| Finding the Way |
Chapter 20 |
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Many of us who see nothing lovely in the objects about us wish we could see what others see. There is a way of learning to do it. We should train ourselves to make us of our eyes. Every child should be taught from its earliest youth to observe, to see beauty wherever beauty exists. This part of the new education of young children. They are encouraged to look intently at all things about them, so that they can give an intelligent account of whatever they have seen. This training should be carried into all the life, so that we shall miss nothing of the profuse and wondrous loveliness that is everywhere in our Father’s world. The result of not using our eyes is that by and by we have no eyes – the faculty that is not exercised becomes atrophied.
Still more to be pitied that those who have eyes and see not, are those who see things distorted, through warped lenses, through untrue glasses. We should train ourselves to see only what is lovely. An old legend of Jesus tells that while the disciples one day turned away with loathing from the carcass of a dead dog by the wayside, the Master looked at it and said to the disciples, “What beautiful teeth the creature has!” Too many of us see only the things that are loathsome, and have no vision for anything that is winsome.
A lady took her visitor to a window to show her a view which to her was very inspiring. The guest manifested almost disgust as she exclaimed that all she saw was an unusually fine lot of black chimneys and smoky back buildings. The genial hostess said, cheerfully, “Why, I never saw the chimneys and back building before. I saw only the hills yonder and that fringe of noble trees on the horizon!” This woman got far more out of life than her friend did, for she had eyes for the beauty and grandeur of the world about her, while the other saw only the things that were homely and without beauty.
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