Madam How and Lady Why | Page 4

saw a grand prospect; and wanted to go again, and make out
the geography of the country from Cary's old county maps, which were
the only maps in those days. And then, because the hill was called
Camp Mount, he looked for a Roman camp, and found one; and then he
went down to the river, saw twenty things more; and so on, and so on,
till he had brought home curiosities enough, and thoughts enough, to
last him a week.
Whereon Mr. Andrews, who seems to have been a very sensible old
gentleman, tells him all about his curiosities: and then it comes out--if
you will believe it--that Master William has been over the very same
ground as Master Robert, who saw nothing at all.
Whereon Mr. Andrews says, wisely enough, in his solemn old-
fashioned way, -
"So it is. One man walks through the world with his eyes open, another
with his eyes shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority
of knowledge which one man acquires over another. I have known
sailors who had been in all the quarters of the world, and could tell you
nothing but the signs of the tippling- houses, and the price and quality
of the liquor. On the other hand, Franklin could not cross the Channel
without making observations useful to mankind. While many a vacant
thoughtless youth is whirled through Europe without gaining a single
idea worth crossing the street for, the observing eye and inquiring mind
find matter of improvement and delight in every ramble. You, then,
William, continue to use your eyes. And you, Robert, learn that eyes
were given to you to use."
So said Mr. Andrews: and so I say, dear boys--and so says he who has
the charge of you--to you. Therefore I beg all good boys among you to
think over this story, and settle in their own minds whether they will be

eyes or no eyes; whether they will, as they grow up, look and see for
themselves what happens: or whether they will let other people look for
them, or pretend to look; and dupe them, and lead them about--the
blind leading the blind, till both fall into the ditch.
I say "good boys;" not merely clever boys, or prudent boys: because
using your eyes, or not using them, is a question of doing Right or
doing Wrong. God has given you eyes; it is your duty to God to use
them. If your parents tried to teach you your lessons in the most
agreeable way, by beautiful picture-books, would it not be ungracious,
ungrateful, and altogether naughty and wrong, to shut your eyes to
those pictures, and refuse to learn? And is it not altogether naughty and
wrong to refuse to learn from your Father in Heaven, the Great God
who made all things, when he offers to teach you all day long by the
most beautiful and most wonderful of all picture-books, which is
simply all things which you can see, hear, and touch, from the sun and
stars above your head to the mosses and insects at your feet? It is your
duty to learn His lessons: and it is your interest. God's Book, which is
the Universe, and the reading of God's Book, which is Science, can do
you nothing but good, and teach you nothing but truth and wisdom.
God did not put this wondrous world about your young souls to tempt
or to mislead them. If you ask Him for a fish, he will not give you a
serpent. If you ask Him for bread, He will not give you a stone.
So use your eyes and your intellect, your senses and your brains, and
learn what God is trying to teach you continually by them. I do not
mean that you must stop there, and learn nothing more. Anything but
that. There are things which neither your senses nor your brains can tell
you; and they are not only more glorious, but actually more true and
more real than any things which you can see or touch. But you must
begin at the beginning in order to end at the end, and sow the seed if
you wish to gather the fruit. God has ordained that you, and every child
which comes into the world, should begin by learning something of the
world about him by his senses and his brain; and the better you learn
what they can teach you, the more fit you will be to learn what they
cannot teach you. The more you try now to understand THINGS, the
more you will be able hereafter to understand men, and That which is
above men. You began to find out that truly Divine mystery, that you
had a mother on earth,