The embellishments of the person are poor substitutes
for the charms of being, shining resplendent and eternal
247:30 over age and decay.
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and
more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure
248:1 in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious free-
dom of spiritual harmony.
Love's endowment
248:3 Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon
its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less
than beautiful. Men and women of riper
248:6 years and larger lessons ought to ripen into
health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness
or gloom. Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal
248:9 freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images
of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each
day brings to a nearer tomb.
Mental sculpture
248:12 The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in
order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors,
working at various forms, moulding and chisel-
248:15 ing thought. What is the model before mortal
mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering?
Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you repro-
248:18 ducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious
sculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from all
mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding
248:21 it before your gaze continually. The result is that you
are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-
work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline
248:24 and deformity of matter models.
Perfect models
To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right
direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect
248:27 models in thought and look at them continually,
or we shall never carve them out in grand and
noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice,
248:30 health, holiness, love - the kingdom of heaven - reign
within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until
they finally disappear.
249:1 Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on
sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive
249:3 ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that
one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.
Renewed selfhood