Masters side, he will with his
own SCARED hand remove the poisoned
arrows, and pour in the healing balm.
Tendency toward God avails moth
ing unless we follow its guidance.
Conviction remarks Carlisle, SIS
worthless till it convert itself into
conduct Shall we not cease our rest
less wandering and come to God
Jesus Christ?
Near a ruined abbey somewhere in
historic England is the statue of a
headless man holding in his hand HIS
own head. 1t is recognized Immediate
ly as representation of John the Bap-
fist. There is a fanciful story that a
curse rested upon the cruel Herodias
and through the centuries she has been
doomed to the perdition of a ceaseless
and endless wandering from place to
place, from continent to continent, as
was the Wandering Jew At length.
after nineteen hundred years, carry
ing the fntolerable burden Of a life of
torture that must never end, she came
by accident upon this grewsome statue.
To her great surprise she heheId ex
pressions of sympathy in the face of
the dead man. Immediately the spell
of the curse was broken, she began to
grow old, her wanderings were ended.
and she received pardon and hope
fully looked forward to the blissful re-
lease of death.
"Tenderly the Christ invites. Come
unto me and 1 will give you rest!' Let
us look into the face of Christ, and
rest. and live forever, God is the
souls answer! Find God, and what
of life's problems cannot be solved can
be brave1y endured
Walk with God upon the hills
And see each morn the world arise
New bathed in light OF Paradise!
"And the God who sleeps in the
stone and dreams in the animal shall
be awake in man; and man inspired
by the presence of the most high
shall conquer his old self, and as a
son of God become a joint heir with
Jesus Christ to an inheritance incor-
rI1T 1fi I1oiO