Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1898 — PREACHED BY A BLIND MAN. [ARTICLE]

PREACHED BY A BLIND MAN.

The Beet Sermon that an Eminent English Clergyman Ever Heard. An English clergyman of eminence was asked by a group of London friends whose was the best sermon he had ever heal’d. “If you mean,” he answered, “the sermon which has Influenced me most directly and never been forgotten, I can tell you at once. It was preached In the streets of Boston many years ago by a blind man.” He had been preaching, he said, in Philips Brooks’ church and had started to walk back to the house where he was staying. Being a stranger in Boston he became confused, and turning to a man who was behind him asked to be directed to the house. “Why, it is the preacher!” exclaimed his companion. “I know you by your voice, for I was in the church and heard you preach. I am blind, but I can show you the way. I can take you to the door.” The clergyman protested that he could not think of troubling the blind man and that he could find his way by himself. “Surely,” said his new acquaintance, “you will not refuse me the pleasure of conducting you. I am not a beggar. Every one is so kind to me and it is seldom, indeed, that I can render any one a service.” So the two men went on arm in arm and in ten minutes they were at the right door and parted. During that short walk the best sermon which the clergyman had ever heard was preached. “It was simply,” he said to his English friends, “the story of a man blind from his birth, whose face was shining with contentment and peace, and whose heart was thrillod with a sense of his mercies and blessings. “His parents had sent him to a school for the blind where he had been taught to read by raised-letters and they had left him a small Income which sufficed for his wants. He lived alone, but he could go about the streets without a guide. He told me that he considered that he ought to be thankful for being born blind because he had so much leisure for quiet thought. There would be time enough in another world for him to see everything. “I haye never forgotten that sermon,” added the clergyman. “His example of contentment and sincerity of mind has never ceased to be helpful to me. I have told the story often to my English congregations and it has always deeply affected them.”—Youth’s Companion.