xxi. BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 369 



place of ashes, over which the morning stars sang to- 

 gether, and the sons of God shouted for joy in a 

 higher way than at the beginning. The brightest and 

 sweetest things of earth now bloom around the sepul- 

 chre ; the place of a skull is embosomed in beauty, and 

 the smile of heaven plays over its darkest and saddest 

 aspect. 



To the sinner who repents and believes in this great 

 atoning sacrifice, God gives beauty for ashes. Sin is 

 an infringement of God's law of order, through which 

 alone all the brightness and variety of life can be 

 evolved. It disintegrates, decomposes, reduces to 

 ashes. Its great characteristic is its wearisome same- 

 ness and monotony, a dreary movement without variety 

 from iniquity to iniquity. It is a defacement and 

 destruction passing over the soul and life of man, like 

 an earthquake over a city, overthrowing into one 

 common heap of similar ruins all the fair variety of 

 its architecture ; or like a fire through a forest, 

 reducing all the multitudinous life and variety of 

 vegetation to the same uniform dreary level of black 

 cinders and grey ashes, on which no dew falls, and on 

 which the sun itself shines with a ghastly and mocking 

 smile. Out of this melancholy wreck the grace of God 

 constructs the fresh and infinite variety of blessedness 

 which belongs to the converted soul. The work of 

 righteousness is the ever- varied unfolding of life, as 

 compared with the silent motionless sameness of death 

 the growing of a plant in the desert from seed to 



foliage, and from foliage to blossom and fruit, with all 

 2 A 



