ick through a little hole in a pane of glass it
will not seem so much bent. He further discovered that oil of cassia had
a different power of refraction from water, and the white of an egg
still a different power. He discovered also that the first lens of the
eye, the aqueous humor, is very like water; that the crystalline lens is
a firm jelly, and that the vitreous humor is about the consistency of
the white of an egg. The combination of these three lenses, of different
powers of refraction, secures the correction of their separate errors.
He could not make telescope lenses of jelly, nor water; therefore, he
could not make a perfect achromatic telescope, but he learned the lesson
of mutual compensations of difficulties which the Maker of the eye
teaches the reflecting anatomist, and procuring flint and crown glass of
different degrees of refraction, he arranged them in the achromatic lens
so as nearly to remedy the defect.

I think that you will at once admit that Dolland's attempt to remedy the
evils of confused sight in the telescope indicated a desire to obtain a
precise and correct view of the objects; and that his success in
constructing an instrument, nearly perfect, for the use of astronomers,
gave evidence that he himself had a clear idea of that perfect and
accurate vision which he thus attempted to bestow on them. Shall we then
imagine any inaccuracy in the sight of Him, who not only desired, but
executed and bestowed on us, an instrument so perfectly adapted to the
imperfections of this lower world, and whose very imperfections are the
materials from which he produces clear and perfect vision? No! in God's
eye there are no chromatic refractions of passions, or prejudice, or
party feeling, or self-love. He sees no reflected or refracted light. O
Father of Light! with whom is no variableness, or shadow of turning,
open our eyes to behold Thee clearly!

Our text thus leads us to a knowledge of God's character, from the
structure of the bodies he has given us. He that formed my eye sees.
Though my feeble vision is by no means a standard or limit for his
Omniscience, yet I may conclude that every perfection of the power of
sight he has given me existed previously in him. Has he endowed me, a
poor puny mortal, the permanent tenant of only two yards of earth, with
an eye capable of ranging over earth's broad plains and lofty mountains,
of traversing her beauteous lakes and lovely rivers, of scanning her
crowded ci