tween you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you." Self-love is the very opposite of the Lord's; and they who are ruled by it, are in a sinful state, and have no conception of the Lord's love. His face is therefore hid from them. Again the Psalmist says: "Thy face, Lord, will I seek." We seek the Lord's face, when, through obedience to the laws of the heavenly life which He has revealed, we open our hearts to the reception of his own life, that is, his unselfish love. Again: "Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance." The light of the Lord's countenance is the light of truth proceeding from his divine love, as light proceeds from and is the visible manifestation of heat in the natural world.
And hundreds of similar illustrations from Scripture might be added; all of which go to show the intimate connection of the spiritual sense of the Word, with the facts, phenomena and laws of the spiritual world; and how a knowledge of these latter may help us in the right understanding and interpretation of the former.
What, now, is the practical lesson to be drawn from the subject as here presented?
It may be seen from what has been said, that beauty is the mark which God has set on goodness. The external beauty of the angels is but the type, or correspondential form, of their beautiful souls. Their pure and unselfish love exerts a potent influence over their bodily organism, moulding every feature into a form of corresponding grace and loveliness. Yes: it is love—love from the Lord, and therefore kindred to his own—that makes their faces so lovely. And this angelic beauty
