PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. THE first Edition of two thousand copies having been sold and others required, I am encouraged to venture on another issue, which will be found to be considerably enlarged, and I hope enriched. I wish to record my grateful appreciation of the many kind assurances of the pleasure the subject has afforded both to young and aged persons. To the afflicted it has recalled early memories and associations; and to the robust it has suggested thoughts which open new fields of investigation. This Edition has been prepared amid the active duties of ministerial and pastoral work, and I hope "the Father of all mercies" will bless it to the good of many. GEORGE MATHER. 28, ABBEY ROAD, ST. JOHN'S WOOD, LONDON, N.W., May, 1874. LECTURE I. THE BEAUTIFUL. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. "He hath made everything beautiful in His time." ECCLES. iii. 11. NATURAL beauty is coeval with creation; moral beauty is co-existent with the Creator. The sense of the beautiful, if not an instinct is very generally diffused. We all feel that brightness is pleasanter than murky dulness, and on a cold November day instinctively cross to the sunny side of the street. Burke, a great authority on this subject, says, that he never knew a really beautiful thing, though it were shown to a hundred persons, but they all admitted that it was beautiful, though it might fall short of some of their expectations. Some men are prosy all through life; they have no fine brightness in them; they are cold and calculating; object to be stirred by the power of emotion, and wrap themselves in a cloak of selfishness and indifference; but B |