ceeded. A long pyramidal shadow slid down to the eastern foot of Hermon, and crept across the great plain; Damascus was swallowed up by it; and finally the pointed end of the shadow stood out distinctly against the sky-a dusky cone of dull color against the flush of the afterglow. It was the shadow of the mountain itself, stretching away for seventy miles across the plain-the most marvelous shadow perhaps anywhere to be seen in the world. The sun slid into the sea. Overhead shone out in the blue summer sky, one by one, the Oriental brilliancy of stars.” 1

As the night deepened, the three disciples lay stretched upon the earth in slumber, while our Lord kept lonely vigil, absorbed in prayer. All at once the sleeping men were startled by a sense of strangeness, and a glow of dazzling light. They looked upon the Master, and were amazed to behold Him glorified by a mysterious effulgence that emanated from His person, and wrapped Him in whiteflaming splendor. His countenance blazed with an unearthly light of supreme exaltation. His whole figure became luminous. His garments gleamed and glittered with the shimmering of radiant energy. The fire of

1 Capt. Conder; and Edersheim.

divinity shone through the vase of humanity. This Galilean peasant, this carpenter of Nazareth, was aglare with the glory of God, and His coarse garments were resplendent with the awful majesty of the King of kings.

The Transfiguration is the one incident in the Gospel story which seems designedly described as spectacular-an event in the life of Christ held up not for imitation, but for admiration. Other events stand for His pity, His power, His sinlessness. The Transfiguration presents Him as an object of contemplation. Here alone He is represented as a Being of terrible and blazing beauty. Here alone the Christian religion seems to offer the Beautiful as an attainment, quite apart from the utilities. For no doctrine has ever been based upon the Transfiguration, and no Christian practice has ever been evolved from it almost it may be said that no lesson can be drawn from the incident as it stands alone. It is a spectacle of Beauty.

That which is true in the sphere of grace is true in the realm of Nature. One of the most mysterious attributes of Nature, if one reflects upon it, is Beauty. A materialistic philosophy has no explanation of Beauty in

Nature. It will not do to say that the sense of beauty is caused by the adjustment of the eye to reactions of the outer world. For then the most accustomed view would seem most beautiful, because the eye would be best adjusted to reactions that are frequent.1 But, in fact, the most supreme beauty is exceptional and rare. There is always some marvelous view, or exquisitely lovely face, once beheld, that stands out beyond all others in the memory.

Nor can Beauty be accounted for on the basis of utility. It may be that the plumage of the peacock is designed for the attraction of a mate. It may be that the flowers of the field are gorgeous in color in order to attract insects for pollination. But in most of these beauties of Nature there is no utility whatever; none in the rainbow; none in the flaming colors of sunset; none in the glory of autumnal foliage. Beauty refuses to be discovered by a detective, or measured in footpounds and horse-power. Beauty exists in and for itself, without any reason whatsoever. There is no explanation of beauty except you see in Nature an intelligent Creator

1 Ruskin.

who loves Beauty, and lavishes it upon created things.

When we turn from Nature to art, we find the same law, which refuses to measure beauty in terms of utility. There are, indeed, certain canons of structural art, by which ornament is made subordinate to utility, so that that is most beautiful which is best designed to fulfill its purpose. But the critic of art who judges paintings is less likely to choose a picture useful to tell a story-which the uneducated eye prefers-than to hit upon some canvas that tells no story, but, because of some inner harmony, succeeds in being merely beautiful. In music, the untrained listener desires compositions that are useful to represent concrete images or events-the roll of thunder, the carolling of birds, the trickling of water, a woman singing at her spinning-wheel. Saul believed that music was useful to drive away his madness, and ended by hurling his javelin at the musician. Your true musician denies that music has any ultimate purpose or function, except as a form of beauty. It is not concerned in the representation either of thunder or moonshine. The musician's delight is a Bach

fugue, having form without color, which none but the trained ear can appreciate, and whose beauty lies in an internal harmony of construction.

The highest possible form of beauty is moral beauty, the inner harmony of spiritual qualities in the soul of man and the Universe of God. Much as we stress the practical bearing of morals, moral beauty, too, holds aloof from the utilities. Virtue does not always find happiness. Honesty does not always triumph. Generosity is often abused. Nothing is more deadly, in fact, than a bargain-counter morality that insists upon having something in exchange for being good. But moral beauty is indifferent to practical consequences. It insists upon being made an end in itself. And there is a yearning in every human soul, if we give it room, that reaches everlastingly toward the attainment of moral beauty.

The perception of the beauty that streamed from the majestic figure of Christ on the Mount of the Transfiguration was a revelation to His disciples. The perception of a beautiful ideal is always a revelation. It belongs to the serene mountain-top. It is not