DUST ON YOUR GLASSES by Observer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1878

“DUST ON YOUR GLASSES.”

By Observer

I DON'T often put on glasses to examine Katy’s work; but one morning, not long since, I did so upon entering a room she had been sweeping.

“Did you forget to open the windows when you swept, Katy?” I inquired; “this room is very dusty.”

“I think there is dust on your eye-glasses, ma’am,” she said, modestly. And sure enough, the eye-glasses were at fault, and not Katy. I rubbed them off, and everything looked bright and clean, the carpet like new, and Katy’s face said, “I’m glad it was the glasses, and not me, this time.” This has taught me a good lesson, I said to myself upon leaving the room, and one I shall remember through life.

In the evening Katy came to me with some kitchen trouble. The cook had done so and so, and she had said so and so. When her story was finished I said, smilingly, “There is dust on your glasses, Katy; rub them off, you will see better.” She understood me and left the room.

I told the incident to the children, and it is quite common to hear them say to each other, “Oh, there’s dust on your glasses.” Sometimes I am referred to, “Mamma, Harry has dust on his glasses; can’t he rub them off?”

When I hear a person criticising another, condemning perhaps a course of action he knows nothing about, drawing inferences prejudicial to the person or persons, I think right away, “There’s dust on your glasses, rub it off.” The truth is, everybody wears these very same glasses, only the dust is a little thicker on some than on others, and needs harder rubbing to get it off.

I said this to John one day, some little matter coming up that called forth the remark. “There are some people I wish would begin to rub, then,” said he. “There is Mr. So and So and Mrs. So and So, they are always ready to pick at some one, to slur, to hint, I don’t like them.” “I think my son John has a wee bit on his glasses just now,” he laughed and asked, “What is a body to do?” “Keep your own well rubbed up, and you will not know whether others need it or not.” “I will,” he replied. I think, as a family, we are all profiting by that little incident, and through life will never forget the meaning of—“There is dust on your glasses.”—Observer.