A Blind Girl Sees Her Father's Sacrifice

You remember Charles Dickens’ beautiful story of the poor little father whose one joy in his life was the love of his blind child. He lived in poverty and served a brutal employer who often came near to breaking his heart, but he managed to keep these things from the growing girl.

Whatever he might have to endure he was always cheerful and buoyant to her, and never allowed her to think he had a care in the world. Then came a day when the child, who had now attained to maturity, was to receive her sight by the performance of an operation which, at an earlier time, would have been impossible.

The brave, simple-minded man consented to it, and then lived in dread as to what those eyes would discover. His child had pictured him a handsome man; he was small and ugly. She had thought of the home as a house beautiful; it was poor and mean. She had believed that everything was well with him in his daily toil; she would now know that he had stinted and starved himself to provide her with comforts and pleasures.

The fateful day came, and with it the revelation; the eyes of the girl were opened, but they were opened to something the father himself had never seen — the glory that had crowned his life of self-devotion. Probably there are some to whom this parable is no parable but the simple truth.

God has opened your eyes to see something which but for the darkness and struggle of earth you would never have seen, and that is the glory that rests upon the brows of those near and dear to you who have taught you most that you know about the sacred meaning of life.