Strength and Beauty
C. S. Horne, M.A. Psalm 96:6 Honor and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. A subject of never-waning interest to the student of comparative religions is she influence upon the character of a nation in its conception of God. It is sometimes asserted, in somewhat too sweeping a fashion, that a people will be as is its idea of God. In qualification of that proposition it has to be said that not all people hold themselves pledged to the imitation of God. Many, indeed, would argue that such a thought is little short of presumptuous folly. Moreover, even when the imitation of God is regarded as man's chief and proper endeavour, the fact remains that a nation's character is determined not by certain merely traditional and abstract ideas of Deity, but by the quality of its faith in the reality of God. With these qualifications, it may be generally admitted that the character of every people tends to be influenced by the character of its God or gods. It is impossible to maintain that the old popular mythologies of Greece and Rome had no influence upon the common lives of men. The weaknesses, follies, passions, and vices of the immortals became in the nature of a justification for similar failings and excesses among mortals; and it can never have been easy of belief that what is right in God is wrong in man. No doubt it was a favourable maxim of the Stuart dynasty, "Do you not know that I am above the law?"; and apologists were wont to maintain in very old times that gods and goddesses could no more than earthly autocrats be subjected to the laws of ordinary human morality. But example tells when the subtlest casuistry fails; and, save where unbelief has relaxed or destroyed the sanctions of religion, the character of the God it worships tends to impress itself upon the character of the worshipping people; and insensibly, if not of settled aspiration, the nation does tend to an imitation of God. We are on surer ground, however, when we turn from that heterogeneous multitude of people we call a nation to a consideration of the individual life. The stronger a man's faith in God, the more will he realize in his own character those qualities which occupy the largest place in his conception of God. The degree of his imitation of God will be proportionate to the intensity of his belief in God. Now, the psalmist, in this lyrical outburst of adoration, professes to have discovered two qualities which are revealed in combination in the character of God, and which, such is the suggestion, He will Himself communicate to devout, worshipful, and aspiring souls. These two qualities are strength and beauty. Neither quality is of itself uncommon; it is their combination that is so rare. Somehow in this world the strong is not usually the beautiful, and the beautiful is not the strong. We think of the beautiful in Nature as the fragile, the delicate, the evanescent. We think of the strong, and with its massive solidity it is difficult to associate any thought of grace and loveliness. But this psalm was a hymn for the Temple; and if it be true, as we suppose, that there are yet remaining many of the glorious pillars which adorned that magnificent structure, it is conceivable that they suggested to the psalmist's mind this rare combination of qualities. For these pillars of the Temple were of radiant marble, stately and splendid in themselves, and with the added decoration of capitals nobly carved in all manners of exquisite device. And not the pillars alone, but the whole majestic pile itself, was it not the standing witness to the truth that the God whom it represented to men was at once strong and beautiful? For its durability and solidity was only equalled by its magnificence; the strength of its stone by the beauty of its colouring and the glory of its decoration. The architects of that ancient cathedral seem to have derived their ideas from Nature and to have seen that He who laid the enduring foundations of the earth, decorated the world, He made with the gold of the crocus, the crimson of the field-lily, or the blue of the gentian and the harebell; and they built for Him a lane which, like the world He built for them, was strong and beautiful, massive, but full of delicate colour. As was this temple of their God, so was the God of the Temple — in His Divine Being they felt there must be this glorious combination of strength and beauty. If, then, the religious life be the imitation of God, the man of God will manifest to the world a character in which strength and beauty are found in combination. (C. S. Horne, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. WEB: Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.