SUMMER MEETING, 1880. 75 



money-loving people we shall find no such foolish waste of labor merely 

 for the sake of appearances! Perhaps not; but I do not know that this 

 room is particularly ornate in character, nor that this audience is partic- 

 ularly overdressed, yet I am sure that were we to utterly ignore appearan- 

 ces, a room affording every physical comfort of this, could be built for 

 half the money this cost, and I know that were it not for pleasing the eye, 

 we could all be as warmly and comfortably clad in clothes that cost less than 

 half the labor put upon those we wear. Some of us know that however much 

 of poetry there may be in the sound of the mower whetting his scythe, in the 

 actual use of that implement there is little else than the most unromantic toil. 

 Yet, even this tool destined to be so rarely seen except in the hands of the 

 workman must receive its coat of brilliant paint or its gilded band. Do they 

 add anything to its strength or usefulness? Do they serve any purpose except 

 that of pleasing the eye? No; there is scarcely a thing that man uses from 

 his cradle to his coffin, but that a large share of the labor expended upon it 

 is for the sake of the beautiful ; and it is true now as it always has been, that 

 fully one-half of all man's labor beyond that necessary for his mere physical 

 comfort, is expended for the sake of pleasing the eye. 



But what constitutes beauty, and where do we find it? Ask the painter, and 

 he will tell you it rests in the purity and brilliance, the contrast or harmonious 

 blending of colors. But has the artist lived who could present more vivid con- 

 trasts, more harmonious blending, more depth and purity of color than are 

 found in the flowers we see all around us? 



Ask the sculptor and he will tell you that beauty lies in the easy, graceful 

 flowing of line into line. Are there any more perfect examples of these than 

 are found in thousands of tiie plants and trees in every field and forest? Is it 

 not true that the most perfect examples of beauty in all its elements are found 

 in boundless profusion in that grand kingdom which God has created and used 

 to decorate his handiwork? And yet the world, after admitting, as it does by 

 the way it expends its labor, that there is no one tiling which gives greater 

 enjoyment than beauty, says of the men who, like a Brown or a Thoreau 

 spend their lives in learning day by day to appreciate and enjoy more and more 

 of the wonderful, marvellous beauty God has spread out before us, "He is an 

 impracticable fellow — his is a wasted life." While of him who never raises 

 his eye to all this beauty, but spends his time and energy in the accumulation 

 of wealth, which, when at last as old age creeps in upon him, he can only spend 

 in building some marble palace surrounded by beautiful grounds, and finds, 

 alas! that it is too late, the eye has grown dim, the heart weak, and he can 

 find no pleasure in it all — it says of such a man, he is shrewd, he has done 

 wisely; when he in all his life has enjoyed less of that the world works for 

 than the despised, impracticable lover of nature has in a single hour. 



God has sent us into the world with an appreciation and natural love for the 

 beauty He displays in all His works. Have we any more right to allow this faculty 

 to go undeveloped and to ultimately perish from want of exercise than we have 

 to treat any other faculty in a similar manner? A few months ago I found in 

 the woods of Northen Michigan a settlement of deaf mutes, consisting of 

 three families with several children, all but one of whom were also deaf mutes, 

 and this one growing up with his companions, and never mingling with others, 

 was supposed to be like them until a few months before I saw them they had 

 been visited by a relative, who discovered that the child could hear, and that 

 there was no natural reason why it should not talk, and in a short time succeeded 



