ere is no destruction. A handful of ashes in a grate look like
annihilation, but what it represents is really resurrection. The
imprisoned sunrays of uncounted aeons, stored up in the lumps of coal,
have been released from the prison-house, and gone forth again as heat
and as light. The physical body may seem to perish; what really
happens is that its constituent elements are re-grouped.

But in the realm of beauty, is there not destruction possible there?
Through long centuries faith and devotion rear a great cathedral, every
line and curve of which is instinct with beauty. Every statue breathes
the love and hope and fears of men. In vaulted aisles and "windows
richly dight," it symbolises the Unseen--the beauty which the heart
yearns for. On that beauty materialised, ruthless Vandalism rains shot
and shell; the devouring flames consume it. Its gaunt walls are now a
monument of barbarism. Has nothing perished there? Is it not mockery
to speak of the conservation of the constituent elements there? For
loveliness has vanished there from off the face of the earth, and
beauty which no hand of man can ever restore has been annihilated.

But it has not. For beauty is not in things, but in souls. The beauty
lay in the soul of the architects that planned, in the hearts of the
builders that carved the stones until they seemed to breathe--and
shells cannot destroy that. The loveliness was shrined in the souls of
the generations that gazed, and, gazing, were raised into the
fellowship of the hearts that planned and builded. Thus did the spirit
of beauty grow in the hearts of men--and shells cannot destroy that.

And let these charred walls be left to the alchemy of time, and nature
will clothe them in richer loveliness. Lichen and moss will grow on
them, and the moonlight will etherialise them. One symbol of beauty
may seem to perish; but the spirit of beauty itself, dwelling in the
hearts of men and abiding at the core of the universe, is
indestructible. The thing which we deem perishable, no power on earth
can kill.

***

There is on earth something infinitely more precious than the material
substance, indestructible though it be. The most beautiful thing the
world can show is a good man. Through the years forces play on him,
and each force adds its element of beauty. He has struggled with
adversity, and in the conflict he has learned patience, tolerance and a
wide charity. Waves of affliction have pas