Page:Language of the Eye.djvu/85

Rh distance and all space, and passes through climes illimitable; and pourtrays to its devotees, distant lands, clashing of arms, the soothing murmur of the western waves, love's holy places, the murky paths of revenge, the seat of sorrow, and mount of hope.

This beautiful organ is one of the spirits of truth, enlightening the spirits of mortals, from the cradle to the grave. Even the clenching hand of death cannot darken this wondrous power, but it is the first spirit to cry out, "Vital spark of heavenly flame;" the first to hear, "Sister spirit, come away." Doubt not, reader, that the eye hears; the sympathy of the senses is undoubted.

The earth, the air, heaven, and all worlds are full of eyes. God's kind eye meets man's eye ten thousand times in a thousand places, and under many and varied circumstances. The sublime volume of revelation is full of eyes; nature is full of eyes; the past, the present, and the future are full of eyes; there is concord of sweet looks for the virtuous, but the selfish and unjust fear to look on the walls of time or in the clouds of eternity. Shakespeare speaks of "the mind's eye;" here, as everywhere, he was correct. There are spectres—spirits, embodied and disembodied—all with eyes. The eternality of sight of the searching One is ever before us; we bow, we shrink, and the proud ones cry for mountains to fall upon them, to hide them from the eye of Almighty power. The child of genius, the hour of despair, the delight of love, the waiting of fear, the burst of joy, the gleam of revenge, the purposes of imagination, and all the towering plans of souls, in time and eternity, are told by the eye.

The eye of genius commands all time—the past and the future are part of its domain, and as it proceeds in its excursions and exercises, amongst its many worlds, it encounters varied visions: it sees Athens full of eyes; the works of