THE WONDERS OF THE EYE.
Madame Tube had been relieved from great suffering, she was now
comparatively at her ease; but it was not in the power of her benevolent
friends to relieve her from bodily suffering, nor to restore Raphael's
sight. What an inestimable blessing is health, and how seldom is its
value acknowledged until it is lost.
As for Madelaine, she enjoyed perfect health, which she chiefly owed to
her habits of early rising, cleanliness, and activity. She left nothing
undone to comfort her mother in her suffering, and to cheer her brother;
and for this she had a constant resource in her Bible, the magnificent
promises and heavenly consolations of which, soothed and comforted her
mother, while Raphael was edified and delighted by the beautiful
histories and parables that were read to him.
One day, when she had just finished reading the miracle of the blind man
receiving sight, she said, "Ah! Raphael, I would go to the end of the
earth, if I could obtain that blessing for you."
"But I would not let you go," he replied, "you must never leave us
again, and besides I cannot fancy that sight is such a _very_
precious thing--describe to me what it is."
"I will explain it as well as I can," answered a stranger, who had
entered unperceived, with the king's minister. Raphael was going to run
behind the stove, but the minister prevented him. "Stay, my dear boy,"
he said, kindly, "this gentleman is the king's physician, and he wishes
to be of use to you and your mother, it is with that view he has come
here."
"You wish to know what sight is, my boy," said the doctor. "The wisest
men cannot tell exactly, but I will try to explain it to you in some
degree. The eye is most wonderfully formed, it resembles a round mirror,
on which, all objects, whether near or distant, are reflected--this
mirror is called the crystal, and is scarcely so large as a cherry
stone, and yet the largest objects as well as the smallest, are exactly
reflected on it; for example, our cathedral, with its fine towers, its
doors, and windows; how impossible would it be for the most skillful
painter to represent these on so small a space as the pupil of the eye;
but God has so formed that wonderful organ, that it can receive the
reflection of the whole in an instant."
"How wonderful!" exclaimed both mother and daughter, who had listened
with much greater interest than Raphael, who could not understand what
was said in the least.
"But why is it," asked Madelaine, taking courage, "that my brother
cannot see? Why are not objects reflected upon his eyes as they are upon
ours?"
"My child," replied the doctor, "light is a necessary condition for
sight, and this is what your brother's eyes want, because there is a
thick skin formed over them, which excludes all light." The physician
then examined Raphael's eyes carefully, and found the cataract (as this
skin is called) nearly ripe.
"My advice," he said to Madame Tube, "is, that you and your son should
go, as soon as the weather is warm enough, to Toeplitz for the benefit
of the baths, which will be of much service to you both; and I shall see
you there in the course of the summer."
The poor family warmly thanked the physician, and the king's minister,
who then took leave, the latter promising to provide means for the
proposed journey.