THE SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE BLIND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8284, 17 June 1890, Page 6

THE SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE BLIND.

■ —«■ THE COLISEUM IN A SUNSET. THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. Mr. John Abbott writes :— I have great pleasure in submitting nineteenth list of subscriptions herein, £20 ss, which, added to previous amount, totals £977 2s 3d. Possibly nothing can so much heighten our gratitude, deepen our interest, or widen our sympathies for the blind, as the survey of those- grand and glorious objects which lie around and above us on every hand. The terrestrial and celestial scenery of New Zealand is as superb as it is unique, and as sublime and glorious as phenomenal. Her primaeval forests, rid in sylvan treasures (from the tiny and graceful fern to the gigantic kauri) ; her cloud or snow-capped mountains, resplendent rivers, luxuriant and fertile valleys, ami her majestic and sparkling waterfalls, the laughter of pellucid streams, are invested with an intrinsic majesty peculiarly their own. No microscope has yet revealed the bar sinister on our natural escutcheon ; and when bereft in one awful night of her beauteous pink and white terraces, Rachellike she wept for her lovely children and re fused comfort because they were not. All this and more we have seen ; the reduced balance we still witness ; but our piteous blind never have and never will behold the magnificent spectacle. But if from earth we lift the eye to heaven the panorama is still more marvellous and beautiful. Any man who attempts a description of th« gallery of water colours which have etna nated from the studio of the Great Master is a fool for his pains. But in spite of tliw penalty, I shall make the abortive attempt. One lovely evening last summer in a solitary ride from Takapuna to Northcote my attention was arrested by a most remarkable celestial phenomenon. The whole of the visible heavens was bathed in a divine light. Rising out from the western sky there arose a facsimile of the Coliseum, not as in her ruins (shame to the Vandals, who accelerated), but as she in her pristine glory appeared. The elliptical form was extended a hundredfold ; the original would accommodate 110,000 spectators, and seat 90,000 ; it took 12,000 men a year to construct; bub above me was a structure reared ami painted in water colour by an Almighty Hand, in a few minutes, which in burning lustre—pink, amber, crimson, and cerulean tints—was thrown up to my astonished gaze. Faithfully described were the lower tiers of Doric columns, surmounted by the lonic, and crowned by the ornate and beautiful Corinthian. These columns, base, shaft, and capital, in majesty of proportion and colossal architecture were picked out by golden light, as were also the galleries, entablature, plinth, corridors, architraves, and vestibules. A mass of dark crimson clouds at the rear appeared to give the posterior portion of the structure an elevation, and thus along the entire facade over the rich Corinthian pillars I looked into the interior, suffused with palest blue (minus the enormous statue of Nero). In vestments of pale pink, rich amber, and snowy whiteness, seraphic and cherubic legions hovered. Over and above all a bevy of archangels, their wings covered with silver, and plumes thereof tipped with yellow gold. They appeared to stand on the order of their merit; and, as the first rank faded away or dissolved into ether, their glorious companions, whose faces at first peered over the shoulders of their comrades, now in all their beauteous forms came to the fore, countenances like the sun, raiment white and glistening. Whole battalions of ethereal fairies and watersprites, coming to vespers, tripped merrily along the golden parapet, leaving thereon floral offerings, which, gilded with supernal light, constituted a diadem of glory never to be forgotten. I saw all I have described, which has no glory by reason of the original glory which excelleth. For this sketch I have neither drawn an iota on my imagination nor pictured scenes in my mind's eye, nor peopled them with the groups of fancy or the society of remembrance. If wonder excites gratitude, and praise supplies the fuel and feeds the flame of adoration, then I think the choice viands of my banquet were not only those of admiration but also those of true worship. If a man blind from birth by a Divine touch could feel his shutters open, and gaze on a water colour like this, he would do one of two things, either cheerfully return into the dark recesses of that night from which he had just emerged, over which the sable goddess on her ebon throne in rayless majesty stretches forth her sceptre ; or his irate and rebellious clay would lock up to the Great Potter and j exclaim, <l Why hasb Thou made me so?" i

What I have stated refers only to the structure and its environment; bub from the zenith to the horizon one molten, montling sea of colour and fire appeared; every black bar turned to massive gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, purple, and scarlet, and colours for which there are no words in language, and no ideas in the mind— which can only be conceived while they are visible. Thus I came to the conclusion this is that part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than any other of her works, and with accentuated volume and force in this apocalypse, I realised that " the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handy work." By the goodly proportion of our Blind Fund I am delighted we shall speedly be able to place the sufferers within reach of the beneficient agencies which science has placed at our command. In her achievements there is not only beauty and wonder, but also beneficence and power. It is not only that she has revealed to us infinite space crowded with innumerable worlds, infinite time peopled by unnumbered existences, infinite organisms hitherto invisible but full of delicate and iridescent loveliness, but also, like an archangel of mercy, has devoted herself to tho service of man. Her labour has not boon to increase the power of despots or add to the magnificence of courts, but to extend human happiness, to economise human effort, and to extinguish human pain. Where men formerly toiled, half nude and half blind to mix tho white hot irou, she now substitutes the mechanical action of the viewless air. She limns with fidelity by aid of the sunbeam, enables tho miner to work in safety ; by anaesthetics she renders unconscious the sufferer while the delicate hand of some skilled operator cuts the fragment from the unquivoring eye. She has restored eyes to tho blind and hearing to tho deaf, lengthened life and minimised danger, controlled madness and trampled on disease. Science does all this and more ; she aids in healing the broken in heart, but here stops. Religion as alma mater then steps in, and provides the only specific which can bind up and for evor heal our festering moral wounds. Such is the gospel of nature, science, religion according to John. St. George's Bay Road, Parnell, 16th June, 1890.

V. R. Lucas, £5; Father Paul, tl la; A Friend pet Father Walter McDonald, £1 Is ; James Braund, £1 Is; S. J. K<wt, £1 is; A. McGuirc, £1 1«; A. Wallace, £1 ; Gavin Wauls, £1; Mr. Hllutt, £1; S. Kasthain, £1; J. Wallis, lis; Rev. P. Mason, 10s ; A Friend, Ills ; J. Anderson, Ids ; Clark and Co.'s li.it, lOw ; George Wilson (Thames), ltte; G. Kent, Mis; J. P. King, 10s; J. Wilson, 10* ; K. Clifton, 10s; H«v. K. Best, 10s Gel; A Friend, 2rt Gd ; Mrs. Smith, to; total, £20 Da