the face of every
single sheep in his flock,' so Professor Wilson. And then Dr. Gould
tells us in his mystico-evolutionary, Behmen-and-Darwin book, _The
Meaning and the Method of Life_--a book which those will read who can and
ought--that the eye is the most psychical, the most spiritual, the most
useful, and the most valued and cherished of all the senses; after which
he adds this wonderful and heart-affecting scientific fact, that in death
by starvation, every particle of fat in the body is auto-digested except
the cream-cushion of the eye-ball! So true is it that the eye is the
mistress, the queen, and the most precious, to Creator and creature
alike, of all the five senses.

Now, in the _Holy War_ John Bunyan says a thing about the ear, as
distinguished from the eye, that I cannot subscribe to in my own
experience at any rate. In describing the terrible war that raged round
Ear-gate, and finally swept up through that gate and into the streets of
the city, he says that the ear is the shortest and the surest road to the
heart. I confess I cannot think that to be the actual case. I am
certain that it is not so in my own case. My eye is very much nearer my
heart than my ear is. My eye much sooner affects, and much more
powerfully affects, my heart than my ear ever does. Not only is my eye
by very much the shortest road to my heart, but, like all other short
roads, it is cram-full of all kinds of traffic when my ear stands
altogether empty. My eye is constantly crowded and choked with all kinds
of commerce; whole hordes of immigrants and invaders trample one another
down on the congested street that leads from my eye to my heart. Speaking
for myself, for one assault that is made on my heart through my ear there
are a thousand assaults successfully made through my eye. Indeed, were
my eye but stopped up; had I but obedience and courage and
self-mortification enough to pluck both my eyes out, that would be half
the cleansing and healing and holiness of my evil heart; or at least, the
half of its corruption, rebellion, and abominable wickedness would
henceforth be hidden from me. I think I can see what led John Bunyan in
his day and in this book to make that too strong statement about the ear
as against the eye; but it is not like him to have let such an
over-statement stand and continue in his corrected and carefully finished
work. The prophet Jeremiah, I feel satisfied, would not have subscribed
to what is sa