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Beauty is Vain

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 38.

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"Beauty is Vain."

By Editor

A STRIKING illustration of this Bible truth has lately been presented in the world of gayety, fashion, and folly. A Mrs. Langtry has been astonishing London society by her remarkable beauty; all classes seemed ready and pleased to follow in her train. Her husband appeared to be as much flattered as herself by the adulations of the thoughtless crowd.
But now comes the news that the husband has instituted proceedings for a divorce, and that the Prince of Wales is cited as co-respondent in the suit. What a display for nobility and beauty! All recognize Queen Victoria as an exemplary mother,—we might say, a model mother; it must be a sore grief to her that the Prince has his name connected with such proceedings. But his surroundings have been full of danger, and his honors are not to be coveted. Better to be "little and unknown," and have our ways approved of God. Pride of beauty and noble birth will be poor stays in the day of judgment.
How many in every community are living the same "butterfly life." How many young people find their sole enjoyment in the beauty of their faces, or the decoration of their bodies, and take no thought for the day when they shall be weighed in the balances of infinite truth and justice.
What a depth of meaning as well as irony have the words of the wise man in Eccl. 11:9,—"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."