The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-01-26
WONDERS OF THE EYE.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON ON THE
SYSTEMS IMPERIAL ORGAN
The Two Great Lights of the Human
Face-How God Honors the Eye-Not
a Blind Giant stumbling Through the
Heavens.

Copyright, Louis KIopsch, 1900
In this discourse DR.. Talmage, in his
own way, calls attention TO that part
of the human body never perhaps dis
coursed upon in the pulpit and chal-
lenges us all TO the study of omnis-
cience; text, Psalm kew, 3, He that
formed the eye. shall he not see?
The imperial organ of the human
system is the eye Ali up n down
the Bible God honors it, extols it, IL
illustrates it or arraigns II. Five hun
dred and thiry-four times is 1T men
toned in the Bible. Omnipresence-
I eyes of the Lord are in every
the eye" The clouds-"the eyelids of
the morning." Irreverence-"the eye
tina mocketh at it's father" Pride
"oh, how lofty are their eyes" mat
tention-"the FOOLS eye in the ends OF
the earth" Divine inspection-"wheels
full of eyes" Suddenness-"in the
twinkling Of an eye at the last trump
OIiyetic sermOn-''the light of the body
is the eye" This mornings text, He
that formed the eye, shall he not see|
The surgeons, the doctors, the anat-
omists and the psychologists under
stand much of the glorieS OF the two
great lights of the human race, but
the vast multitudeS go on from cradle
to grave without any appreciation OF
the two great masterpieces of the LORD
God Almighty. If God had lacked any
thing of infinite wisdom, he would have
failed in creating the human eye. we
wander through the earth trying to see
wonderful sights, but the most wonder
full sight we ever see is not so wonder
full as the instruments hrough Whlch
we see it.
1t has been a strange thing to me
for thirty years that some scientist
with enough ]elouuence and magnetism
did not go through the country with IL
Illustrated lectures on canvas thirty rect
square to startle and thrill and over
whelm Christendom with marVels
of the human eye. We want the eye
taken from all it's ~technicalities and
some one who shall lay aside all a
about the pterygomaxillary assures,
the sclerOtic and the chiaSma of the
optic nerve and in plain, common par
lance which you and l and everybody
can understand present the subject. we
have learned men who have been tell
ing us what DUR origin is and what we
were. Oh, if some one should come
forth from the dissecting table and
from the classroom of the university
and axe the platform and, skiing the
help of the Creator, demonstrate the
wonders of what We are! If l refer to
the physiological facts suggested by
the former part of my text. II is only
to bring out in palmer way the theo-
logical lessons of the latter part of my
text, He that formed the eye, shall
he not See?"
THE WINDOW OF THE SOUL.
/ suppose my text referred to the hu-
e;-oa - a~aa1c oil nfhnrS in
structure and adaptation. The eyes of
fish and reptiles and mOles and bats
are very simple things because they
have not much to do. There are IN
scots with a hundred eyes, but the
hundred eyes have less faculty than
the two human eyes. The black beetle
swimming the summer pond has two
eyes under the water and two eyes
above the water, but the fou insectile
are not equal to the two human Mar
placed at the head of all living crea-
lures must have supreme equipment,
while the blind fish in the Mammoth
cave of Kentucky have only an unde-
veloped eye, which if through some
crevice of the mountain they should go
into the sunlight might be developed
into positive eyeSight.
In. the first chapter of Genesis we
find that God without any
ton created the light, created the
trees, created the fish, created the fowl,
but when he was about ito make man
he called a convention of divinity, as
though to imply that-an the powers of
Godhead were to be enlisted in the
achievement. Let us make man.
Put a hi ton of emphasis on that
word Gus Let us make man" And II
God called a convention of divinity to
create man, 1 think h two great
questions in that conference We're how
to create a soul and how to make an
appropriate window for that mperor
to loo out OF.
See how God honored h eye before
he created it. He cried until chaos
was arradiated with the u~tterance,
Let there be light" In other words,
before he introduced man into this
temple OF the world he illumined 1T,
prepared it for the eyesight. And so
after the last human eye a been de-
stroye in the final demolition of the
world, stars are to fall and the sum is
to cease it's shining and the moon is to
turn into blood. In other words, after
the human eyes are no more to be
profted by their shining the chande-
Tiers of heaven are 10 be turned u
God, to educate and to bless and to
help the human eye, set on the mantel
of heaven two lamps-a gold lamp and
a silver lamp-the for the day and
the other for the night.
HOW GOD HONORS THE EYE.
To show how God honors the eye.
look at the two halls built for the res
idence of the eyes. Seven bones making
the wall for each eye, the seven bones
~curiously wrought together. kingly
palace of ivory is considered rich, but
the halls for the residence OF the hu-
man eyes are richer by so much as hu-
man bone is more sacred than elephan-
tine tusk. See how God nonored n
yes when he made a roof for them, so
that the sweat of toll should not smart
them and h rain dashing against the
forhead might not drip into them; the
eyebrows not bending Owe the eye, but
reaching to the right and to the left
so that the rain and the sweat should
be compelled to drop upon the cheek
instead of falling into this divinely
protected human eyesight-
See how God IGNORED the eye in the
fact presented by anatomists and ply
siologists that there are 500 contri-
vances in every eye. For window shut
tiers, the eyelids opening and closing
so, 600 times a day. The eyelashes so