Sight and hearing depend upon the organic state of the eye and ear, those instruments through which the soul sees and hears. Some people are blind to certain colors; some are deaf to certain sounds. There are, indeed, sounds too high or too low to be heard by our ears. The same is no doubt analogically true of colors.
There is a spiritual blindness in which no ray of truth can be discerned; a spiritual deafness in which the voice of God is unregarded. There are spiritual thoughts which have never come within the range of our vision; spiritual harmonies which have never fallen upon our ear. There lies about us, indeed, a vast, invisible, inaudible universe full of spiritual beauty and glory. Our natural eye does not respond to the undulations of its ether; our natural ear does not catch the vibrations of its air. We scarcely credit its existence.
Our spiritual ears, which will be permanently opened at death, may be opened while living, and the voices of angels made audible. The spiritual hearing may be opened whilst the spiritual sight is closed and vice versâ. The little child Samuel heard with his spiritual ear the voice of the Lord, which did not reach the hearing of the listening Eli.
