_And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind._ The reading of the last verse of the 8th chapter, which our version has adopted, connects it directly with the first verse of the 9th. '_Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by_ (παρῆγεν οὕτως). _And as He passed by_ (καὶ παράγων), _He saw a man blind from his birth_.' Possibly the former verse ought to end at the word '_temple_.' But if we lose that link between the incidents recorded in the two chapters, the internal relation between them will remain as strong as ever. The discourse of Jesus, which we have been considering on the two last Sundays, began with the sentence, '_I am the light of the world_.' Every subsequent passage unfolded itself out of this opening one. The story which forms the subject of this chapter is introduced by the same announcement. Can we doubt that the words and the act had the same origin and the same object? Can we safely sever what Christ has joined together? I am aware of the motive which induces us to sever them. I have had occasion to speak of it more than once already, and to acknowledge that an honest feeling is lurking in it. We are afraid of confounding what is sensible with what is spiritual. We are afraid of using light in two senses, and of fancying that they are the same. I complain of no desire to be religiously accurate in the use of language. Scrupulosity in this matter is far less dangerous than indifference. We are in continual peril of falling into confusions and equivocations; let all our faculties be awake to the risk,--let them all watch against it. But they will not be awake, they will not watch, unless they do homage to the fact, that light has been used, is used, must be used, in every dialect in which men express their thoughts, to denote that which the eye receives, and that which the mind receives,--the great energy of the eye, the great energy of the mind. Instead of repining at this fact, as if it were a hindrance to our perceptions of truth,--instead of labouring to reconstruct speech according to some scheme of ours,--instead of fancying that we have done a good work when we have got a scholastical or technical phrase substituted for a popular one,--let us earnestly meditate upon the principle which is latent under these forms of discourse, from which we cannot emancipate ourselves. Let us thankfully accept them as proofs that the sensible world and the spiritual, though entirely distinct, are related; and that the last is not closed any more than the first against the wayfarer and the child. This, at all events, is the doctrine which goes through Scripture, and which has made its words so mighty to those who can understand no others--so full of relief and discovery to those who do not wish to be separate from their kind, and who have convinced themselves that the deepest truths