Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1883 — The Heavenly Beauty. [ARTICLE]

The Heavenly Beauty.

Ma’am, can Igo in there?” said a poor little deformed girl to a genteellydressed lady, as she was about entering a certain fashionable church in the city, pulling her gently by the dress, at the the same lime, and looking up most pleadingly into her face. The lady hesitated. Such a fright was she to look upon—her . back was so crooked, her face so sallow, her clothes so poor! .But there was such an eager woebegone look in her sunken eyes that the lady could not repel her, and so she said: "Yes, my dear, you may; come and go right along with me.” And she took the poor forlorn-looking child by the hand and led her into the church and into her own ppw. Ah! but what a look of delight now came over that wondering child’s face, as she gazed around that grand old church, and took in one object of interest after another. This was evidently a hew experience for her, and she was drinking in influences whose impress would never fade away. The lady who had introduced this poor thing to this new scene at once conceived a strange interest in her, and felt far more than repaid for the slight sacrifice she had made. But the music seemed to be the chief charm to this little unfortunate. She sat and listened as if hardly knowing whether she was in the body or out of the body. Nay, you would have hardly known that face now, so rapt, for the same that, a few moments ago, looked up so pleadingly and piteously into this kind lady’s face. For the second hymn the choir sang one beginning: And ipust this body die? >* to a wondroiisly sweet tone. Presently the lady felt a vigorous pull at her dress, and heard the little creature at hdr side, in an eager whisper, exclaim: “Oh, ma’am, do you hear that?” the big tears meanwhile rolling down her cheeks. They were singing:

Arrayed in glorious grace ft Shall these vile bodies shine. And every shape, and every face. Be heavenly and divine. In amazement the lady looked down upon the poor little deformed girl beside her. Could it be that she really understood those words, and was as deeply touched by the thought they contained as by the heavenly melody with which they Were expressed? As soon, therefore, os the services were concluded the lady turned to the child and asked: “Did you like the’ hymn very much, dear?” “Oh, yes," she said quietly, “very much indeed.” “Will you tell me why?” continued the lady, as kindly and as sympathetically as possible. “Oh,” said she, turning and pointing to a lovely woman who had been sitting near theril. “ You see, ma’am, lam going to look as beautiful as she up there. ” “In Heaven do you mean ?” “Yes, ma’am.” “And are you hoping to go there?’’ Fixing her large eyes full on her inquirer with a voiee thlrrlmg wrtfi vniotion she replied, "And didn’t the Lord Jesus, ma’am, die for just such crooked ones as me ?” _ — In a little more than a year from that time that same little deformed thing had fallen asleep. So early had she exchanged her crooked shape and wan little face for one “all heavenly and divine.” In the meantime what word can well measure the comfort, to that poor, crushed, sensitive spirit, of the hope of thus one day rising to where Arrayed in glorious grace Shall these vile bodies shine. And every shape, ami every tace. ~ Be heavenly and divine. —Rev. R. 11. Howard.