Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-23

optic nerve ana tear Sla0Q; also the
blind man Of Bethsaida, cured by the
saliva which the surgeon took from
the tip of his own tongue and put upon
the eyeIidS; also two blind men who
sat by the wayside. In our civilized
lands we have blindness enough, the
ratio fearfully increasing, according to
the statement of European and Ameri-
can OculistS, because Of the reading Of
morning and evening newspapers on
the jolting cars by the multitudes who
live out of the city and come in to bust
ness. But in the lands where this di-
vine surgeon operated the cases of
blindness were multiplied beyond ev-
erything by the particles of sand float
ing in the air and the night dews fall
ing ON the eyelids of those who slept on
the top of their houses, and in some Of
these lands it is estimated that 20 out
of 100 people are totally blind. Amid
all that crowd of viSiOnleSS people,
what work for an oculist! And 1 do
not believe that more than one out of
hundred of that surgeons cures was
reported. He went up and down among
those people who were feeling slowly
their way by staff, or led by the hand
of man or rope of dog, and introducing
them to the faces of their own house
hold, to the sunrise and the sunset and
the evening star. He just ran his hand
over the expressionless face, and the
shutters of both windows were swung
open, and the restored went home cry
ing: 81 see! L see! Thank God, see"
That is the oculist we all need. Till
he touches our eyes we are blind. Yea,
we were born blind. By nature we see
things wrong, if we see them at all.
Our best eternal interests are put be-
fore us, and we cannot see them. The
glories Of a loving and pardoning
Christ are projected, and we do not be-
hold them. Or we have a defective
sight which makes the things of this
world larger than the things of the flu
ture, time bigger than eternity. Or we
are color blind and cannot see the diff
ference between the blackness of dark
ness forever and the roseate morning
Of an everlasting day. But Christ the
Surgeon comes in, and though we
shrink back afraid to have him touch
us, yet he puts his fingers on the closed
eyelids of the soul and midnight be-
comes midnOon, and we understand
something Of the joy of the young man
of the Bible who, though he had never
before been able to see his hand before
his face, now by the touch Of Christ
had two headlights kindled under his
brow, cried out in language that con-
founded the jeering crowd who were
deriding the Christ that had effected
the cure and wanted to make him out
a bad man, "Whether he be a sinner
or no l know not. One thing [ know,
that whereas I was blind, now I see."
The Deaf Hear.
But this surgeon was just as wonder
full as an aurist. Very few people have
two good ears. Nine out of ten people
are particular to get on this or that
side Of you when they sit or walk or
ride with you, because they have one
disabled ear. Many have both ears
damaged, and what with the constant
racket of our great cities and the ca
tarrhal troubles that sweep through
the land, it is remarkable that there
are any good ears at all. Most wonder
full instrument is the human ear. 1t is
harp and drum and telegraph and tele-
phone and whispering gallery all in
one. So delicate and wOndrous is its
construction that the most difficult OF
all things to reconstruct is the auditory
apparatus. The mightiest scientists
have put their skill to its returning, and
sometimes they stop the progress of its
decadence or remove temporary OBJ
structions, but not more than one real
ly deaf ear out Of 100000 is ever cured.
cd 10 10 no md
takes a God to mend it. That makes
me curious to see how Christ the Sur
geon succeeds as an aurist
We are told of only two cases he OPP
Grated on as an ear surgeon. His
friend Peter, naturally high tempered,
saw Christ insulted by q man by the
name of Malchus, and Peter let his
sword fly, aiming at the mans head,
but the sword slipped and hewed off
the outside ear, and our surgeon touch
ed the laceration and another ear
bloomed in the place Of the one that
had been slashed away. But it is not
the outside ear that hears. That is
only a funnel for gathering sound and
pouring it into the hidden and more
elaborate ear. On the beach Of Lake
Galilee our surgeon found a man deaf
and dumb. The patient dWelt in per-
petual silence and was speechless. He
could not hear a note Of music or a
clap of Ehunder. He could not call ia
Their or mother or wife or children by
name. What power can waken that
dull tympanum or reach that chain of
small bones or revive that auditory
nerve or open the gate between the
brain and the outside world? The sur
geon put his fingers in the deaf ears
and agitated them and kept on agitat-
ing them until the vibration gave vital