The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-25
DISCOURSE ON
 HELEN KELLAR'SLlFE
fconcluded.l

find no light on immortality! What child's play all these attempts to prove that there is another life! So long as Helen Kellar's optic nerve Is dead, you may work for J0.00o,000 years to give her physical proof of Raphaeis picture, and you will absolutely fail. The reason why God tells us nothing about Heaven
 and the future life Is because 1t Is a
 scientific impossibility to give 1t, and for
 blind girl you cannot paint a picture
 in terms of physical occupations and
 physical arts. You cannot interpret phys
 ical occupations in spiritual arts. In his
 nobler mood, John thought he caught a
 glimpse. He said that all music should
 report itself in that immortal life, all
 elouuence, all heroism. all fruits and
 flowers. all cool fountains and rivers,
 that the streets should be paved as 1t
 were with gold. In painting the picture he dips the palette in his own heart. The colors are taken from experience. But when he is through he says Heaven will
 he like that, only infinitely better. But 1t is all just as the teachers try to de-
 scribe the kingdoms of sound and color 10 Helen Kellar. Only fer poor nerves
 are dead. Meanwhile, Heaven lies all about us, in our age and in our infancy. We can only say of the future, with
 Helen Kellar, Eye hath not seen, nor car heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things that God hath prepared for them that | love Him.
 The Hour When New Kingdom is Opened Up.
 From Helen Kellar's experience. how easy it Is to understand those great hours when Jacob and Saul and Augus- | tine and Luther and Milton saw the vision splendid. The mountain peak hours are l hours of revelation. The great event is | the event when we first enter the glory of new experience. and look out upon | realm that hitherto is hidden. What a moment was that when through the | electric signal for this blind girl certain | waves of color that could not report them
 selves to the eyes that were mass of ruins, did report themselves to the optic | nerve at point near the brain, so that the blind child exclaimed, T see, I see many colors." And on the bread of that sight went singing for many days. What uplift in vision! The whole world was | changed In the hour when Charles Dar- win at last saw that all the world was marching upward. that the keynote was l development and growth. Now we under stand Isaac Newton's agitation. in the moment when he discerned that his com putations would probably be correct, but | in that hour his hands did so tremble with joy and excitement that he could l not hold the pencil, and the philosopher asked others to complete the proof that | tho sun was a center, drawing the other 1 planets round about 1t. We are told that | when Field had completed his cable and
 in the presence of the directors the oper- | ator gave the signal and waited for the response, that the great inventors face | went white as marble and that while the | spectators went uncovered the strong | man bowed his head upon the table to | conceal the emotion and joy that ravished his soul. When those miners in Colorado | were buried alive, one day a boy in a | field thought he heard a tapping on a l deserted iron tubing. Going for help men 1 came and decided that the miners were l alive. Quickly an electric wire was brought over the mountain. A bulb was | lowered so that the miners had electric light. Food was sent down; messages
 Of love from the miners families. One
 miner knew little of telegraphy and so at last communication was established. There was a sensitive wire, and these It. tie signals, giving the news of the life of these men, who for days had been supposed to be dead, filled the whole
 camp with riot of joy and thanksgiv- i Ing. And Is It nothing that at last some 1 nerve in man responds to the signals that come from the hi..Ierto unseen and | unknown God? It is little thing for young Jacob that Heaven seems near to him, m the hour of repentance and pray
 CT and forgiveness? So near that a lad
 der could reach from earth to Heaven, | and that angels could come and go? Is
 It little thing that David prays, "Open Thou mine eyes that I may read Thy
 law?' Is 1t a little thing that Raphael
 cries. 'Open Thou my taste that 1 may
 behold ideal beauty" Is 1t little thing
 that Bacon cries. "Open Thou mine eyes | that I may behold Thy truth?" Is it a
 little thing that Milton prays, Open | Thou mine cars that l may hear the sev-
 enfold hallelujah chorus?' Is 1t a strange
 thing that Augustine and Monica sit in
 that window at Ostium asking. not that
 the Heavens may be opened, but that
 their eyes may have power to see? Oh,
 Ii is great thing that Jesus Christ said | to men with dead hearts and blind eyes
 and deaf ears, ''Ye may be born again. ''
 Those atrophied nerves. these poor par l alyzed senses. may be flushed with