Perth Amboy evening news., 1910-09-17
CHURCH AND SUNDAY SCHOOL II
WORTH OF A THING,
On WpIlAN ". BAwBtN,

NoIh1h CR "A AhbAAFS'
At the sale of the Yerkes, art col
lection last spring, $4,000 was
paid for q single picture. The Por-
trait of a Woman, by Frans HAS.
One hundred and thirty-seven thou
sand dollars for a few square feet OF
canvas! But the canvas had re-
ceived the magic touch from the
hand of Halls.
Who is or vas this Halls? A
Dutchman, who lived in the seven
teenth century, who led q dissipated,
reckless life. But he was a pupil Of
the great Rubens, and himself be-
came one of the greatest of portrait
painters. He had the magic touch,
and could almost give life unto an
inert piece of canvas. Not many OF
his day had the genius for 1t, not
many of ours; hence, because so
rare, the great value put upon 1t.
But is 1t worth it2 OF course 1t
is. That something we call person
ality is the greatest thing we know
of. Even a little of it is worth a
great deal, while the more there is
of it, the more worth. Today we
have learned the knack of holding a
mirror before ourselves, and by
means OF the camera and the phono-
graph may see and hear ourselves as
others see and hear us. But when
the vision passes through the alem-
bic Of personality, and Is reproduced
on canyas OF in enduring stone, it Is
worth far more than the mere photo
graph or record. Personality has
done It.
Personality Is so valuable that the
world is ransacked for mere scraps
of the genuine words or works of
great men and women 1t is as II
men, in their tribute to genuine
greatness, had caught the whisper of
the Almighty: Search for the high
est and noblest and best, and trea-
sure It," And indeed, is not that
the message repeated in every leaf
and flower, in every stone and clod,
In the earth beneath us and the
heavens above? Apart from person
ality all of these things would be as
mere emptiness. And in the field of
human life we feel the impress of
the same great personality. Who is
1t? What does II mean?
We believe that back of all physi-
cal phenomena there Is a great be-
Ing, whom we call God, the ALLOWING
and merciful Father. 1t Is because
of his personality that these things
appeal to us, and WOO us with their
message. We believe that this same
being in the arena of spirit must be
identified with the historical Jesus,
creating In the latter realm a beauty
and glory that dims the splendor Of
the former. 1t Is this personality
that makes life worth the living. 1t
is the Spirit who seeks to aid us in
interpreting the message Of the ply
steal creation, and in realizing the
fulness of life Of the spiritual.
One hundred and thirty-seven
thousand dollars for a mere portrait,
simply because a great personality
put his touch to the canvas, What,
then, Is the value of q man whose
spirit has received the impress of
the great artist Spirit of the uni
verse? That some do not value it
very highly is evidenced by the way
they shrink from contact with the
divine-or is 1t that seeing they do
not perceive and hearing they do not
understand? The answer has not
| yet been found to the problem given
to the world twenty centuries ago:
What shall a man be profted. If he
shall gain the whole world and for
felt his soul, or what shall a man
give in exchange for his soul2"