Article April 9, 1938 Issue

"Beauty for ashes"

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS LOGAN

"Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Could any phrase on human tongue be lovelier? What merciful assurance these words from Isaiah bring to weary, troubled hearts! True beauty is of God. It is permanent, for it is divine. Symmetry, harmony, completeness—all these are included in beauty.

Perhaps few, if any, would deny that true beauty is wholly spiritual. When we consider the grandeur of snow-capped mountains, the oceans' austere charm, or the loveliness of spring's first violet, we should remember that real beauty exists independently of matter.

Beauty is of light, not darkness. It is at one with harmony and peace, not discord. It is of good, not evil. It is found through understanding, not ignorance or misunderstanding. Beauty is expressed in health, not disease; it belongs to true substance. It is seen in love, not hate—in truth, not falsehood. Beauty is a quality of perfection, not imperfection. It belongs to strength, not weakness. It is of life, not death. It is plain that all these spiritual imponderables are positive, not negative. Only the positive, the real, originates with God, and through spiritual apprehension of the positive and real is beauty found.

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Rescue at Hand
April 9, 1938
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