Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women | Page 8

of the deep, the solitudes
of the mountain, and the fragrance of the green fields. Beauty is of
divine origin, and we should admire, ay, and love it too. It should fill us

with sweet thoughts of God, with worshipful emotions, with reverent
aspirings. The love of Beauty we should cultivate within us as a gift of
the good Father, and a shrine at which we may worship him acceptably.
He has not given us this delicate sense of Beauty to be neglected. It is
our duty to preserve it well and cultivate it diligently. None of us love
Beauty too much, if our love is enlightened and devout. He who has no
love of Beauty in his soul is a great way from God, and very near the
earth, the animal. The love of Beauty is refining and elevating in its
tendency. Yet it is too often indulged without a thought of God or a
reverent emotion. It is a love which may be united with earthly desires,
or with heavenly aspirations. It may lead us downward or upward,
according to the use we make of it. It may pander to pride and vanity,
lust and appetite, or inspire to virtue, religion, and inward life. It is a
love which should be brought within the sphere of moral government
as much as the passions of our lower nature. It is a love, too, which
perhaps leads as many astray, corrupts as many lives, degrades as many
natures, as almost any feeling we possess. Its abuses are fearful in their
character and wide in their influence. It is a power of mind lovely to
behold, and even when degraded it is like a diamond in the dust. So far
as the love of natural things is concerned, there is but little danger of
abuse. Nature is always lovely, and always to be admired. She always
reminds us of God and our duty; always teaches us our own littleness
and frailty, and works upon all our passions a calming subduing
influence.
But we may pass from Beauty in nature to Beauty in man. Strictly
speaking, man is a part of nature; but by common usage we often speak
of nature as distinct from both God and man. Really, man is a part of
nature, and God is in it all. Take God away from his works, and where
would they be? They would vanish like a body deprived of its soul.
Take God out of a flower, and it would wither and vanish in an instant.
Take God out of a sun or star, and they would go out as a candle in the
wind. Take God out of any thing--a tree, an animal, a man--and it
would cease to be. So take God out of nature, and there would be no
nature. Not that nature is God, but that there is no nature without God.
God is in all things; he pervades, sustains, and moves all things. The
laws of nature, of which we often speak, are the arteries and veins

which God has made, along which he pours through the great body of
his universe the spirit of his infinite being. Man, then, as a part of this
nature, is pervaded by God. And here, as elsewhere, he has shown his
presence in the surprising Beauty in which he has made his creatures.
Yes, man is beautiful; the natural man, undeformed by abuses, is an
object of Beauty. We speak of man in the generic sense, as including
women also.
Woman, by common consent, we regard as the most perfect type of
Beauty on earth. To her we ascribe the highest charms belonging to this
wonderful element so profusely mingled in all God's works. Her form
is molded and finished in exquisite delicacy of perfection. The earth
gives us no form more perfect, no features more symmetrical, no style
more chaste, no movements more graceful, no finish more complete; so
that our artists ever have and ever will regard the woman-form of
humanity as the most perfect earthly type of Beauty. This form is most
perfect and symmetrical in the youth of womanhood; so that youthful
woman is earth's queen of Beauty. This is true, not only by the common
consent of mankind, but also by the strictest rules of scientific
criticism.
This being an admitted fact, woman, and especially youthful woman, is
laid under strong obligations and exposed to great temptations. Beauty
has wonderful charms, and hence it is a dangerous gift. We did not
make ourselves physically beautiful. Another hand than ours molded
our forms, tinged our faces with the vermilion of life, colored our hair
and eyes, bleached our teeth and touched our bodies with that exquisite
finish which we call Beauty. Another being than ourselves gave us