As you gaze on that scene, I notice that the lines of your face soften,
the eye that was hard grows tender, the whole face loses its careworn,
earthly expression, and it is suffused with softened, heavenly light.
Your countenance is just reflecting a little of the glory of the skies.
And so, when with the spiritual eye we see the beauty of Christ, we
begin to be somewhat like Him. When His moral glory is flashed upon us,
it transforms us more or less into His likeness. Beholding, though only
in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into His heavenly
likeness, from day to day.
Going west, you pass through what seems an endless waste of sage-bush
and sand. Perhaps this has continued all day long, and you retire at
night expecting to look out again in the morning on the same dreary
waste. But in the night the scene has changed. When you look out in the
morning the first thing you see is the broad Columbia River, with its
banks of green; beyond the river, mountains rise, clothed in green and
yellow and purple; then an open space in the nearer mountains reveals
others in the distance, enveloped in a blue haze, and crowned with
gleaming snow.
What a blessed change from the experiences of yesterday, and how easy
and unconscious the transition. And so it will be with many in passing
from this life to the next. Dreary and monotonous their life has been,
and it seemed at times as if it might go on so forever. But they are
nearing the heavenly land; and some night, perhaps when they are not
expecting it, they will leave the dreariness and desolation all behind
them; they will awake in a world of beauty such as human fancy never
dreamed of.
Well do I remember the night when on seeing the sudden glow of a firefly
there flashed on my mind the idea of the ease and naturalness with
which, after all, this fleshly body of ours may become immortal and
glorious. If an insect like that can transform itself at pleasure into a
little star, who can say what latent power may be lodged in the body of
a glorified saint? Truly, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." No;
but we have hints of it that may well fill us with an adoring hope
and joy.
There were times when Christ's eternal power and Godhead could not be
quite obscured by the fleshly body, but would shine out through this
tabernacle of clay, as we may suppose the shekinah glory of old would
shine through every crack or crevice in the temple. It was a hint of the
coming glory in which we may all shine by and by.
There is a divine sense of beauty implanted in every one of us. Have you
never noticed how the beautiful things in the shop windows attract all
the ragged urchins of the street? Yes, they may be ragged and dirty, but
the divine instinct of beauty is in every one of them. Whatever is
really beautiful--whether it be a beautiful face, or a beautiful sky, or
even a beautiful ribbon in a window--is sure to attract and
fascinate them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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