Late last evening I sat talking in the smoking-room with a Protestant
gentleman from Minneapolis. Some years ago he visited the Holy Land,
and I was interested in the account he gave of it. He does not seem
to have been much impressed by the country itself or its sanctuaries.
"The most beautiful sight I saw in the Holy Land," he declared with
evident sincerity, "was the face of a nun." It was not the physical,
but the spiritual beauty of the face that struck him and imprinted
itself upon his memory. A beautiful soul beamed out from it--a soul
made beautiful by close communion with God. "I will feed on God,"
says Alexandrine in A Sister's Story, not knowing very well at the
moment what she means. But she did feed on God, and became beautiful
as an angel, with that beauty which never can fade. If we would be
truly beautiful let us feed on God the Uncreated Beauty, ever ancient
and ever new.
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