Article January 7, 1939 Issue

"Beauty and light"

CLARA ARMITAGE BROWN

The yearning for beauty and light in human experience is almost universal. This longing exists even when it is not definitely outlined in individual thought. It is the heart's desire to cease from drabness and dullness, as it reaches out for radiance, freedom, comfort, and joy. But too often beauty and light have been sought in materiality or material associations; and so the seeker has failed in his quest, for materiality has neither spiritual beauty nor light to give.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 247) Mary Baker Eddy, the revered Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color." On page 510 she says, "Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter." Here, our Leader associates beauty with goodness and light with Love. The Bible places spiritual beauty in the realm of Mind when it speaks of "the beauty of holiness," and refers to God as "light," in whom is no darkness at all.

Beauty, then, is a spiritual quality. It is inherent in Mind, and is not dependent on any form of matter. As a part of God's provision of good to His creation, it is everywhere, and immediately available. It is revealed most quickly to the consciousness wherein dwells unselfish love for God and man, for only in love-filled thinking can the full measure of beauty find an abiding place. Only from such thinking can its radiance shine forth.

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