The great cause of error is imperfect vision. One says, “It
looks so to me,” and therefore he concludes that it is so. He
acts as if it were so. And, if he is mistaken, it may be a
fatal mistake. The color-blind engineer saw the red light, but
it looked green to him. He thought it was a safety signal when
it was a danger signal. He went on and wrecked the train. Was
he to blame? Yes, for if he could not distinguish between red
and green he had no business to run a locomotive. Like him is
the man who, with his prismatic eye, sees certain dogmas in the
Book which God has written. He has persuaded himself that this
danger signal is not red, but green. He insists that it looks so
to him. Is it so, therefore, and is he safe? When we hear men
talk, as we often do, about how it looks to them, and what seems
reasonable to them, we can not help thinking of that color-blind
engineer who wrecked his train.
But what can we do with these “evil” prismatic eyes of ours? We
can not change them into clear and perfect lenses by a wish, or
by one earnest effort. It takes an optician a long time to shape
and polish a lens. And we must be willing to work patiently and
hard to undo the wrong we have done. If there is any suspicion
in our hearts that our eyes are “evil,” we must not rest a
moment. We must test the matter at once by a close and prayerful
study of the truth.--_The Interior._
(481)
=Color, Protective, in Animals=--See CONFORMITY.