My "Little Bit"

You, whose eyes are able to read these tragic lines of blind John Milton, can you realise what they mean? Do you feel to the innermost core of your heart the blackness of that “eclipse without all hope of day,” which like a never-lifting cloud envelopes those from whom the blessing of sight has been taken for ever! Can you, even by the utmost exertion of your imagination, truly grasp what it would mean to you if all light and colour were blotted out from your consciousness, and you had to rely on a merciful guiding hand to lead you to and fro, to hold you lest you stumbled, and conduct you from places of business or pleasure safely back to your home? If you could not see beloved faces?—if the sunlight could never again reach those poor closed channels of the vision you once enjoyed?—if the skies, the lovely country, the woods and the ocean were all glories that should never again gladden your sight?—if this were so, would you not pray to God that being thus handicapped He would at least give you friends? Friends who would be eyes to you, hands to you—who would cheer you in dreadful moments of depression blacker than blindness, and who would help you to find occupation and train you to do useful work, although sightless, so that the days and years should not be so fraught with monotony and dull regret; and that life, after all, should not seem a barren and empty thing?

You have heard of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for soldiers and sailors blinded in the war? It is now one of earth’s “Holy Places”—holy because the benediction of heaven has made it a sanctuary—a sanctuary of love, patience, self-sacrifice and untiring devotion—holy, because the patiently endured martyrdom of a brave man has been and is its spiritual foundation. Sir Arthur Pearson—(some of you do not know it or think of it)—is himself blind. And what makes his sorrow darker for him, is that he has known all the blessings of perfect sight—he has enjoyed all the activities of an eager and vigorous life, and is still in the prime of manhood. “How sad for him!” murmurs the conventional Society voice—“Such a drawback!” Yes, how sad!—but what gladness for others he gathers from his own handicap!—what splendid results have sprung from his “drawback!”—what sunshine pours from the cloud of his night! The American essayist, Emerson, in advising one stricken with adversity, writes, “Be like the wounded oyster, mend your shell with a pearl!” With what a pearl of great price has Arthur Pearson mended his life’s wound! Knowing the bitterness of blindness, he has devoted all his energies to the care of the blind and to the lightening of their darkness, especially to those heroes who, in the very hey-day of their youth and manliness have gone unhesitatingly forth to face the foe in this wickedest of wars, and have been blinded by shot and shell explosions, losing all sense of vision in one cruel moment—a moment that rings down the curtain on all scenes and faces for ever! Shall we not, with all our hearts, help the sublime cause of “love to our neighbours,” and consolation to our self-sacrificing soldiers and sailors, taught to us by the example of this Englishman who does not protest, but lives his Christian faith in a manner that Christ must surely approve? It would be trespassing on sacred ground to presume to guess how much heavenly light has been mystically shed on his own darkness by this noble dedication of his sorrow to noblest ends. But it may be reverently said that he has followed as far as is humanly possible the Divine Teacher who, in healing a blind man, “put His hands upon his eyes and made him look up.” In this we can all help. We can make our brave, blind friends, the soldiers and sailors, rendered sightless for our sakes, “look up!” We can make them feel they are not alone and helpless in a dark world; we can convince them that their welfare is dear to us, and that we are fully conscious of the immense sacrifices they have made for us and for the country. Let us all then do our utmost and best for St. Dunstan’s and strengthen the hands of its Founder, and let it never be said that we were guilty of the meanest vice known to humanity—Ingratitude!