A second requisite of objective beauty is diversity. The strictly simple is never beautiful. A straight line, a single tone, a simple color, has nothing of the aesthetic in it. When several lines, or tones, or colors, however, are properly combined, the quality of beauty becomes manifest, and the greater the diversity in such case the greater the beauty. This is, no doubt, owing to the fact that the beautiful is especially an inherent element of life and intelligence, which in their highest forms always possess the greatest diversity of qualities and powers.

Still another requisite of objective beauty is unity. No matter how great the diversity of form and color that may be present in an object, and how agreeable each may be in itself, yet if they do not constitute a harmonious whole the object will not appear beautiful. Flowers which separately may impress us as the incarnation of beauty, may yet be so arranged in a bouquet as to make it something æsthetically repulsive. So no diversity of sound, unless the different notes be in accord with one another, no amount of varied thought however well expressed, unless one great thought pervades all, can awaken in us the aesthetic feeling. Only when in an object of any kind, color blends with color, and form adjusts itself to form, and thought to thought, so as to give evidence that one spirit pervades the whole, can it ever be to us "a thing of beauty and a joy forever."

If, now, we compare and carefully consider the various. elements that enter into subjective and objective beauty, according to the analysis presented, we shall find that they not only correspond one to another, but that they all may be summed up in the word harmony, taken in its widest significance as involving perfect adjustment of parts and unity of being in all the various spheres of manifested existence. "The whole effect of a beautiful object, so far as we can explain it," says the author of the article on Esthetics, in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in his Outlines of Psychology, "is a harmonions confluence of these

delights of sense, intellect, and emotion, in a tion. Thus a beautiful natural object, as a nob lights us by its gradations of light and color, th tion of variety with symmetry in its contour or adaptation of part to part, and of the whole to it ings; and finally by its effect on the imagination, tions of heroic persistence, of triumph over the adv of winds and storms. Similarly, a beautiful painti the eye by supplying a rich variety of light and color, and of outline; gratifies the intellect by ex certain plan of composition, the setting forth of a s cident with just the fullness of detail for agreeable sion; and lastly, touches the many-stringed instrume tion by a harmonious impression, the several parts being fitted to strengthen and deepen the dominant effect, whether this be grave or pathetic, on the one light and gay on the other. The effect of beauty, pears to depend on a simultaneous presentment in a s ject of a well-harmonized mass of pleasurable material urable stimulus for sense, intellect and emotion."

But perhaps it will here be objected that in all form and in all the products of the intellect we have the t ments of form and diversity and unity, and that yet b not a characteristic of all these forms and products. say in reply, that all perfect life and all perfect inte productions are beautiful, and that those that fail to im as such fail to do so because of their imperfection. A it is further to be observed that things may be perfect respect without being perfect in other respects, which ne less come within our apprehension. The man, for in who uses language incorrectly, may give a perfect ans his way to a question put to him, but as the incorrect fo well as the perfect content of his answer claims our atte the perfection of the whole is marred, and, consequently its beauty. Accordingly there is reason to believe that ever living beings and the creations of the intellect are

of æsthetic value, it is owing to some defect in form or content or relation, if not in all these respects.

Absolute perfection we have only in God, because in Him. alone there is perfect consistency of being and of action. Infinite in power and wisdom and righteousness and goodness, there is no conflict of any kind in Him. Unlimited in the variety of His excellencies, He is yet the one true and living God, the absolutely harmonious, and therefore the absolutely beautiful.

In nature everywhere, as has already been indicated, there is beauty to be found, because every where it bears upon it the impress of its Creator. No less true than really poetical are the words of the Psalmist :

"The heavens declare the glory of God;

The skies show forth the work of His hands,
Day unto day is pouring out speech,
And night unto night breathing knowledge,
Without speech and without language,
Without their voice being heard,

Into all the earth their sound goeth out,

And their words to the end of the world."

But while this is true, it is also true that the works of God do not all reveal His beauty in equal degree, but only as they approach His likeness. Accordingly, the beauty of the mineral is not equal to that of the vegetable, and that of the vegetable not equal to that of the animal, and that of the animal still inferior to that of man. In man alone do we, indeed, find the highest type of terrestrial beauty. His body, it is universally admitted, is the most beautiful of physical creations. But still more beautiful is his soul, especially when attuned in harmony with the Spirit of God. For as Plato tells us in the Symposium, "The beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form." Speaking of Christ, the Rev. Frederick W. Robertson very truly as well as eloquently says: "If any one ever felt the beauty of this world, it was he. The beauty of the lily nestling in the grass-he felt it all; but the beauty which he exhibited in life was the stern loveliness of moral action. The

The

King in his Beauty had no form nor comeliness; beauty of obedience, of noble deeds, of unconquer of unswerving truth, of Divine self-devotion. Cross! We must have something of iron and hard character. The Cross tells us what is the true Bear is Divine: an inward, not an outward beauty, which turns sternly away from the meretricious forms of world, which have a corrupting or debilitating Equally true are the words of Dryden :

"From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began:

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran
The diapason closing full in Man."

"Corporeity," it has been claimed, "is the end of of God." With equal propriety it may also be said th is the end of the ways of God, and that this has been in the glorified Christ.

But not only do we find a process of development in ifestation of beauty in the natural world, but also in n prehension of its presence. The infant is not able to a the beautiful in nature or in art to the same degree as matured man or woman. So the savage and untuto can not apprehend its presence to the extent that the and cultured mind can. This accounts for the diffe men's æsthetic judgments. The immature and the un are apt to be attracted most by the lower forms of because being simpler their harmony is more apparent a readily apprehended, while, as a general thing, the mat the highly cultured will be most attracted by the highe whose harmony involves more complex qualities, and th requires more highly trained intellectual powers prop understand it. Then again, the untutored may fail to the presence of serious defects in an object, and so look as beautiful, while the trained mind will at once deted defects and consequently find no harmony nor beauty in

this way it will be seen that great diversity of opinion, and even contradictory judgments, can be accounted for without denying that the elements of the beautiful are in all cases the same.

In accounting for men's judgments as to the beautiful, it is also necessary that we should take into consideration the disturbing influence of sin. Man as he comes into this world, is not in a perfectly normal condition. The current of his life has, in many respects, been perverted by evil. Naturally he is not in harmony with the Divine, and therefore the truly beautiful fails in many cases to attest itself to him as such, and he accepts the false as the more attractive because it is more in harmony with his depraved tendencies and feelings. In this way the really ugly and injurious may for a time commend itself as being even the offspring of the highest beauty. In the course of time, however, the idols of our corrupt nature are generally destroyed by the disorganizing power that produced them. Nevertheless, as evil has never yet been utterly eradicated from the hearts of men, there is reason to fear that much that has even stood the test of centuries, is not as fair as it doth seem to be. We need therefore to seek continually to have our feelings and thoughts sanctified by the Spirit of God that we may not be led inadvertently into the dangerous quagmires of iniquity by the ignis fatuus of a beauty which has clothed itself in the livery of heaven to serve the evil one. Only the truly good man can always tell the truly beautiful.

But if the views that have been advanced concerning the beautiful be correct, then certain conclusions necessarily follow as regards Art. To some of these I would now direct attention.

And first of all it is evident from what has been said, that if the mission of Art be to minister to man's love of beauty, and at the same time to interpret God to him, then true Art cannot be a mere copy or imitation of any of the manifold objects of the natural world. For were it nothing but this, it would have no real ministry and be no interpreter, since it would give us nothing but what we have already in nature itself. Art, therefore, if it is to have any true mission must be something more than