Evening star., 1917-04-01
By William T. Ellis.


In a remote village in the south
land. far away from the main cur
rents of life. I recently met an IN
teresting man. who first attracted
attention because of his resemblance
to the storied pictures Of a pirate.
Unshaven. unkempt, looking out on life
from beneath the lowered brim OF
an old soft hat, he appeared IKE the
heavy villain of a melodrama. YET
it did not take long to discover that
the real interest of Mr.. Blackboard
was in the old. old problem of i'm
mortality and personal responsibility
to an infinite being. He quoted Tor me-
verbatim and at great length, the
newspaper report of a sermon upon the
deathless hope of humanity Further
7 found that he could quote EXTENDED
nassases from the New Testament ana
fugitive poems concerning the problems
of life which have engrossed All the
worlds thinkers. from the beginning
of time to the present hour,
Everywhere we may huu the SAM
unobtrusive interest in the eternal
,nvsteries. Man is man. with capaclty
for a quest after the spiritual ne ne
commotion created in Jerusalem ps
this miracle of the healing Oh .he w.
horn hind is true to life In IL ,"e
people saw not oniy .o .nue of the
sign but also an instance oi
,,.est riddle of sin. Eagerly they
seized upon the Wonder w orker. ~
nossible light upon the
the relation between sin ana sun ei ins
peneath the froth and flash OF sur
ln1Iaas,re-seeking life of today there
sti1I Evolves this old. old question;
over and over again. with tireisss
iteration. let it be said that one OF me
6rst and most obvious lessons taushl
by the life of Jesus ISIS Is '1ae 9ar folks 70 Of
doinr deeds of helpfulness. Noooas IS
Mailing in the footsteps OF Jesus, no
matter how clear his theoiogy or nv
eminent his ecclesiastical posltioh' Mno
10 not busy at the art of being kiho-
intachas i3 are as common about us as
hind beggars In old Jerusalem. YET we
are not permitted to grow accustomed
To them or callous in our feelings con-
cerning them. or
without stopping to speculate upon
whether he belonged to the deserving
noor or not, Jesus undertook to meet
the blind mans most evident need ne
made CLAW of spittle-for so by the use
of means did he provide a crutch for
feeble faith-and sent the man TO
bathe his eyes in the poor VI an,
Not that the man needed elther the cray
anointment or the bath in the pool, put
that he needed to give token of his be-
lief The miracle is told in one snort
sentence; He went away therefore,
and washed and came seeing.
Whereas Jesus saw in the bllnd peg
gar a man needing help, some saw IN
him only a theological perplexity. Had
the man himself sinned. or his parents?
The pettiness of many quibblers In the
presence of a great question remind me
of an experience I had at the seashore
last summer. l was fishing in the surf
for channel bass, when small boy
came along with the inevitable ques-
ton, Catch anything, mister No; not
vet Well, l can tell you where you
can catch plenty. Right over there by
the boardwalk there is a little pool and
it's Just full of minnies." l thanked the
lad but did not tell him that | was
batting with a fish that could swallow
dozen of his minnows. and that | was
after bass weighing thirty, forty or
fifty pounds. In the fashion of the
small boy. some of us talk in terms of
minnowS. when the real objective is big
fish-fghting fish.
Like grief-crazed parents who cannot
see in the death of a child anything but
personal hostility TO them on the part
of God so these bystanders, with their
concrete thinking. were sure that the
somebody's sin was the Immediate
cause of this mans blindness. Indubi-
tably, sin is often followed by suffer