San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-12-13
BLESSED BLINDNESS.

BLESSED BLINDNESS.
Strange text for the Light preach
er! Blindness and the blessedness
of it, when the cry of the wisdom of
all ages has been for Light! more
Light! So will exclaim many of the
Light congregation this morning. So
exclaiming, many will miss the sweet
reasOnableness of the idea in the text.
So thinking, many will realize as they
open their ears that blindness has its
blessedness, as well as that sight has
its own peculiar gifts and goodness.
1t is not the blessednesS of blindness
that the caption of the theme sug-
gests, but that there is among the
multitudinous kinds and varieties of
blindness one that may be called
blessed. 1t is to this thought that the
mind Of the Light congregation is in
vited this morning.
1t was only on yesterday that there
was brought wildly to your minds,
through the mimic representation of
the ''Storming of the Alamo" one of
the most tragic scenes ever acted to
its bloody close on the stage of Ameri-
lean history. Think you, in that
dark and bloody hour when brave men
looked their last on life and read their
doom in the laundering of the oppres-
sOr's cannon at the gates of yonder
old citadel, that many did not pray
for blindness that they under it's mer-
ciful pail might not witness the MUIR
der of their comrades and brothers
in arms? Would not the blindness
that would have shut out the horrors
Of that butchery from human sight
have been a merciful one, a blessed
one, blessed blindness. This only
as an illustration.
While the great names of the earth.
it's eloquence and it's poetry and it's
songs conspire to sing peans to the
praise of light, revealing in the glory
of the morn and the beauty of even
ing, the Light preacher will turn aside
from that glowing theme and sound
in his simple way the wisdom and the
beauty and the need and the virtue
OF cultivating sense of the blessed
ness of blindness that sees not the
things which in the seeing give no
pleasure, confer no benefits. add no
wealth to human experience, lift no
clouds from sorrows heart. raise no
weights from weary hands, but only
sadden those who see and bring in
to the heart Of tenderness its unayail-
ing regret for the suffering and the
hunger and the pain it is powerless
to relieve. Think you is it not wise
to cultivate this power of non-seeing
Every day the heart of pity grows
sore in it's breast because of the want
and misery of earth. A want as far
above its power to prevent or even
aid as the sun in the heavens is above
the bottom of earth's deepest pit. Ev-
cry night the soul of compassion
makes of it's softest couch a bed of
thorns as it reflects on the injustice
OF the world, the inhumanity of man
to his fellows, the pitiful crying and
tears of weak women and helpless
children for bread and shelter, and,
worse than all the crying of strong
men for the work that comes not to
relieve hunger in the home, that
eats out existence and leaves only the
bitter ashes of disappointment in the
happy hearth where once the fires OF
hope and domestic comfort blaZed
brightly.
Think you it would not be better
for these plying ones, these merciful
ones, these compassionate ones, would
they not be really better off and the
victims of hard circumstances. oyeI
whom they so unvailingly mourn. nc
worse bestead if a mercifuI blindness
interposed between their too acute
vision and the inevitable suffering OF
earth? Would it not indeed be 3
blessing to them II their eyes were
holden so that they could not see the
misery, just as ones eyes are holder
in the gazing at a bright light, so tina
for little season no objects are Visi
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