"HE MAKETH THE BLIND TO SEE."
By Editor
SO did our Saviour. Not by a surgical removal of a film, not by medicine or treatment of any kind, but by His own mighty power. ONE of the many instances is recorded in John 9. By the wayside He passes, with His disciples, a man born blind. Doubtless like any other blind ones he was begging with insistent clamor. "The result of sin," said many of the Pharisees who looked upon affliction of any sort as evidence of transgression and a mark of God's disfavor, while prosperity was proof of righteousness and a mark of God's approval. So poorly had they learned the lesson of their own Scriptures. The same feelings actuated some of the disciples. "Rabbi," said they to Jesus, "who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?" What a horrible doctrine, that before a babe was born it could be adjudged guilty of sin and punished! It was pure Paganism, tho they did not know it. Affliction may be the result of transgression; it is not God's judicial visitation because of sin. "JESUS answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Jesus thus taught the great mercy and love of God. Every afflicted one is an opportunity for the manifestation of the works of God on the part of His people. They may not work mighty miracles, but they can minister to the needs of the suffering ones, and so let the work of God be manifested in them and their ministry. And so Jesus declared: "We must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work. When I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." And even so should His followers be. THEN Jesus spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. "He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing." The world was dead no longer. The dreams, the hopes, the longing of the darkened man had all come true. The Light-giver had come, and the windows of the soul had been opened. WHY did Jesus anoint with clay the eyes of the blind? He healed others with a touch, a word; why did He use the dirt of the street for such a purpose?—He did it out of His mercy and goodness. He met the weak faith of the poor blind man just where it was, and we may infer from our Lord's act (for He does not work meaninglessly) that the blind man had been longing that some one, perhaps Jesus Himself, should put something on his eyes and cause him to see. Jesus met his longing, and anointed his eyes with clay, told the man to wash; and somewhere in the human response of faith the power of God came in and the blind eyes saw. SOUL, do you see the lesson? There are millions of the lower creatures in the cosmos who see in daylight and dark what human eyes, because of the disease of sin, can not see. There are millions of human creatures who are blind to the beauties of God all around them. They do not see the glory of sunlight, the beauty of blue sky, the resplendence of the starry heavens, the beautiful flowers, the sweet low grasses, the majestic trees. They see the outline, they may have a trained, accurate eye to see the shape and the size, but the beauty of God's creative power manifest in His works they do not see. Greed, pleasure, ambition, hides all from a clearer vision which needs the touch of God. BUT there are greater beauties and which more millions of blind people do not see—the beauties of holiness. Eyes spiritually born blind can see no beauty in the righteousness of God, in the meekness and lowliness of Christ. They long for all the results, see no beauty in the way which leads thereto. Humility is to them weakness; self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-abnegation, are foolishness; belief in the saving, creative power of an incarnate God is childish; and the righteousness of the Christ-life is too old-fashioned; and blindly they go on haltingly, stumblingly, to death. Their life may have achieved a little fame; it may have piled up a little of earth's gold; but beyond is the grave, the dark, hopeless, unbeautiful grave, tho it be a mausoleum of whitest marble. Their eyes, yea, the heart's eyes, the soul's eyes, need the touch of Christ to make them see things, not as they seem, but as they are,—to see in the Christ-character the highest of all beauty, to see in the humility, in the giving up of self, in the yielding to the law of God's righteousness, in the placing of one's will, one's self, out into the great current of God's life, where in the heart and character flower and fruit shall spring forth in place of thorn and thistle, wheat in the place of darnel; streams of living water where glimmered over the burning sands the deceitful mirage; where the blessed rain of God's life and the sunshine of His love shall fall perennially, and assure abundant harvest for the glorious, eternal, immortal kingdom beyond. Soul, are you blind to these beauties? Do you desire to see them?—The mighty Healer waits to give you, by His own creative power, eyes that can see.