Article October 4, 1930 Issue

Divine Loveliness

NELLIE B. MACE

Since the beginning of mortal history the beauties of the so-called material universe have appealed to the human heart. Day, with its golden sunlight; night, star-jeweled; clouds of ever changing form; the seasons' cycle; the flowers and the fruitage—all have aroused varying emotions, according to the beholder's mental attitude. Meditating on these wonders, the Psalmist declared: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."

To regard all earth's loveliness as merely material is to misinterpret the spiritual lessons and the promises it presents. These symbols of the supreme creative power become more beautiful to thought which is approaching the true understanding of God as divine Love, for it is seen that Love could express nothing that is not beautiful. In the course of his great sermon, in conveying to his hearers the lesson of God's loving providence for all His children, Christ Jesus pointed to the flowers, which so abundantly graced the hillsides of Palestine, saying, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

That the Master loved the beauty and the peace of so-called nature was evidenced in his habitual seeking of the quiet out-of-doors in his vigils of spiritual communion with his heavenly Father. He must have contemplated and understood the spiritual creation, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis—the evening and the morning, the dry land and the seas, the grass, the herbs, the trees, and the "lights in the firmament of the heaven," all of which God pronounced "very good." To consider these terms in their spiritual significance, as disclosed by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in the Glossary to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and elsewhere in her writings, is to gain a clearer understanding of the substance, the completeness, the purpose, and the activity of the real creation, which the Master came to make plain to mankind.

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