Editorial July 4, 1925 ISSUE

"The beauty of holiness"

Albert F. Gilmore

Certain phrases and sentences in the Bible convey an impression at once celestial and sacred, assured and joyous. An instance of this is found in the expression "the beauty of holiness," a term used several times in the Scriptures. The impression which it conveys is altogether a happy one, suggesting that which is beautiful, and at the same time spiritual, pure, holy, sacred.

In David's psalm of thanksgiving recorded in I Chronicles, the shepherd king implored the children of Israel to do their duty as the chosen of the Lord, severally enumerating these duties. "Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name," he admonished them; "bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Again, in the Psalms, David pleaded in similar terms, so that the worship of God in "the beauty of holiness" came to be his standard for true worship. Not in material terms of supplication and sacrifice did he urge the people to discharge their duty to God, but in a manner so purified, so devoid of material conditions, that it could be described in those exalted words.

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