1 Kings 6:1-14 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt… When the marble, refusing to express an impure or a wicked thought, has fulfilled the law of strength, suddenly it blossoms into the law of beauty. For beauty is no outward polish, no surface adornment. Workers in wood may veneer soft pine with thin mahogany, or hide the poverty of brick walls behind thin slabs of alabaster. But real beauty is an interior quality, striking outward and manifest upon the surface. When the sweet babe is healthy within, a soft bloom appears upon the cheek without. When ripeness enters the heart of the grape, a purple flush appears upon the surface of the cluster. When the vestal virgin of beauty had adorned the temple without, it asks the artist to adorn his soul with thoughts and worship and aspirations. Ii the body lives in a marble house, the soul should revolt from building a mud hut. The law of divine beauty asks the youth to flee from unclean thoughts and vulgar purposes as from a bog or a foul slough. It bids him flee from irreverence, vanity, and selfishness as men flee from some plague-smitten village or a filthy garment. Having doubled the beauty of his house, having doubled the sweetness of his music, having doubled the wisdom of his book, man should also double the nobility and beauty of his life, making the soul within as glorious as a temple without. (N. D. Hillis, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. |
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