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The imperial organ of the human system is the eye. All up and down the Bible God honours it, extols it, illustrates it, or arraigns it. Five hundred and thirty-four times it is mentioned in the Bible. Omnipresence "the eyes of the Lord are in every place." Divine care — "as the apple of the eye." The clouds — "the eyelids of the morning." Irreverence — "the eye that mocketh at its father." Pride — "Oh, how lofty are their eye!" Inattention — "the fool's eye in the ends of the earth." Divine inspection — "wheels full of eyes." Suddenness — "in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump." Olivetic sermon — "the light of the body is the eye." This morning's text — "He that formed the eye, shall He not see?"

I. THE HUMAN EYE.. If I refer to the physiological facts suggested by the former part of my text, it is only to bring out in plainer way the theological lessons of the latter part of my text. "He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" I suppose my text referred to the human eye, since it excels all others in structure and adaptation. Man, placed at the head of all living creatures, must have supreme equipment, while the blind fish in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky have only an undeveloped organ of sight, an apology for the eye, which, if through some crevice in the mountain they should get into the sunlight, might be developed into positive eyesight. See how God honoured the eye before He created it. He cried until chaos was irradiated with the utterance, "Let there be light!" In other words, before He introduced man into this temple of the world He illuminated if, prepared it for the eyesight. And so, after the last human eye has been destroyed in the final demolition of the world, stars are to fall, and the sun is to cease its shining, and the moon is to turn into blood.

II. TO SHOW HOW GOD HONOURS THE EYE, look at the two halls built for the residence of the eyes. Seven bones making the wall for each eye, the seven bones curiously wrought together. A kingly palace of ivory is considered rich, but the halls for the residence of the human eyes are richer by so much as human bone is more sacred than elephantine tusk. See how God honoured the eyes when He made a roof for them, so that the sweat of toil should not smart them; and the rain dashing against the forehead should not drip into them; the eyebrows not bending over the eye, but reaching to the right and to the left, so that the rain and the sweat should be compelled to drop upon the cheek instead of falling into this Divinely protected human eyesight. See how God honoured the eye in the fact presented by anatomists and physiologists that there are 800 contrivances in every eye. For window shutters, the eyelids opening and closing 30,000 times a day. The eyelashes so constructed that they have their selection as to what shall be admitted, saying to the dust, "Stay out," and saying to the light, "Come in." For inside curtain the iris, or pupil of the eye, according as the light is greater or less, contracting or dilating.

III. A CONTRIVANCE SO WONDERFUL THAT IT CAN SEE THE SUN NINETY-FIVE MILLIONS OF MILES AWAY, AND THE POINT OF A PIN. Telescope and microscope in the same contrivance. The astronomer swings and moves this way and that, and adjusts and readjusts the telescope until he gets it into the right focus; the microscopist moves this way and that, and adjusts and readjusts the magnifying glass until it is prepared to do its work; but the human eye, without a touch, beholds the star and the smallest insect. The traveller among the Alps, with one glance taking in Mont Blanc and the face of his watch to see whether he has time to climb it.

IV. WHAT AN ANTHEM OF PRAISE TO GOD IS THE HUMAN EYE! The tongue is speechless and a clumsy instrument of expression as compared with it. Have you not seen it flash with indignation or kindle with enthusiasm, or expand with devotion, or melt with sympathy, or stare with fright, or leer with villany, or droop with sadness or pale with envy, or fire with revenge, or twinkle with mirth, or beam with love? It is tragedy and comedy and pastoral and lyric in turn.

V. DIVINE INSPECTION. Shall Herschel not know as much as his telescope? Shall Fraunhofer not know as much as his spectroscope? Shall Swammerdan not know as much as his microscope? Shall Dr. Hooke not know as much as his micrometer? Shall the thing formed know more than its master? "He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" The recoil of this question is tremendous. We stand at the centre of a vast circumference of observation. No privacy. On us, eyes of cherubim, eyes of seraphim, eyes of archangel, eyes of God. "The eyes of the Lord are in every place." "His eyelids try the children of men." "His eyes were as a flame of fire." "I will guide thee with Mine eye." Oh, the eye of God, so full of pity, so full of power, so full of love, so full of indignation, so full of compassion, so full of mercy! How it peers through the darkness! How it outshines the day! How it glares upon the offenders! How it beams on the penitent scull Oh the eye of God. It sees our sorrows to assuage them, sees our perplexities to disentangle them, sees our wants to sympathize with them. If we fight Him back, the eye of an antagonist. If we ask His grace, the eye of an everlasting friend.

VI. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HIDDEN TRANSGRESSION. A dramatic advocate in olden times, at night in a court-room, persuaded of the innocence of his client charged with murder, and of the guilt of the witness who was trying to swear the poor man's life away — that advocate took up two bright lamps and thrust them close up to the face of the witness, and cried, "May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury — behold the murderer!" and the man, practically under that awful glare, confessed that he was the criminal instead of the man arraigned at the bar. "Oh!" you say, "my affairs are so insignificant I can't realize that God sees me and sees my affairs." Can you see the point of a pin? Can you see the eye of a needle? Can you see a mote in the sunbeam? And has God given you that power of minute observation, and does He not possess it Himself? But you say, "God is in one world, and I am in another world; He seems so far off from me I don't really think He sees what is going on in my life." Can you see the sun ninety-five millions of miles away, and do you not think God has as prolonged vision? But you say, "There are phases of my life, and there are colours — shades of colour — in my annoyances and my vexations, that I don't think God can understand." Does not God gather up all the colours, and all the shades of colour, in the rainbow? And do you suppose there is any phase or any shade in your life that He has not gathered up in His own heart?

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

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KJV: He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

WEB: He who implanted the ear, won't he hear? He who formed the eye, won't he see?