The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 89

elegy did not deliver Tyre. Even Christ'd tears did not eave Jerusalem. 3. The cross of Ghrist is the supreme condition of salvation. Our own tears, a prophet's tears, even Christ's tears, will not se.ve. But Christ's death brings deliverance for all who will have it, by atoning for sin and reconciling the sinner to God. When ao prophet's lamentation will move the hardened sinner, the sight of Christ on the cross dying for him should melt him to penitence. Ver. 3 (last clause, "Thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty").-.£.;theticism as a religion. The craze for ieetheticism has been exalted into the creed of a new reli!rlon. It is well so see once for all what this mep.ns, and how hollow, foolish, and fatal a;e its pretensions. I. lEsTHETICISM AS A RELIGION IB THE WORSHIP OF BEAUTY. 1. It is more than the en}oyment of beauty, which is innocent and even helpful to a right appreciation of God's wonderful workg, Beauty implies harmony and refinement; it excludes everything harsh and coarse. So far it is good. 2. .2Estheticism is more than the effort to produa beauty. This aim of art is good. 3. It is more also than the conse- cration of beauty to the service of religion. This is right; we should bring our best to God ; religion should be honoured with the homage rendered to it by art. 4. But iestheticism as a religion makes an idol of the ·sacrifice, by putting the beauty, which should be enlisted in the service of God, in the place of God himself. It is bowing the knee to beauty. It sees nothing higher than the perfection of grace and colour and melody. This is as much idolatry as the Hottentot's adoration of a hideous fetish. II . .2ESTBETICIBM AS A RELIGION MAY BE JOINED TO THE GREATEST ERRORS. The beautiful is not al ways the true. There are lovely lies and there are ugly truths. By exalting the idea of the beautiful above all else, we sacrifice truth wherever the two do not a~ree. Thus the sterner facts of life are ignored and its less attractive duties left out of account. III. lEsTHETICISM AS A RELIGION RISKS MORALITY. It is satisfied with something lower than the beauty of holiness. If it rose to the celestial beauty, it could not afford to discard goodness, for all beauty that admits evil is corrupted with moral ugliness; but this is not perceived by the religion of restheticism. Therefore there is a degrada- tion of the very idea of beauty. Too often this is in dange'r of falling even lower, till beauty becomes a tempter to sin. IV. lEBTBETICISM .AS A RELIGION WILL NOT SATIBFY THE SOUL, A man cannot live on the perpetual contemplation of a lily. Too much beauty cloys. The soul needs the sustenance of solid truth. It requires inward spiritual grace. In the hour of temptation and ia the season of great sorrow the religion of beauty utterly fails. It may charm the sentimental; it has no spell for the suffering; it cannot save the fallen; it has no evnngel. V. JEsTHETICISM AS A RELIGION CANNOT AVERT RUIN. Tyre was proud of her beauty and confident in it. But this was only a piece of senseless self-deception. Her imposing palaces did not keep back the invader; they rather invited his ruthless ormits. She found no security in the vain boast, "I am of perfect beauty." Thero is no redemption in mstheticism. The sinner will not fintl here any refuge from the doom of his guilt. It would be a poor diet for uafallcn angels; for fallen men it is assuredly no healing balm. Beauty has been brought down to shame and suffering. No culture of art or literature will lift tbe refined mintl out of the danger that threaten~ "the common herd" of sinners, Cultured and rough people must come through the same strait gate of penitence and walk the same narrow way of the footsteps of Christ if they would hope for salvation. Ver. 13.-2'he slave-trade. Among the wares that tbo Phamicians imported into Asia were Greek slaves. "With the persons of men . . . did they trade for thy wares" from Javan and elsewhere. Thus early hove we a picture of that hideous traffic in human flesh which is desolating the continent of Africa in our own day. I. THE SLAVE-TRADE 1B OARnIED ON TO A TREMENDOUS EXTENT. This is no small evil. Every traveller into the interior of Africa writes of its wide prevalence. Whole provinces. v1111t regions as big as European kiagtlums, o.ro corn1)letely wrecked an~  91! THE BOO:!{ OF THE PlWPRE'r ll:ZEKIEt. Coit. XXVII. 1..c....So.