The Utility of Beauty

’ To what purpose is this waste.” — Matt. xxvi. 8.

This is the earliest protest against external beauty in the service of Christ. Mary was serving Christ’s own person — pouring on His head a rich and costly perfume. The disciples objected to the act on the ground that it was merely ornamental, not useful. They said that a box of ointment, however precious, had nothing to do with their salvation. Were they not preparing for eternity, and was not this a perishable riches! Were they not told to seek the unseen, and was not this a thing to please the eye! Were they not taught that Jesus was to be served by spiritual things, and was not this a trinket of the hour, which would not last an hour! So thought the earliest Philistines in the camp of Jesus. But they made one great mistake — and it has been repeated by their successors. They thought that a thing could be beautiful without being useful. It cannot. To me the main value of beauty is its usefulness. I regard a scene of beauty as exercising a mechanical power — The Utility of Beauty

as mechanical as the steam-engine, and more effective. The steam-engine can move heavy bodies; but a thing of beauty can move heavy hearts. Very unaccountable is this moving power of beauty; it often acts without an ally. I feel disconsolate, pessimistic, despairing; I weigh everything and find it wanting. Suddenly there streams a sunbeam from the hill and there is wafted a breath from the sea, and in a moment all is changed. My clouds vanish; my pessimism melts; my gloom dies away. Nothing has happened to make it glide away — nothing but the streaming of the sunbeam and the wafting of ocean’s breath. But these are, for the day and hour, my Father’s sacraments to me. They are very fugitive things — more fugitive than was the ointment from the box outpoured. That special sunbeam was superseded by another ray. That special breath of ocean fainted on the bosom of the hour. But they had lifted my soul to a city on the hill, and when they were gone my soul still rested there. Who would measure their use by their duration! One special strain of music may keep me all night in joy.

My soul, despise not the power of beauty! The sunbeam and the song are sacraments of thy Father, They are the bread broken outside the church — the bread broken to the multitude. We have our sacraments with Christ; but there are times of desert life when we need our Father’s bread. Uncover thy head before the sacrament of beauty! Bow reverently at the distribution of Nature’s sacred elements! Survey the passion of Divine love that meets thee in the shed blood of the sunbeam! Behold the outpouring of the cup that blesses thee in the dew and the rain! Adore the universal communion that makes its light to rise on the evil and the good! Forget not at morn or evening to keep thy Father’s feast; for the wafting of ocean’s breath is the wafting of the Father’s incense, and the breaking of the sunbeam is the breaking of the Father’s bread.

S6