| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 1 |
Page 4 |
Beauty is another quality of character which is everywhere commended in the Scriptures. Grace is beauty. God is beautiful. Charles Kingsley, when dying, was heard by his daughter to whisper, “How beautiful God is!” An Old Testament prayer runs, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.” We read of strength and beauty in God’s sanctuary. St. Paul enjoins that, among other qualities, “whatsoever things are lovely” shall be in the vision of life into which we aim to fashion our character.
Humanity was made to be beautiful. God’s ideal for man was spotless loveliness – man was made at first in God’s image. But sin has left its trail everywhere. We see something of its debasement wherever we go. What ruins sin has wrought!
Christ was infinitely compassionate with the sinner. We remember how he went down even among the outcast, like one searching for pearls. Respectable people sneered at his interest in the fallen as if he were himself like them. Never was there a sinner so low that Jesus would not sit down beside him and be his friend.
But it was not because sin was beautiful to him – the smallest sin was loathsome, a terrible blot in his sight. Ye he was infinitely compassionate towards the worst sinner, because he knew that the sinner might yet become a child of God. He went among the lost, not because he preferred the company of the lost, but because he would save them. He brought from these quests many a trophy, many a gem that has been shining in his crown ever since. He found one of his apostles among outcast publicans, and the name of Matthew is bright now with heavenly radiance. All Christ’s work of grace is towards the restoration in human souls of beauty of the Lord. He sees in the rough block the imprisoned angel, and seeks to set him free.
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