204. The Eye

The Eye

Psa_94:9 : ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94

The imperial organ of the human system is the eye. All up and down the Bible God honors it, extols it, illustrates it, or arraigns it. Five hundred and thirty-four times is it mentioned in the Bible. Omnipresence’97’94the eyes of the Lord are in every place.’94 Divine care’97’94as the apple of the eye.’94 The clouds’97’94the eyelids of the morning.’94 Irreverence’97’94the eye that mocketh at its father.’94 Pride’97’94oh, how lofty are their eyes.’94 Inattention’97’94the fool’92s eye in the ends of the earth.’94 Divine inspection’97’94wheels full of eyes.’94 Suddenness’97’94in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump.’94 Olivetic sermon’97’94the light of the body is the eye.’94 This morning’92s text: ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94

The surgeons, the doctors, the anatomists, and the physiologists understand much of the glories of the two great lights of the human face; but the vast multitudes go on from cradle to grave without any appreciation of the two great masterpieces of the Lord God Almighty. If God had lacked anything of infinite wisdom he would have failed in creating the human eye. We wander through the earth trying to see wonderful sights, but the most wonderful sight that we ever see is not so wonderful as the instruments through which we see it.

It has been a strange thing to me for thirty years that some scientist with enough eloquence and magnetism did not go through the country with illustrated lecture on canvas thirty feet square, to startle and thrill and overwhelm Christendom with the marvels of the human eye. Putting it on the worldly and the lowest ground, there is a fortune awaiting any such competent demonstrator. We want the eye taken from all its technicalities and some one who shall lay aside all talk about the pterygomaxillary fissures, the sclerotica, and the chiasma of the optic nerve, and in plain, common parlance which you and I and everybody can understand, present the subject. We have learned men who have been telling us what our origin is and what we were. Oh, if some one would come forth from the dissecting-table and from the classroom of the university and take the platform, and, asking the help of the Creator, demonstrate the wonders of what we are. If I refer to the physiological facts suggested by the former part of my text, it is only to bring out in plainer way the theological lessons of the latter part of my text. ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94

I suppose my text referred to the human eye, since it excels all others in structure and in adaptation. The eyes of fish and reptiles and moles and bats are very simple things, because they have not much to do. There are insects with a score of eyes, but the twenty eyes have less faculty than the two human eyes. The black beetle swimming the summer pond has two eyes under the water and two eyes above the water, but the four insectile are not equal to the two human. Man placed at the head of all living creatures must have supreme equipment, while the blind fish in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky have only an undeveloped organ of sight, an apology for the eye, which, if through some crevice of the mountain they should go into the sunlight, might be developed into positive eyesight.

In the first chapter of Genesis we find that God, without any consultation, created the light, created the trees, created the fish, created the fowl, but when he was about to make man he called a convention of divinity, as though to imply that all the powers of Godhead were to be enlisted in the achievement. ’93Let us make man.’94 Put a whole ton of emphasis on that word ’93us.’94 ’93Let us make man.’94 And if God called a convention of divinity to create man, I think the two great questions in that conference were how to create a soul and how to make an appropriate window for the emperor to look out of.

See how God honored the eye before he created it. He cried until chaos was irradiated with the utterance: ’93Let there be light!’94 In other words, before he introduced man into this temple of the world, he illumined it, prepared it for the eyesight. And so after the last human eye has been destroyed in the final demolition of the world, stars are to fall and the sun is to cease its shining, and the moon is to turn into blood. In other words, after the human eyes are no more to be profited by their shining, the chandeliers of heaven are to be turned out. God, to educate and to bless and to help the human eye, set on the mantel of heaven two lamps’97a gold lamp and a silver lamp’97the one for the day and the other for the night.

To show how God honors the eye, look at the two halls built for the residence of the eyes; seven bones making the wall for each eye, the seven bones curiously wrought together. Kingly palace of ivory is considered rich, but the halls for the residence of the human eyes are richer by so much as human bone is more sacred than elephantine tusk. See how God honored the eyes when he made a roof for them, so that the sweat of toil should not smart them, and the rain dashing against the forehead might not drip into them; the eyebrows not bending over the eye, but reaching to the right and to the left so that the rain and the sweat should be compelled to drop upon the cheek, instead of falling into this divinely protected human eyesight.

See how God honored the eye in the fact presented by anatomists and physiologists that there are eight hundred contrivances in every eye. For window-shutters, the eyelids opening and closing thirty thousand times a day. The eyelashes so constructed that they have their selection as to what shall be admitted, saying to the dust, ’93Stay out,’94 and saying to the light, ’93Come in.’94 For inside curtain the iris, or pupil of the eye, according as the light is greater or less, contracting or dilating. The eye of the owl is blind in the daytime, the eyes of some creatures are blind at night, but the human eye is so marvelously constructed it can see both by day and by night.

Many of the other creatures of God can move the eye only from side to side, but the human eye, so marvelously constructed, has one muscle to lift the eye and another muscle to lower the eye, and another muscle to roll it to the right, and another muscle to roll it to the left, and another muscle passing through a pulley to turn it round and round’97an elaborate gearing of six muscles as perfect as God could make them.

There also is the retina, gathering the rays of light and passing the visual impression on to the sensorium and on into the soul. What a delicate lens, what an exquisite screen, what soft cushions, what wonderful chemistry of the human eye. The eye washed by a slow stream of moisture whether we sleep or wake, rolling imperceptibly over the pebble of the eye and emptying into a bone of the nostril; the eye a contrivance so wonderful that it can see the sun, ninety-five millions of miles away, and the point of a pin. Telescope and microscope in the same contrivance. The astronomer swings and moves this way and that, and adjusts and readjusts the telescope until he gets it to the right focus; the microscopist moves this way and that, and adjusts and readjusts the magnifying glass until it is prepared to do its work, but the human eye, without a touch, beholds the star and the smallest insect. The traveler among the Alps with one glance taking in Mont Blanc and the face of his watch to see whether he has time to climb it. Oh, this wonderful camera-obscura which you and I carry about with us, so today we can take in this audience, so from the top of Mount Washington we can take in New England, so at night we can sweep into our vision the constellations from horizon to horizon. So delicate, so semi-infinite, and yet the light coming ninety-five millions of miles at the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, is obliged to halt at the gate of the eye, waiting until the portcullis be lifted. Something hurled ninety-five millions of miles and striking an instrument which has not the agitation of even winking under the power of the stroke.

There, also, is the merciful arrangement of the tear-gland by which the eye is washed and through which rolls the tide which brings relief that comes in tears when some bereavement or great loss strikes us. The tear not an augmentation of sorrow, but the breaking up of the Arctic of frozen grief in the warm Gulf Stream of consolation. Incapacity to weep is madness or death. Thank God for the tear-glands and that the crystal gates are so easily opened.

Oh, the wonderful hydraulic apparatus of the human eye. Divinely constructed vision. Two lighthouses at the harbor of the immortal soul, under the shining of which the world sails in and drops anchor. What an anthem of praise to God is the human eye! The tongue is speechless and a clumsy instrument of expression as compared with it. Have you not seen it flash with indignation, or kindle with enthusiasm, or expand with devotion, or melt with sympathy, or stare with fright, or leer with villainy, or droop with sadness, or pale with envy, or fire with revenge, or twinkle with mirth, or beam with love? It is tragedy and comedy and pastoral and lyric in turn. Have you not seen its uplifted brow of surprise, or its frown of wrath, or its contraction of pain? If the eye say one thing and the lips say another thing, you believe the eye rather than the lips. The eyes of Archibald Alexander and Charles S. Finney were the mightiest part of their sermon. George Whitefield enthralled great assemblages with his eyes, though they were crippled with strabismus. Many a military chieftain has with a look hurled a regiment to victory or to death. Martin Luther turned his great eye on an assassin who came to take his life, and the villain fled. Under the glance of the human eye the tiger, with five times a man’92s strength, snarls back into the African jungle.

But those best appreciate the value of the eye who have lost it. The Emperor Adrian by accident put out the eye of his servant, and he said to his servant, ’93What shall I pay you in money, or in lands? Anything you ask me; I am so sorry I put your eye out.’94 But the servant refused to put any financial estimate on the value of the eye, and when the emperor urged and urged again the matter, he said: ’93O Emperor, I want nothing but my lost eye.’94 Alas for those for whom a thick and impenetrable veil is drawn across the face of the heavens and the face of one’92s own kindred. That was a pathetic scene when a blind man lighted a torch at night ’93and was found passing along the highway, and some one said, ’93Why do you carry that torch when you can’92t see?’94 ’93Ah!’94 said he, ’93I can’92t see, but I carry this torch that others may see me and pity my helplessness and not run me down.’94 Samson, the giant, with his eyes put out of the Philistines is more helpless than the smallest dwarf with vision undamaged. All the sympathies of Christ were stirred when he saw Bartimeus with darkened retina, and the only salve he ever made that we read of was a mixture of dust and saliva, and a prayer with which he cured the eyes of a man blind from his nativity.

The value of the eye shown as much by its catastrophe as by its healthful action. Ask the man who for twenty years has not seen the sunrise. Ask the man who for half a century has not seen the face of a friend. Ask in the hospital the victim of ophthalmia. Ask the man whose eyesight perished in a powder blast. Ask the Bartimeus who never met a Christ, or the man born blind who is to die blind. Ask him.

The Earl of Bridgewater in his last will and testament bequeathed $40,000 for essays to be written on the power and wisdom and goodness of God as manifested in creation, and Sir Charles Bell, the British surgeon, fresh from Corunna and Waterloo, where he had been tending the wounded and studying the formation of the human body amid the amputating horrors of the battlefield, accepted the invitation to write one of those Bridgewater treatises, and he wrote his book on the human hand, a book that will live as long as the world lives. In my imperfect way, I have only hinted at the splendors, the glories, the wonders, the divine revelations, the apocalypses of the human eye, and I stagger back from the awful portals of the physiological miracle which must have taxed the ingenuity of a God, to cry out in your ears the words of my text: ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94 Shall Herschel not know as much as his telescope? Shall Fraunhofer not know as much as his spectroscope? Shall Swammerdam not know as much as his microscope? Shall Dr. Hooke not know as much as his micrometer? Shall the thing formed know more than its maker? ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94

The recoil of this question is tremendous. We stand at the centre of a vast circumference of observation. No privacy. On us, eyes of cherubim, eyes of seraphim, eyes of archangel, eyes of God. We may not be able to see the inhabitants of other worlds, but perhaps they may be able to see us. We have not optical instruments strong enough to descry them; perhaps they have optical instruments strong enough to descry us. The mole cannot see the eagle mid air, but the eagle mid-sky can see the mole mid grass. We are able to see mountains and caverns of another world; but perhaps the inhabitants of other worlds can see the towers of our cities, the flash of our seas, the marching of our processions, the white robes of our weddings, the black scarfs of our obsequies. It passes out from the guess into the positive, when we are told in the Bible that the inhabitants of other worlds do come to this. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation?

But human inspection and angelic inspection and stellar inspection and lunar inspection and solar inspection are tame as compared with the thought of divine inspection. ’93You converted me twenty years ago,’94 said a black man to my father. ’93How so?’94 said my father. ’93Twenty years ago,’94 said the other, ’93in the old schoolhouse prayer-meeting at Bound Brook, you said in your prayer, ’91Thou God seest me,’92 and I had no peace under the eye of God until I became a Christian.’94 Hear it: ’93The eyes of the Lord are in every place.’94 ’93His eyelids try the children of men.’94 ’93His eyes were as a flame of fire.’94 ’93I will guide thee with mine eye.’94 Oh, the eye of God, so full of pity, so full of power, so full of love, so full of indignation, so full of compassion, so full of mercy. How it peers through the darkness; how it outshines the day; how it glares upon the offender; how it beams on the penitent soul. Talk about the human eye as being indescribably wonderful; how much more wonderful the great, searching, overwhelming eye of God! All eternity past and all eternity to come on that retina. The eyes with which we look into each other’92s face today suggest it. It stands written twice on your face and twice on mine, unless through casualty one or both have been obliterated. ’93He that formed the eye shall he not see?’94 Oh, the eye of God! It sees our sorrows to assuage them; sees our perplexities to disentangle them; sees our wants to sympathize with them. If we fight him back, the eye of an antagonist; if we ask his grace, the eye of an everlasting friend.

You often find in a book or manuscript a star calling your attention to a footnote or explanation. That star the printer calls an asterisk. But all the stars of the night-heavens are asterisks, calling your attention to God, an all observing God. Our every nerve a divine handwriting; our every muscle a pulley divinely swung; our every bone sculptured with divine suggestiveness; our every eye a reflection of the divine eye. God above us and God beneath us and God before us and God behind us and God within us. What a stupendous thing to live! What a stupendous thing to die! No such thing as hidden transgression.

A dramatic advocate in olden times at night in a court-room, persuaded of the innocence of his client, charged with murder, and of the guilt of the witness who was trying to swear the poor man’92s life away’97 that advocate took up two bright lamps and thrust them close up to the face of the witness and cried: ’93May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury, behold the murderer!’94 and the man practically under that awful glare, confessed that he was the criminal instead of the man arraigned at the bar. Our most hidden sin is under a brighter light than that; it is under the burning eye of God.

He is not a blind giant stumbling through the heavens; he is not a blind monarch feeling for the step of his chariot. Are you wronged? He sees it. Are you poor? He sees it. Have you domestic perturbation of which the world knows nothing? He sees it. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93my affairs are so insignificant I can’92t realize that God sees me and sees my affairs.’94 Can you see the point of a pin? Can you see the eye of a needle? Can you see a mote in the sunbeam? And has God given you that power of minute observation and does he not possess it himself? ’93He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’94

But you say, ’93God is in one world and I am in another world; he seems so far off from me I don’92t really think he sees what is going on in my life.’94 Can you see the sun ninety-five million miles away? And do you not think God has as prolonged vision? But you say, ’93There are phases of my life and there are colors, shades of color in my annoyances and my vexations that I don’92t think God can understand.’94 Does not God gather up all the colors and all the shades of color in the rainbow? And do you suppose there is any phase or any shade in your life that he has not gathered up in his own heart?

Beside that, I want to tell you it will soon all be over, this struggle. That eye of yours, so exquisitely fashioned and strung and hinged and roofed, will before long close in the last slumber. Loving hands will smooth down the silken fringes. So he giveth his beloved sleep. A legend of St. Frotobert is that his mother was blind, and he was so sorely pitiful for the misfortune that one day in sympathy he kissed her eyes, and by miracle she saw everything. But it is not a legend when I tell you that all the blind eyes of the Christian dead under the kiss of the resurrection morn shall gloriously open. Oh, what a day that will be for those who went groping through this world under perpetual obscuration, or were dependent on the hand of a friend, or with an uncertain staff felt their way; and for the aged of dim sight, about whom it might be said that ’93they which look out of the windows be darkened,’94 when eternal daybreak comes in.

What a beautiful epitaph that was for a tombstone in a European cemetery: ’93Here reposes in God, Katrina, a saint, eighty-five years of age and blind. The light was restored to her May 10, 1840.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage