p. 13 | USE YOUR EYES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 11, 1899

USE YOUR EYES.

MOST boys know the name of Charles Kingsley, the poet and scientist, and lover of all that is beautiful and true.

In the preface to one of his books for children he tells us how he learned to use his eyes, and all the senses that God had given him, to learn the wonderful lessons that God was trying to teach him continually by them. When he was a boy he had a book called "Evenings at Home," in which was a story called "Eyes and No Eyes." It began thus:—

"Well, Robert, where have you been walking this afternoon?" said Mr. Andrews to one of his pupils at the close of a holiday.

O—Robert had been to Broom Heath, and round by Camp Mount, and home through the meadows. But it was very dull. He had much rather have gone by the turnpike road.

Presently in comes Master William, the other pupil, and terribly wet and dirty he is. But he never had such a pleasant walk in his life; and he had brought home his handkerchief full of curiosities.

He has got a piece of mistletoe, and wants to know what it is; and he has seen a woodpecker, and a wheat-ear, and gathered strange flowers on the heath, and hunted a peewit, because he thought its wing was broken, till of course it led him into a bog, and very wet he got. But he did not mind it, because he fell in with an old man cutting turf, who told him all about turf-cutting, and gave him a dead adder.

And then he went up a hill, and saw a grand prospect; and because the hill was called Camp Mount, he looked for a Roman camp and found one; and then he went down to the river, and saw twenty things more; and so on, and so on, till he had brought home curiosities enough, and thoughts enough, to last him a week.

Whereon Mr. Andrews, who seems to have been a very sensible old gentleman, tells him all about his curiosities. And then it comes out—if you will believe it—that Master William has been over the very same ground as Master Robert, who saw nothing at all.

Whereon, Mr. Andrews says wisely: "So it is. One man walks through the world with his eyes open, another with his eyes shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge which one man acquires over another. While many a vacant, thoughtless youth is whirled through Europe without gaining a single idea worth crossing the street for, the observing eye and inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in every ramble. You, then, William, continue to use your eyes. And you, Robert, learn that eyes were given to you to use."

Mr. Kingsley continues:—

"So said Mr. Andrews; and so say I, dear boys, to you. I beg all good boys among you to think over this story, and settle in their own minds whether they will be eyes or no eyes."

I say "good boys," not merely clever boys or prudent boys; because using your eyes or not using them is a question of doing right or doing wrong. God has given you eyes; it is your duty to God to use them. If your parents tried to teach you your lessons in the most agreeable way, by beautiful picture-books, would it not be ungracious, ungrateful, and altogether naughty and wrong, to shut your eyes to those pictures and refuse to learn?

And is it not altogether naughty and wrong to refuse to learn from your Father in heaven, the great God who made all things, when He offers to teach you all day long by the most beautiful and most wonderful of all picture-books, which is simply all things which you can see, hear, and touch, from the sun and stars above your head to the mosses and insects at your feet?

God's book, which is the universe, and the reading of God's book, which is science, can do you nothing but good, and teach you nothing but truth and wisdom. So use your eyes and your intellect, your senses and your brains, and learn what God is trying to teach you continually by them.

I do not mean that you must stop there, and learn nothing more. Anything but that. There are things which neither your senses nor your brains can tell you; and they are not only more glorious, but actually more true and real, than any things which you can see or touch. But you must begin at the beginning in order to end at the end, and sow the seed if you wish to gather the fruit.

God has ordained that you, and every child which comes into the world, should begin by learning something of the world about him by his senses and his brain; and the better you learn what they can teach you, the more fit you will be to learn what they can not teach you.—Present Truth.