Article March 25, 1916 Issue

Beauty and Holiness

ETHEL MUNRO GOSS

Once a woman stood by her kitchen window, weary with a dull day's work in which she had found little inspiration. Lifting her eyes to the western sky, she saw the rich colors of a wonderful afterglow bathing in amber light a slender crescent moon which seemed to drift into the luminous gold of the clouds. The picture was one of such fine and serene beauty that tears of gratitude came into her eyes, and as the meaning of its harmony crept into her thought it glorified the plain little room and made objects and duties alike stand out in a different light. Turning again to her work, order and beauty unfolded under her quickened fingers, and she thought of the quaint promise of the psalmist, "Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove."

The lesson was not soon forgotten, and many times she found that the field of every-day care afforded ample opportunities to express the beautiful, since beauty, spiritually understood, is holiness. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 86) Mrs. Eddy says, "My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired;" and in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 6) she declares, "All beauty and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God."

The world's conception of beauty has too often been chaotic, immoral, material; but all down the ages great and simple hearts in seeking to find God have found in the beauties of nature the manifestation of His holiness. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork," sang the sweet psalmist of Israel. He had held communion with God under the silence of the stars, in the vast quiet of the restful night, while tending his flock in the valley or on the hillside. There he had known the dull routine of his daily task, and there he had found the Lord to be his shepherd. He lifted up his eyes to the hills and found that true help "cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." Something of the gray grandeur of the rocks crept into his songs, also the silent majesty of the stars, the peace and rest of green pastures.

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