I pray thee, 0 God, that I may be beautiful within.-Socrates.
Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Bible.
“Don’t be fooled by pretty face ; Look for character and grace.”
If one has personal beauty it is the gift of God, an additional talent, imparting a peculiar power which may be rightly or wrongly used. Personal charms may be a dangerous gift and snare. If God gives beauty to one and homeliness to another, it maybe for the sake of moral discipline. One person’s beauty may be as much a trial and temptation to virtue, as another’s deformity may be an occasion of envy. In order to judge of a picture, we must have the right light upon it; so a good heart in a fair body has the advantage of a good light. Has God given you personal beauty? Let the Hand that made you fair make you good.
Personal beauty is desirable, but mere bodily charms pass for very little except with vain, thoughtless, and light-minded people. It too often happens that beauty is more admired and flattered than any quality of mind or character. True beauty does not always attract public observation. It is that which not only has a substance, but a spirit, and to appreciate it we must studiously and intimately know it. In conversation this inward beauty of soul will become luminous, when the mind shines through the casket. To the beholder who can discern this true Beauty, she makes herself known by a thousand graces that “bespeak that their owner has a soul.”
Outward, or physical beauty is overestimated by the world’s people, while they underrate the value of inward beauty of soul. We should attach but small importance to a person’s natural beauty or the want of it. A plain person may be as truly pleasing as a handsome one. As we become better acquainted with some “handsome” people, and get a look at the quality of their minds and hearts, their beauty loses its charm – turns to repugnance; while on the other hand, a nearer acquaintance with some plain and homely persons who have soul-beauty, causes their very ungainliness to become beautiful and transfigured with loveliness.
The want of outward beauty of person is not to be regarded as a misfortune, and never disturbs a noble soul within. A plain face or even uncomely form cannot hinder their possessor from being amiable and admired for all that is truly admirable. It makes little difference whether Dame Nature has given to her child a fair or a homely face, a graceful or an ill-shapen body, if the soul within is beautiful. Beauty of soul is far more excellent than beauty of face or form. A plain face is made charming when a kind disposition lights it up. We have seen a crippled boy hobbling along with a crutch and withered limb dangling, yet with a face as bright and cheery as a May morning, and with a heart, too, as light and innocent as his face. Bodily deformities and imperfections need be no bar to beauty of soul and soundness of character. In the most imperfect body there may shine a spirit of such perfect beauty as to be fairly angelic. A man may be club-footed, hump-backed, a dwarf in body, but have regal gifts of mind .and a heart akin to God’s. He may be an ungainly ragged outcast from man, but worthy to be set among princes and have his name written among the sons of God. Don’t be soured, embittered or envious because you have not as fair a form as another. You can eclipse the very sun of the world’s gay ” society ” by your substantial, well-rounded character, by your shining graces and agreeable disposition, and kindly, sunny soul.
” What is the use of being homely, girls, when you. can all be beautiful just as well as not ? If you have-the white light of the. soul within, it will shine through the muddiest complexions and the thickcst swarms of freckles. It can re-shape snub-noses and wry mouths;. it can burnish red hair until it shines like gold; it can transform anyone into an angel of delight. In other words, the loveliness of a pure spirit imparts its charm to everything connected with it.
