The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1883-02-17

lower it, and another to turn it to the
right and another to turn it to the left
and another passing through pulley
to turn 1t round and round, an elaborate
gearing of six muscles moving in chO-
rus beyond comprehension. Something
called the retina, which takes the rays
of light and passes the visual impression
through the optic nerve, about like
tape for thickness, to the sensOTium and
into the soul. What delicate lines; what
marvellous screens; what soft cushions;
what strange chemistry of the eye. The
globe Of the eye washed perpetually by
a slow stream of moisture when we are
asleep and when we wake, rolling i'm
perceptibly over the pebble of the eye
and emptying into bone of the nose.
The whole machinery Of the eye so con-
structed that 1t can see the sun
100000. miles away and see
the point of a pin (; tele-
scope and microscope in the same con-
triYance.
1t is a selfregulating apparatus. As
trOnOmeT swings and ranges now this
way and now that before he gets the
right focus. The micTOscOpist moves
backward and forward till he gets
rightly adjusted the magnifying glass.
But without q touch tile eye can see
faTthest star or smallest insect. The
Swiss traveller at glance takes in
Mount Blanc and the face of his watch
to see whether he will have time to as
cend the mountain. Wonderful camera
by which you at this moment take the
photograph of this audience; by which
we can from the top of Mount Washing
ton take in New England; by which at
night we can sweep into ONT vision the
consultations from horizon to horizon.
So wide-reaching its power, so infinite
its delicacy and yet the light, which
comes 95,000,0O0 miles and at the rate of
100000 miles second, halts at its gate
and waits for admission till the pOrtcul-
lis be lifted. Light hurled millions Of
miles, and striking an instrument with
out causing 80 much as the agitation Of
winking. Notice the merciful arrange
ment of the tear glands, from which the
intricate machinery of the eye is washed,
and from which roll the tides which
bring the relief, which comes in tears
when bereavement and great loss strike
us. Tears are not the augmentation of
sorrow, but the breaking up of the arctic
of frozen grief in the warm gulf stream Of
consolation. Incapacity to weep ends
in madness or death. Thank God for
the tear glands, and that the crystal
gates may so easily be opened. Oh, the
wOndrous hydraulic apparatus Of the
hvman eyel Divineiy constructed vision !
Two lighthouses at the harbOr Of the
soul, under the illumination of which
the outside world enters and drops an
chOr. What an athem of praise to God
is the human eyel The tongue is speech
less and clumsy instrument of express
sion as compared with it. Have you not
seen 1t flash with indignation or kindle
with enthusiasm, or expand with de-
yOtiOn, or melt in sympathy, or float In
Indignation, or start in fright, or leer
up Villainy, or dTOOp with sadness, or
pale with envy, or fire with revenge, or
twinkle with merriment, or beam with
love? 1t is tragedy, or comedy, or lyric,
or pastoral in turn. We all know its
uplifted brow of surprise and its frOwn
of hate and its contraction of pain. If
the lips say one thing and the eye an
other, you believe the eye rather than the
lips. The eyes of Archibald Alexander
and Charles G. Phinney were the most
powerful part of their sermons, and
George Whitfield enthTalled assem-
blages on the mOOrs by his eyes though
crippled with strabismus, and the eyes
of military commanders have hurried
their troops to victory or death. Luther
turned his great eye upon the ASSASSIN
who had come to take his life and the
villain fled. Under the glance of the
human eye the tiger, with five times a
mans strength, snarls back into the
African thicket.
But the value of the eye Is pest appre-
ciated by those who have lost it. EN-
perlOr Adrian Internationally put out
one eye of his servant. What shall
pay" cried the Emperor, "fOr the dam
age | have done in putting out your
eye?" But the man refused to make a
financial estimate of his loss, and after
the Emperor had urged and urged him
to ask what he would, the poor man
said: II want nothing but my lost
eye." Alas for those for whom a thick
and impenetrable veil has been drawn
over the heavens and the dear faces of
ones own kindred. What pathOs in that
scene when a man without sight went
through the darkness carrying a lighted
torch. "Why do you carry that tOTchP''
said some one, when you cannot seeP"
"Ah," said the blind man, 81 carry it that
others may see me and pity my helpless
ness and avoid running me down." Sam
son with his eyes put out by the Philis-
tines was not so strong as the dwarf with
his eyes uninjured. All the sympathies of
Christ were stirred when he saw
blind PaTtimeas with darkened Tetina
and the only slave he ever made that
we have ever read of was a mixture of
dust and saliva and prayer to cure the
eyes of a man blind from his nativity.
Oh, the value of the human eye learned
by its catastrophe as well az by its
healthful action. Ask those who for
twenty years have never looked upon
the sunrise. Ask those who for half a
century haue never seen the face of a
friend. Ask the asylums with their vic
tins OF ophthalmia. Ask those whose
/ eyes perished in the powder blast. Ask
Bartimeas whom Christ soon restored to
sight, and those born blind who are to
die blind. Earl, of Bridgewater, in his
last will and testament bequeathed $4O,-
600 for essays to be written ION the
power and wisdom and>gOOdness of God
as manifested in the creatiOn;" and Sir
Charles Bell, the British surgeon, just
home from the fields of COrunna and
Waterloo, where he had been tending to
the wounded, and studying the wonder
II ~ Of hn H.