2
Take another case. A child of tender years has been stricken down by malignant fever. After weeks of anxious prayer and watching the glimmering of reason is perceived again. The dear child's voice, so long disguised in delirium, has found itself once more, and talks of childish things; the blue eyes are open, themselves again. Over him the mother bends with grateful heart; she kisses the precious lips, and murmurs words of love. But, hush! Why are the corners working of the little mouth? What, the while, is that piteous little voice saying? "Mother, darling, do speak to me; do sing to me." "Yes, my boy; what shall I sing?" "Mother, why don't you answer? Why do your lips move, and I can't hear? O mother, mother, why is it all so quiet?"
Do you who read pity that burst of mother's anguish, and that child's still wonderment, which reveal the truth —Deaf; soon to be Dumb! It is the old story again, but for help from without; gradually, while the mother watches and weeps, that little voice fades away like a dying echo, until the childish prattle is hushed as in the grave: and in this sorrowful world of ours there is one more heart vacant, and one more life sad. God's will be done.
Only, let us be quite sure what God's will is. His will—if He reveals it through the working of the mind He gave us, and we are sure He does,—His will is, that these dear children of His and ours, whether they be born deaf or rendered so by sickness, should not for that reason be estranged from their fellow men.
They are Deaf, indeed, but we may teach them to read our moving lips, and thus reach, undistorted, our spoken thoughts.
And, except through lack of culture, they are not Dumb, for they may be trained, in the one case to make use of, in the other not to lose the power of speech, which mere deafness does not destroy: both may acquire our spoken language, and may join therefore in our thoughts and pursuits, and share, through God's goodness, in our pleasures.
