phenomena of gold-tipped clouds, the rainbow tints, and sapphire flaked sky! the grandeur of a star-lit night, with all the lovely objects which dress up nature's garden with Flora's gems of varied-coloured hues, shedding around a sweet perfume, as if to tell us of that world
"Where amaranthine flowers that breathe of love,
And streams that are all mirrors, bloom and flow!"
All these, to the sightless man, are lost in impenetrable blackness. The bestowal of sight, to one born blind, must open to him a new world of transcendent beauty: which would call forth devout gratitude to the Divine Giver, and awaken in the soul a constant love and reverence to Him who came into the world to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, to quicken the dead to life, that so the lame man might leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. (Isa. xxxv. 6.)
When, however, we reflect on the great truth, that all Holy Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is designed to raise our minds above the passing and fading things of time, to an eternal world of imperishable realities; then will the bestowal of sight to this one blind man be no longer confined to him, but will be seen in its true spiritual import, as shadowing forth the operations of Divine Love in restoring to all men that mental sight, so essential to their future happiness, as well as to the increase of their pleasures.
In the true sense of Scripture, every man is born blind; for we come into the world weak, helpless, and ignorant; we are born without knowledge, truth, or wisdom, and thus blind from our birth, for ignorance is mental blindness; but this is not on account of any
