Beautiful by M. J. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 24, 1866

Beautiful.

By M. J. Cottrell

How many times during the last two months, as I have for a few hours turned from the noise, bustle, and dust of the city, left the streets where all day long, brick and stone walls had met the eye on every side, and found myself where there was a carpet of soft green grass to walk on, instead of a hard stone pavement, where I could see trees robed in their rich foliage, and beautiful flowers, scattered around, have I clasped my hands and exclaimed, Beautiful, beautiful!

"There is beauty in the sunshine, There is beauty in the flowers, There is beauty in the wildwood, There is beauty in the showers."

Oh! earth is very beautiful, but—now comes the saddening thought—soon, soon, all this beauty will fade. The sweet flowers will die, the glossy green leaves which look so beautiful in the moon's silver light, will soon fade and fall to the ground, and then the naked branches will again stand before us, silent monitors of death. Yes, this high, lovely landscape will soon change; but there comes a cheering thought—it will not always be thus.

There is a morning soon to dawn, when earth will be clad in a beauty far surpassing this we now see, a beauty which will never fade. Never fade! How sweet the thought, I want a home in the earth when restored to its Eden loveliness and purity. I thank God for the cheering prospect he has set before us; and not this alone, but that he has made a way possible whereby we may gain an entrance to his glorious kingdom. Yes, let my heart be all love to him, for he has given his well-beloved Son to suffer untold agony, and then to die here on this dark earth a dreadful death, that we sinners, rebels, might be saved. It must have cost a hard struggle for God to consent that his dear Son should leave him, leave his beautiful home of bright glory, and the society of pure and holy angels, and come to live here amid sin, and where he would daily meet the cruel taunts of wicked men; where he should not even have a place to lay his head; and finally after thus suffering for us, then to be hung between earth and heaven, with great nails driven through his tender hands. Oh, no wonder that when the scene was enacted the earth shook, and the sun vailed his face; no wonder that the rocks were rent.

And could God consent to have his Son suffer thus without a struggle? Where can we find the father that would consent to have his son leave him to go away to some dreary country and live among his enemies, wicked men, whom he knew would show him no respect whatever, and finally would kill him? Where, I ask, can we find the father who would consent to this for any reason? Yet God consented for no other reason than that he loved man, rebel though he was; and this was the only way in which we might be saved; so the great God made the sacrifice—gave his only Son to die.

Oh! what love, what wondrous love! This great sacrifice was made that we might be redeemed from death, from this earth where the beauty so soon fades, where Satan rules, and go to live with Jesus in his glorious home, where the beauty will never fade. Oh! I will try to live every day so as to please him, that I may at last receive a welcome to his beautiful home.

M. J. COTTRELL.

Rochester, N. Y.