Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/37

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that by which the sun's light proves to us both the existence and qualities of the sun. And He has so formed our eye, that while the light of the sun reveals to us the glories of the natural world, it may, by correspondence, image the eye of the spirit, and reveal to us the more divine glories of the eternal world.

Without the eye, nature would be a universal blank to us. The earth, so glorious and so rich in all its Maker's productions, so beautiful in its lawns, and groves, and fields; so majestic in its forests and its glades; so noble in the race who people it, akin to angels, images though defaced of God; all this would be nothing but a universal blank. Darkness—a darkness that, when known, "must be felt"—would cover the whole. To these pleasures the eye introduces us: it ensures our safety, by shewing the obstacles and dangers in our path; it gives us pleasure, by exhibiting the beauty around us. The form, the colour, the reality of every object, if known at all, is known through the medium of the eye. What, then, are the characteristics of the eye of the mind—the spiritual organ of sight? " Let me see thy glory," said Moses: and what did he see? "The Lord Jehovah, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and long-suffering." The eye of His soul was open to perccive the truth, the mercy, and the love of the Creator. The intellect, the mental eye, with what beauties does it not furnish us? The glories of truth, the pleasures of religion, the imaginations of poetry? Without this faculty of the soul, all would be "dark and unfurnished," as the world "ere the spirit of God breathed on its waters," It is this mental eye that exhibits to us the beauties of truth, the consolations of religion, the glories of