Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/89

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false, the Lord is with him, and leads him to see the consequences to which evil tends, if not renounced. Those evils which are external, are first discovered, and means provided for their expulsion. On the removal of these, evils of a more interior kind are made manifest, and means provided for their subjugation: and lastly, evils deeply concealed are discovered; and these, too, have their appropriate remedies provided: and thus is man led, instructed, and preserved by the Divine Providence in every trial and every state during his progress in the regenerate life. The Lord never leaves him; He watches over, protects, and preserves him as the apple of his eye.

To see the force and beauty of this comparison, it is necessary, for a moment, to note the provisions which the Divine Being has appointed for the preservation of the organ of sight. Of these, none combines so many uses within itself as the EYE-LID. It assists the iris and the eye-brows in moderating the excess of light; it covers the eye during sleep; it defends it by its sudden closure from injurious particles, such as dust, which are constantly floating in the air; it keeps the eye moist by the motion of nictation, and diffuses over the ball of the eye that fluid which is secreted for the purpose, and which is, in the lachrymal gland, the fountain of tears. And in order to prevent any grains of dust, or other particles, which might, notwithstanding the above precautions, fall into the eye, from getting behind the ball, and there generating disease, it is arranged that the conjunctive membrane, which covers the fore part of the eye, shall also, by turning back, form the inner lining of the eyelid, It is a most acutely sensitive membrane, a cir-