Remarkable Providences

Ever since the Great Deluge of Noah's day, storms and other natural calamities have, in God's providence, altered the course of, or left their mark on, church history. Building on a plan and notes compiled by Matthew Poole, Increase Mather and, later, William Turner, wrote accounts of such "remarkable providences." Here are a few notable examples from the Reformation era that I have compiled in my own studies:

• On May 21, 1382 a synod meeting in London, convened for the purpose of condemning the articles of faith propounded by John Wycliffe, was shook by an earthquake. Ever since, that convocation has been known to history as the "Earthquake Synod."

• On July 2, 1505, young Martin Luther, at the time bound for the study of law, was caught up in a frightening thunderstorm while riding a horse on his way back to the University of Erfurt. When a bolt of lightning struck close by, in great fear, he vowed to become a monk, saying: "Help, Saint Anna, I will become a monk." Fifteen days later, he entered the Augustinian Friary, and began the path that would ultimately lead to the Reformation.

• In the summer of 1565, the French Huguenot colony of Fort Caroline, near what would become Jacksonville, Florida, under the command of René de Laudonnière, had suffered famine and illness before being resupplied, first, by English seadog John Hawkins, and finally, by the great French Huguenot naval commander Jean Ribault. In late August, however, almost at the same time as Ribault's arrival, Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés reached the Florida coast with orders to wipe out the "heretics." After a tentative skirmish, Menéndez sailed south and established a base camp at what would become St. Augustine. Against Laudonnière's advice, Ribault took his fleet of ships and most of the soldiers at Fort Caroline, and pursued Menéndez by sea, threatening in a bold gambit to overwhelm Menéndez's forces at St. Augustine. However, a hurricane struck at that very moment, scattering Ribault's fleet, destroying a number of ships, and leaving hundreds of Frenchman stranded on the shore far south of St. Augustine. Meanwhile, in a bold move of his own, Menéndez led his men on a forced overland march northward to Fort Caroline, calculating that the fort would be weak and unmanned, and vulnerable to a surprise attack during a hurricane. He was right, and he massacred most of the remaining colonists on September 20, hanging them under a tree bearing a sign that said they were executed "not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans and heretics". Most of the stranded Frenchmen on the south shore were also later massacred the following month, which put an end to the French Huguenot dream of building a colony in Florida.

• During the Eighty Years' War, the Spanish laid siege to the Dutch city of Leiden, first in 1573, and then again a year later. The Spanish had defeated the forces of William of Orange were strangling Leiden slowly and successfully. The city fathers decided in September 1574 in act of desperation to break the dikes and flood the Spanish army but due to a lack of rain, there was insufficient water to accomplish their design. Finally, storms came in early October that enabled them to break the dikes and flood the Spanish. On October 3, the Spanish lifted the siege and the city was saved. The starving inhabitants were able to eat a dish of Hotchpotch or Hutspot (carrots and onion stew) left behind in haste by the Spanish. William of Orange established the University of Leiden as a gift to the city for its sacrifices during the siege, and to this day, annually on October 3, celebrations are held by the Dutch in remembrance of the Lord's providential deliverance, which include a dish of Hutspot.

• In August 1588, the 'invincible' Spanish Armada of Philip II threatened to bring the undeclared Anglo-Spanish war to the British seacoast by invading England in retaliation for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the previous year. The fleet had assembled at Gravelines, France, when it was attacked by English fire ships. With the winds against them, the Spanish ships were forced to sail north, while pursued by the English. The Spanish intended to sail around the British isles, but were pushed off course by the Gulf Stream and unusually powerful storms that devastated the armada. With many of its ships having lost its anchors in the Battle of Gravelines, a number of them were lost at sea or forced to run aground off the coast of Ireland, where Spanish forces were slaughtered by the English or died of starvation. Thousands of men were killed, after the remainder of the armada limped home, Philip is reported to have said, "I sent the Armada against men, not God's winds and waves." The English attributed their great victory to the "Protestant Wind," as described in a seal commemorating the event: "Flavit Jehovah et Dissipati Sunt" ("Jehovah blew with His wind and they were scattered").

• On June 2, 1609, the Sea Venture set sail with six other ships from Plymouth, England, on a mission to resupply the Jamestown, Virginia colony, with colonists and provisions. However, on July 24, the ship ran into a strong storm, possibly a hurricane, separating it from the other ships. After fighting the storm for several days, the Sea Venture ran aground at Bermuda on July 28, 1609, from which the English settlement of this island is dated. All 150 souls on board (and one dog) were saved, but were stranded on the island for nine months. The settlers were forced to salvage the Sea Venture and build two new ships, the Deliverance and Patience, in order to reach their ultimate destination: Jamestown. While on Bermuda, John Rolfe lost his wife and son. Later, he went on to found Virginia's tobacco industry and marry the Indian princess Pocahontas. The arrival of the Sea Venture's settlers helped the Jamestown colony, which was in imminent danger of collapse due to starvation. The story of the shipwreck of the Sea Venture, as recounted by William Strachey, is believed to serve as the origin of William Shakespeare's famous play, The Tempest.

• In August 1635, as Richard Mather and his family were on board the vessel James, along with one hundred others, fleeing persecution in England and aiming to settle in Puritan Massachusetts, they were overtaken by the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. It is reckoned by historians to have been a Category 4 hurricane when it struck Long Island, New York, and a Category 3 when the storm made landfall along the border of Rhode Island and Connecticut, with the eye of the storm eventually passing between Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts. Many stories are told about this storm, including the tale of how Thacher Island got its name (from the sole survivor, Anthony Thacher, of a small bark, which shipwrecked on that island during the tempest), but the story of the James is perhaps most memorable because of Richard's account, and the fact that his survival led to the founding of the Mather dynasty (Increase was born after his parents' safe arrival in New England). While off the Isles of Shoals, at the border of modern New Hampshire and Maine, the James was buffeted so strongly by what is believed to be the strongest hurricane ever to hit New England, that it was in danger of foundering. The storm was written about by John Winthrop and William Bradford, as well as Richard Mather, who recorded the event in his journal, along with, in later accounts, his future progeny, Increase Mather and Cotton Mather. Richard wrote in his journal for August 15, 1635 (as recorded by Cotton):

"The Lord had not yet done with us, nor had he let us see all his power and goodness, which he would have us take the knowledge of. And therefore about break of day he sent a most terrible storm of rain and easterly wind, whereby we were, I think, in as much danger as ever people were. When we came to land, we found many mighty trees rent in pieces in the midst of the bole, and others turned up by the roots, by fierceness thereof. We lost in that morning three anchors and cables; one having never been in the water before; two were broken by the violence of the storm, and a third cut by the sea-men in extremity of distress, to save the ship and their and our lives. And when our cables and anchors were all lost, we had no outward means of deliverance, but by hoisting sail, if so be we might get to sea, from among the islands and rocks where we were anchored. But the Lord let us see that our sails could not help us neither, no more than the cables and anchors; for by the force of the wind and storm, the sails were rent asunder, and split in pieces, as if they had been but rotten rags; so that of divers of them there was scarce left so much as an hand's-breadth that was not rent in pieces or blown away into the sea; so that at that time all hope that we should be saved, in regard of any outward appearance, was utterly taken away; and the rather, because we seemed to drive with full force of wind directly upon a mighty rock, standing out in sight above water; ao that we did but continually wait, when we should hear and feel the doleful crushing of the ship upon the rock. In this extremity and appearance of death, as distress and distraction would suffer us, we cried unto the Lord, and he was pleased to have compassion upon us; for by his over-ruling providence, and his own immediate good hand, he guided the ship past the rock, asswaged the violence of the sea and of the wind. It was a day much to be remembered, because on that day the Lord granted us as wonderful a deliverance as, I think, ever any people had felt. The sea-men confessed they never knew the like. The Lord so imprint the memory of it in our hearts, that we may be the better for it, and be careful to please him, and to walk uprightly before him as long as we live! and I hope we shall not forget the passages of that morning until our dying day. In all this grievous storm, my fear was the less, when I considered the clearness of my calling from God this way. And in some measure (the Lord's holy name be blessed for it!) he gave us hearts contented and willing that he should do with us and cure what he pleased, and what might be most for the glory of his name; and in that we rested ourselves. But when news was brought us into the gun-room that the danger was past, Oh! how our hearts did then relent and melt within us! We burst out into tears of joy among ourselves, in love unto the gracious God, and admiration of his kindness, in granting to his poor servants such an extraordinary and miraculous deliverance, his holy name be blessed for evermore."

• When Queen Mary of Modena, wife of James II, gave birth in June 1688 to a son, James (who would later be known as 'The Old Pretender'), all of England feared that the royal succession would become a Catholic dynasty, instead of passing the throne to his daughter Mary, wife of William of Orange. It was then that William began to plan, with the aid of a group of prominent Englishmen known as the Immortal Seven, to invade England and depose James II, thus ensuring that England would remain a Protestant nation. His fleet assembled at Hellevoetsluis that autumn but were prevented from crossing over by the 'popish wind' that for which Catholics all over Europe were praying. However, in October, the southwestly popish wind finally became an eastern Protestant Wind, thus enabling William's fleet to sail to England, bearing the standard of William which read "Pro Religione et Libertate" ("For Liberty and [the Protestant] Religion"), while working against James. William and his fleet landed, after another change in the winds favorable to his cause, at Brixham, England, on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day, referring to another notable providential deliverance in British history), 1688 and marched toward London. James fled England in December, and Parliament declared that he had effectively abdicated the throne, after which William & Mary were crowned joint rulers of England. The English Bill of Rights then ensured that England would remain Protestant from henceforth.

Battle of the Pulpits

Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4):

WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house
Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,
Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;
And if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose;
And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send between the Red Rose and the White
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

London's Temple Church has been the site of many notable events, both fictional (including The DaVinci Code) and non-, in its long history. The reason it was chosen by William Shakespeare for being the site of the commencement of the War of Roses in Henry VI has to do with a famous Battle of the Pulpits that took place in the 1580's between Puritan Walter Travers and his cousin by marriage, Anglican Richard Hooker, the ripple effects of which have lingered long after the "battle" ended.

In 1581, Travers became Reader (lecturer) at the Temple Church. After Master (rector) of the Temple Richard Alvey died, Travers Puritan convictions worked against him, and instead of being promoted to Master, Richard Hooker was brought to the Temple and installed in that position on March 17, 1585. Hooker preached his first sermon on March 28, and immediately there was conflict between him and Travers. In the morning, Hooker would preach his views, and in the afternoon, Travers would preach against them. The two men met to confer but were unable to reconcile their agendas despite the family bond. By March 1586 Archbishop Whitgift forbade Travers to preach any further. Travers later became Provost of Trinity College in Dublin. Hooker meanwhile resigned as Master of the Temple in 1591, and was appointed vicar of Bishopsbourne in Kent. Here he developed his thought in his masterpiece, Ecclesiastical Polity, which was in large measure the fruit of his thought as his developed during the conflict with Travers. The Battle of the Pulpits resulted in Travers' removal from the Temple Church, but the issues raised have continued to resonate through the centuries. It was a battle between Canterbury and Geneva, as Thomas Fuller memorably put it, The History of the Worthies of England (1860 ed.), Vol. 1, p. 423: "Here the pulpit spake pure Canterbury in the morning, and Geneva in the afternoon, until Travers was silenced."

Walter Travers himself listed the points of controversy raised after that first sermon by Hooker, as recorded by Hooker's sympathetic biographer Isaac Walton, The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker, in The Works of Richard Hooker, Vol. 1:

Doctrines delivered by Mr. Hooker, as they were set down and shewed by Mr. Travers, Mar. 30, 1585, under this title, A short Note of sundry unsound Points of Doctrine at divers times delivered by Mr. Hooker in his public Sermons.

1. The church of Rome is a true church of Christ, and a church sanctified by profession of that truth, which God had revealed unto us by his Son, though not a pure and perfect church.

2. The fathers which lived and died in Popish superstition were saved, because they sinned ignorantly.

3. They which are of the church of Rome may be saved by such a faith as they have in Christ, and a general repentance of all their sins.

4. The church of Rome holdeth all men sinners, even the Blessed Virgin, though some of them think otherwise of her.

5. The church of Rome teacheth Christ’s righteousness to be the only meritorious cause of taking away sin.

6. The Galatians which joined with faith in Christ, circumcision, as necessary unto salvation, notwithstanding be saved.

7. Neither the church of Rome, nor the Galatians, deny the foundation directly, but only by consequent: and therefore may be saved. Or else neither the Lutherans, nor whosoever hold any error (for every error by consequent denieth the foundation), may be saved.

8. An additament taketh not away that whereunto it is added, but confirmeth it. As he that saith of any, that he is a righteous man, saith, that he is a man: except it be privative; as when he saith, he is a dead man, then he denieth him to be a man: and of this sort of [privative] additaments neither are works, which are added to Christ by the Church of Rome; nor circumcision, added to him by the Galatians.

9. The Galatians’ case is harder than the case of the church of Rome; for they added to Christ circumcision, which God had forbidden and abolished: but that which the church of Rome addeth, are works which God hath commanded.

10. No one sequel urged by the Apostle against the Galatians, for joining circumcision with Christ, but may be as well enforced against the Lutherans holding ubiquity.

11. A bishop or cardinal of the church of Rome, yea, the Pope himself, denying all other errors of popery, notwithstanding his opinion of justification by works, may be saved.

12. Predestination is not of the absolute will of God, but conditional.

13. The doings of the wicked are not of the will of God positive, but only permissive.

14. The reprobates are not rejected, but for the evil works which God did foresee they would commit.

15. The assurance of things which we believe by the Word, is not so sure, as of those which we perceive by sense.

Thomas Fuller, also representing the historiography of the establishment, elaborates on the Battle of the Pulpits, The Church History of Britain (1845 ed.), Vol. 5, pp. 183-185:

53. Mr. Hooker his voice was low, stature little, gesture none at all, standing stone-still in the pulpit, as if the posture of his body were the emblem of his mind, unmovable in his opinions. Where his eye was left fixed at the beginning, it was found fixed at the end of his sermon. In a word, the doctrine he delivered had nothing but itself to garnish it. His style was long and pithy, driving on a whole flock of several clauses before he came to the close of a sentence; so that when the copiousness of his style met not with proportionable capacity in his auditors, it was unjustly censured for perplexed, tedious, and obscure. His sermons followed the inclination of his studies, and were for the most part on controversies and deep points of school divinity.

54. Mr. Travers his utterance was graceful, gesture plausible, matter profitable, method plain, and his style carried in it indolem pietatis, a genius of grace flowing from his sanctified heart. Some say that the congregation in the Temple ebbed in the forenoon and flowed in the afternoon, and that the auditory of Mr. Travers was far the more numerous, the first occasion of emulation betwixt them; but such as knew Mr. Hooker, knew him to be too wise to take exception at such trifles, the rather because the most judicious is always the least part in all auditories.

55. Here might one, on Sundays, have seen almost as many writers as hearers: not only young students, but even the gravest benchers, (such as sir Edward Cook and sir James Altham then were,) were not more exact in taking instructions from their clients, than in writing notes from the mouths of their ministers. The worst was, these two preachers, though joined in affinity, (their nearest kindred being married together,) acted with different principles, and clashed one against another; so that what Mr. Hooker delivered in the forenoon, Mr. Travers confuted in the afternoon. At the building of Solomon's temple, (1 Kings vi. 7,) neither hammer, nor axe, nor tool of iron was heard therein; whereas, alas! in this Temple not only much knocking was heard, but (which was the worst) the nails and pins which one master-builder drave in were driven out by the other. To pass by lesser differences betwixt them about predestination,

Hooker maintained

The church of Rome, though not a pure and perfect, yet is a true church; so that such who live and die therein, upon their repentance of all their sins of ignorance, may be saved.

Travers defended

The church of Rome is no true church at all; so that such as live and die therein, holing justification in part by works, cannot be said by the scriptures to be saved.

Thus much disturbance was caused, to the disquieting of people's consciences, the disgrace of the ordinance, the advantage of the common enemy, and the dishonour of God himself.

All The World's A Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players...

-- Jacques, in William Shakespeare's As You Like It (c. 1599), Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-140

Or as a Huguenot poet, Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590), put it earlier:

The World's a Stage, where God's Omnipotence,
His Justice, Knowledge, Love, and Providence
Do act their Parts; contending (in their kindes)
Above the Heav'ns, to ravish dullest minds.
The World's a Book in Folio, printed all
With God's great Works in letters Capitall:
Each Creature is a Page: and each Effect
A fair Character, void of all defect.

-- La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578), trans. by Joshua Sylvester as Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, First Day

Not only did Du Bartas influence Shakespeare, his epic poem about creation is thought to have been a major influence upon John Milton's Paradise Lost. In the tradition of hexameral literature, Du Bartas' poetry represents a major achievement. He was not the first to see the world as a stage, although his picture of God's attributes manifested in theatrical glory is, to my way of thinking, more spiritually eloquent than Shakespeare's, nor was he the first to be inspired by contemplation of God's work of creation in the first week of the world. But his influence was such that he is considered to be only French poet of the 16th century who could rival Clement Marot as "the poet of princes, and the prince of poets," and as Joseph Hall wrote in poetic praise of Du Bartas and his English translator, he was certainly a chief poet in two languages:

Bartas was some French angel, girt with bays;
And thou a Bartas art, in English lays.
Whether is more? Mee seems (the sooth to sayn)
One Bartas speaks in tongues; in nations, twain.

Although little-known today, his legacy is behind some of the greatest works of English literature, and when one reads the original French or the English translation, though in eloquence he has been superseded, the Huguenot's combination of spiritual grace and poetic expression tunes the believing heart more sweetly, in my opinion, than England's chief muses.

Eleuthera

Eleuthera is an island in The Bahamas whose history is worth noting on this blog. The Taino or Arawak or Lucayan Indians populated the island until the Spanish deported them as slaves and the island was uninhabited from 1550 or so until 1648 when settlers arrived from the island of Bermuda.

Bermuda was established as a colony of the British Crown following the 1609 shipwreck of the Sea Venture, a resupply vessel sent to aid the newly-formed settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. That shipwreck, as recounted by William Strachey, is said to have served as the inspiration for William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and John Rolfe is counted among those shipwreck-founders. The Church of England became firmly established on Bermuda and conflict eventually arose between the ecclesiastical authorities and English Puritans who had immigrated there. As early as 1644, those Puritans were seeking other islands within The Bahamas to settle as a means of escaping religious persecution on Bermuda. Under the leadership of William Sayle, a group of Adventurers selected the island of Sigatoo (Cigatoo) as the site of their new promised land, and renamed it Eleutheria (Greek for 'freedom') -- later renamed Eleuthera (Greek for 'free'). On July 9, 1647, Sayle and twenty-five other men signed what was to become Eleuthera's constitution for the next two decades or so, the Articles and Orders of the Eleutherian Adventurers. Although the 1638 Fundamental Orders of Connecticut lays claim to being the first written constitution, the Eleutherian Articles and Orders was an important early contribution to republican government in the New World.

During the Puritan era of Eleuthera, William Sayle was the governor for most of this period. It was an impoverished colony. Church services were held for a time at what become known as the Preachers Cave. The Puritan colony also settled a nearby island with greater success, renaming it New Providence (which is the site of the present Bahamian capital, Nassau). It was so named because there was another Puritan colony in existence then which became known as Old Providence of Isla de Providencia off the coast of Nicaragua, having been established by the Puritan Providence Island Company in 1629, which also established another short-lived colony on Tortuga, off Haiti from 1631-1635.

The Puritan Eleutherian government lacked royal support following the Restoration, and in 1670 Royalist claims forced the Puritan settlers to seek refuge elsewhere. It was then that William Sayle led a group to South Carolina and founded the town of Charleston, becoming the first governor of South Carolina as well.

Thus, Puritan colonists settled The Bahamas (Eleuthera and New Providence), as well as Charleston, South Carolina, and their legacy includes one of the earliest written constitutions in the New World.

Some of this Eleutherian history was most recently obliquely referred to in the 2008 movie Fool's Gold. Portions of the movie were filmed on Eleuthera as well.

What is Beauty?

If you were asked to define beauty, how would you answer?

The Scriptures teach us before corruption entered the world God made all things "very good" (Gen. 1.31) and that "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19.1); and that things which are "lovely" and "pure" are among those things which are praiseworthy and ought to be thought upon (Phil. 4.8); and they teach us that our chief desire ought to be to "behold the Beauty of the LORD" (Ps .27.4) and to "worship the LORD in the Beauty of Holiness" (Ps. 96.9); that our prayer should be for "the beauty of the LORD our God [to] be upon us" (Ps. 90.17); and that he is to us a "Diadem of Beauty" (Isa. 28.5).

But as Alain de Lille, Thomas Becon, George Turberville, William Shakespeare, and other have well said, "All that glitters is not gold." The world with its vain adoration of the creature before the Creator has loved beauty for its own sake and so destroyed what is beautiful in its quest for beauty. Therefore, what emanates from the Lord, who is Beauty itself, that is beautiful. While Satan may appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11.14) and so deceive, and what Thomas Watson referred to as "spiritual beauty" may be found inside one's character and not on the cover of a magazine in a grocery store checkout aisle, yet beauty is of the Lord, wherever it is found, and sometimes in the most unlikely places. It is to be appreciated for that reason, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the Potter who took the clay and fashioned it in his own image and for his own glory. Even fallen man is worthy of respect for being made in the image of his Creator, and while "[t]here is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice" (John Calvin, Serm. No. 10 on I Cor., 698), and that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like the lilies of the field (Matt. 6.28-29), yet to delight in the works of God, apart from God, who alone is the Creator and the Giver of good gifts, is to seek beauty apart from the Beautiful.

Many from Samuel Coleridge to Felix Mendelssohn have argued that beauty is to be defined as "unity in variety." Elio Carletti is said to have characterized it thus: "Beauty is a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing is needed to be added, taken away or altered." Whether in nature or art, symmetry, order, unity in that which is manifold, all highlight these truths about beauty. Beauty and truth indeed, together, represent the harmony found in God.

Philip G. Ryken, Art for God's Sake, p. 43:

Beauty and truth belong together. As the poet John Keats said in his famous "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all ye need to know." Taken literally, Keats's identification of truth and beauty (to say nothing of his claim that this is the sum of all knowledge) is an exaggeration; yet truth and beauty are interconnected.

With all of this said, are we here any closer to understanding what drives the artist to compose his words or notes or colors so that another will find them beautiful? Why is it then said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and why so subjective, if beauty comes from God? (For Ralph Waldo Emerson said, " Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art." And everyone knows that taste is personal and art is not appreciated alike by all.)

While much-maligned in this area, Calvinism with its love of the "book" of nature, as well as the book of the Bible, teaches us that all beauty, rightly understood, points us to Him who is Beautiful.

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism: Calvinism and Art:

Standing by the ruins of this once so wonderfully beautiful creation, art points out to the Calvinist both the still visible lines of the original plan, and what is even more, the splendid restoration by which the Supreme Artist and Master-Builder will one day renew and enhance even the beauty of His original creation.

Martin E. Marty, book review of Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition, ed. by Paul Corby Finney:

But Calvinism is also rooted in "Calvin's love of creation and beauty"--which may be the "least known and appreciated" of Calvin's claims. Calvin marveled at scientific marvels, and he concluded that creation was not only useful: "God also intended it to be a source of delight to human beings."

Beauty strikes each of us differently, for we are variable and differently made, but beauty that is true reflects Him who is triune, holy and perfect. I can't claim to define beauty in a blog post, but I welcome thoughts from readers who may seek to answer the question "What is beauty?" in their own way. Meanwhile, I leave the reader with another thought from John Keats, who said it very simply elsewhere (Endymion): "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."