God's Beauty in the Earth
By Edward Herbruck
It is not often that we think of the beauty of the Lord when we are permitted to look upon some scene of surpassing beauty in nature. We do not in any way connect God with it, as though these varying forms of glory could take on their expressive beauty without the touch of his finger. Our minds have gone out in imagination in the beauty of the Lord in the city of our God, and with his servant have a desire to dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of our life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Weary with the march of life, and hearts burning with intense desire for the rest above, our spirits have reveled amid the glory of the “sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood,” and we have quieted our souls by gazing upon the beauty of God as seen in the holy city with all its indescribable glory. O my soul, why art thou cast down? Is the heaven above thee dark and gloomy? look up. There is the land which imagination has often pictured to you, but which eye has never seen,—the land of perfect beauty,—beauty such as we have never beheld here. There you shall be satisfied, the imperfections which so annoyed you shall not mar the even serenity of that place. How appropriate the prayer then: “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,”—the beauty of heaven, its perfection and bliss. A soul surrounded by this will need no greater glory to inspire it to adoration and praise. It is not so much the beauty of the Lord in his holy temple that we wish to speak of now as his beauty in the earth, in this material house, and especially at this season of the year. How lavish God is with his beauty now! A short time ago his face shone out in the brightness of the summer, making the soul glad, but now he has put a tinge of sunset sadness upon the land—and the heart yearns. What multitudinous forms of beauty we see in these autumnal days! The summer gave us more of a monotony in color, but now we can not turn our eyes but we see gray, green, purple, crimson, and gold all blended in most perfect harmony. This is the beauty of God in the earth. It is true it is nothing like the beauty of God above, for that is perfect, but this is a revelation to imperfect creatures. Who can move about the fields and forests to-day, and not be impressed with the beauty of the Lord? These autumn woods, these meadows green again after their summer mowing, these hillsides all on fire with the burning sumac, these low-hung clouds, all declare God to be a master artist, every touch of whose brush leaves a mark of beauty. The devout mind will rise from the contemplation of these pictures to the hand of him who gave them form. God is love, and he is beauty. His beauty is impressed upon everything. It is impossible for us to look upon such scenes as we have been permitted to look upon this autumn, and not say that the Being that made these must be a Being of wondrous beauty himself; he must be perfection.—Edward Herbruck.