The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-08-02

round-an elaborate gearing of six
muscles as perfect as God could make
them. There also is the retina, gather
ing the rays of light and passing the
visual impression along the optic nerve,
about the thickness of the lampwick-
passing the visual impression on TO the
sensorium, and on into the soul.
What a delicate lens. what an
exquisite screen, what soft cushions,
what wonderful chemistry of the
human eye, The eye washed by a slow
stream of moisture, whether we sleep
or wake, rolling imperceptibly over
the pebble of the eve and emptying in
to a bone of the nostril A contrivance
so wonderful that it can see the sun,
95, 900. 900 miles away, and the point of
pin. Telescope and microscope in
the same contrivance. The astrono-
mer swings and moves this way and
that, and adjusts and readjusts the
telescope until he gets it to the
right focus; the microscopic moves
this way and that, and adjusts and re-
adjusts the magnifying glass until il is
prepared to do its work, but the human
eve, without touch, beholds the star
and the smallest insect. The traveller
among the Alps, with one glance TAX
ing in Mont Blanc and the face of his
watch to see whether he has time TO
climb it.
Oh! this wonderful camera obscura
which you and carry about with US,
so to-day we can take in our friends, so
from the top of Mount Washington we
can take in New England, so at night
we can sweep into our vision the con-
stellations from horizon to horizon.
So delicate, so semi-infinite. and yet the
light coming $4,000, 900 miles at the
rate of 200, 900 miles a second is obliged
to halt at the gate of the eye, waiting
for admission until the portcullis be
lifted. Something hurled 1000. 600
miles and striking an instrument which
has not the agitation of even wink.
ing under the power of the stroke.
There, also, is the merciful arrangement
of the tear gland by which the eye
is washed, and from which rolls the
tide which brings the relief that comes
in tears when some bereavement or
great loss strikes us. The tear not an
augmentation of sorrow, but the break
ing up of the arctic of frozen grief in
the warm gulf stream of consolation.
Incapacity to weep is madness or
death. Thank God for the tear glands,
and that the crystal gates are so easily
opened. Oh! the wonderful hydraulic
of the human eye. Divinely
constructed vision! Two light houses
at the harbor of the immortal soul,
under the shining of which the world
sails in and drops anchor. What an
anthem of praise to God is the human
eye! The tongue is speechless and |
a clumsy instrument of expression
as compared with it. Have you not |
seen it flash with Indignation or lxindle |
with enthusiasm, or expand with devo- |
ton, or melt with sympathy, or stare
with fright. or leer with villainy, or
droop with sadness, or pale with envy, |
or fire with revenge, or twinkle with |
mirth, or beam with love? II is trag-
edy and comedy and pastoral and lyric |
in turn. Have you not seen its uplift- |
ed brow of surprise, or its frown of |
wrath, or its contraction of pain? If |
the eye say one thing and the lips say |
another thing, YOU believe the eye |
rather than the lips. The eyes of |
Archibald Alexander and Charles G.. |
Finney were the migbtiest part of |
their sermon. George Whitefeld |
great assemblages with /
his eyes, though they were |
with stra bismus. Many |
a military chieftain has with a look
hurled a regiment to victory or TO
death. Martin Luther turned his
great eye on an assassin who came to
take his life, and the villain fed. I'M
der the glance of the human eye. the
tiger. with five times a mans strength,
snarls back into the African Jungle.
But those best appreciate the value of
the eye who have lost it. The Emperor
Adrian by accident put out the eye of
his servant, and he said to his servant:
What shall pay you in, money or in
lands? Anything you ask me; am
sorry l put your eye out" But the
servant refused to put any financial
on the value of the eye, and
when the emperor urged and urged
again the matter, he said: 'Oh,
emperor, want nothing but my
ost eve" Alas for those for
whom a thick and impenetrable
veil is drawn across the face of the
heavens and the face of ones own kim
ired. That was a pathetic scene when
a blind man lighted a torch at night
and was found passing along the high
way, and someone said: ''Why do you
carry that torch when you can't see?"
''Ah!' said he, Il can't see, but | carry
this torch so that others may see me
and pity my helplessness and not run
me down" Samson, the giant, with
his eyes put out by the Philistines. is
more helpless than the smallest dwarf
with vision undamaged. All the SYM
,athies of Christ were stirred when He
saw Bartimeus with darkened retina,
and the only salve He ever made that
we read of was mixture of dust and
saliva and a prayer, with which He
cured the eyes of man blind from his
nativity. The value of the eye is shown
is much by its catastrophe as by its
lealthful action. Ask the man who
Tor twenty years has not seen the sun
rise. Ask the man who for half a CEN
Jury has not seen the face of friend.
Ask in the hospital the victim of oph-
-halmia. Ask the man whose eyesi ght
oerished in a powder blast. Ask the
Bartimeus who never met a Christ,
,r 'the man born blind who is to die
blind. Ask him. This morning, in
ny imperfect way, I have only hint
ID at the splendors, the glories, the
wonders, the divine revelations. the
apocalypses of the human eve, and =
,tagger back from the awful portals OF