We find in Beauty something more than a realization of what we believe to be perfection; we find in it a “journey’s end”—or perhaps I ought to say “lodgment,” seeing that Beauty is so often fleeting—in the lonely search of the “soul” after spiritual sustenance. We give to it our adoration, an adoration which none the less overwhelms us emotionally because, physically speaking, it is passionless. We bow in worship before it, without—if I may express myself in metaphor tinged with vulgarity—an insensate desire to Clutch. For Beauty is also a “message”; and, as it appeals to something within our “souls,” so does that “message” become the more eloquent. Moreover, it has a thousand facets. We can find it anywhere, in almost everything that is not mean or debased, hypocritical or dishonest. Nevertheless, there are some men who can find beauty only in sex; men who are deaf to that “song within a song” which in the hearts of so many is as the Psalm of Life. The view of distant mountains; the glowing, dancing reflection of the sun setting out at sea; the quiet, verdant valleys, whose peacefulness falls on the troubled spirit as a benediction; a voice, a memory, a prayer—all these things can uplift the heart until momentarily it may live in a whole world of beauty. For Beauty must be _felt_ within the “soul.” The senses but convey an impression, the “soul” translates that impression into terms of Ecstacy. For when we come face to face with Beauty, in whatever guise, all that is best and purest in our Nature stirs in response, so that at last our “soul” cannot live without Beauty. Robbed, as it were, for ever of this harmony, which seems to reflect Heaven, even in lowly places, it withers and dies. The man who seeks not Beauty can scarcely be said to live; since without beauty Life is but a barren wilderness, sodden by the tears of men. The Road to God is paved by Music and Poetry, by Art and Literature, by all those manifestations of Beauty which are unselfishness, renunciation, friendship, love, sympathy, understanding, humility. Man is Spirit as well as Body, and just as the physical needs must be satisfied, so must the Spirit find Beauty if it wither not nor die. Through Beauty God speaks to men; and inasmuch as we seek to bring Beauty into our lives and into the lives of others, so we come into closer communion with Him.