Religious Attractiveness

11 Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.” — Ps. xc. 17.

There is a moral power in beauty; it elevates the heart of the man that sees it. It is not enough that a man should display the law of holiness; he must display the beauty of holiness. There are some whose religion has every quality but one — attractiveness. They are animated by the sincerest motives, they are ruled by the tenderest conscience, they are influenced by the purest desires, yet their religion is withal a weapon in the hand, not a magnet in the heart; it drives, but it does not draw. They are impressed above all things with, the power of the Lord, and they would like to display His power; they do not see that the uppermost garment of the religious life must be the beauty of the Lord. They have not measured the force of these words, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” The highest power of the cross is its attractiveness, its ability to allure, its beauty. Do not think that the glory of religion lies in the number of things it can repel; it lies in the number of things it can attract. The beauty of the Lord is an universally diffused beauty; there is no sphere which it refuses to animate. Hast thou not seen it in the world of nature how it pervades alike the highest and the lowliest? Thou beholdest it on the mountain-tops, and thou meetest it in the valleys. Thou seest it in the bespangled heavens, and thou tracest it in the colours of the earth. Thou findest it lighting up the wilderness and the solitary place, and thou discoverest it gilding the streets where pours the busy crowd, illuminating dusky lane and shady alley, kindling into a glow the common haunts of toil worn men. Truly it is beautifully said of the light of God’s outward beauty, ‘’There is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”

0 Thou who art the source of beauty, let Thy beauty overshadow my soul. Let Thy beauty be upon me as an outermost robe; above all, on the top of all, may I put on Thy charity. Help me to wear unsoiled everywhere the garment of Thy righteousness. Where Thou goest may I be able to go, where Thou dwellest may I be fit to dwell May I go with Thee to the marriage feast without contamination; may I enter with Thee into the house of mourning without despair. May I stand with Thee in the streets of the great city where men strive and toil; may I commune with Thee in the solitary fields, where the lilies toil not nor spin. In the power of Thy Divine beauty may I be able to lift up things which are not beautiful; give me Thy strength to touch what the world could not touch without stain. Help me to come into unharmed contact with that which would dim the impure heart. Help me to take by the hand the lepers, the demoniacs, the outcasts of the world. Help me to give Thy beauty to those that sit in ashes, Thy joy to those that are in mourning, Thy garment of praise to those that have the spirit of heaviness. Then shall even the Gentiles come to Thy light, and the powers of the world to the brightness of Thy rising. They shall see the King no longer in His kingliness alone but in His beauty. They were repelled by the fires of Sinai, but they shall be attracted by the lovelit peaks of Olivet; they have fled from that gate of the house of God which is guarded by the flaming sword, but they shall return to enter it again by the gate of the temple called Beautiful.