See how a little boy can drive a horse. See how a dog obeys his Master's eye and voice. See how even lions and tigers become submissive to their keepers. And the elements, often wilder than ferocious beasts, are obedient to you. The fire warms you and cooks for you, and carries you when you want to travel for business or pleasure. The wind fans the sails of your vessels, and the waters make a path for them under your feet. Even the lightning leaps and exults to do your bidding and to be the messenger of your will. Thus every thing falls down before you and does you homage, and proclaims you lord and master. What is the reason that every thing thus honors you? It is on account of the soul that is in you--the power of reason and will--the godlike nature with which you are endowed.
Yes, and your soul is the source of your beauty, too. In what consists the beauty of a man? Is it a mere regularity of form and feature? Do you judge of a man as you do of a horse or a dog? No; the most exquisitely chiseled features do not interest you, until you see intelligence light up the eye, and charity irradiate the countenance--then you are captivated. { 299} A man may be a perfect model of grace in his movements without exciting you, but when he becomes warm with inspirations of wisdom and virtue, when his words flow, his eye sparkles, his breast heaves, his whole frame becomes alive with the emotions of his soul, then it is you are carried away, you are ready almost to fall down and worship. What is the reason that Christian art has so far surpassed heathen art? the Madonna so far more beautiful than the Venus de Medicis? It is because the heathens portrayed the beauty of dead matter; the Christians portrayed the beauty of the soul. And if the soul is so beautiful in the little rays that escape from the body, what must it be in itself? God has divided his universe into several orders, and we find the lowest in a superior order higher than the highest in the inferior order. The soul, then, is more beautiful than any thing material. "_She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars; being compared with the light she is found before it_." [Footnote 130]
Oh, my brethren, do not admire men for their form, or their dress, or their grace, but admire them for the soul that is in them, for that is the true source of their beauty.