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Jesus met blind Bartimeus near the gates of Jericho, and called him to Him and said: "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" The answer was: "Lord, that I might receive my sight." Now, see what He did. He did not send Bartimeus off to Jerusalem twenty miles away to the pool of Siloam to wash.
"It will be such joy to see," he said to her one night when they sat together by the window of his room, with the silvery moonlight falling on his beautiful face and making it like the face of an angel. "Such joy to see again, and the very first one I shall look at after Christ and mother, will be old blind Bartimeus, who sat by the roadside and begged.
The Lord heard the cry and called him, and there by the roadside He opened the eyes of Bartimeus to see the beauty all around him, and the kind face of Jesus looking at him. And he followed Him. The pilgrims came up the steep, rocky road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and they were fortunate who could ride, for the heat was great, and the road hard to climb.
Come, Bartimeus, and have your eyes opened. Come, O prodigal! and sit at thy father's table. Come, O you suffering, sinning, dying the soul! and find rest on the heart of Jesus. The Spirit and Bride say "Come," and Churches militant and triumphant say "Come," and all the voices of the past, mingling with all the voices of the future, in one great thunder of emphasis, bid you "Come now!"
"But he is sitting close to the throne of God, and he could send some angel down to touch my eyes, and let me see my dear, dear pa once ah! just once. Oh! he is the same Jesus now as when he felt sorry for Bartimeus. And why won't He pity me, too? I pray and believe, and that is what He said I must do."
He was indeed "a friend of publicans and sinners" if he had not been, what would have been the situation of a Matthew, whom he called from the receipt of custom to "follow him;" or of a Zaccheus, whom he addressed in the sycamore tree, and to whose house he "that day" conveyed "salvation;" or of a Bartimeus, "blind and sitting by the highway-side, begging," whose eyes he opened, and to whose mind he imparted faith?
Yet I would lay my story confidently before you, my reader, trusting in the justice of my case and in your judicial discernment, but for one other thing. What will the Goddess Clio say, or the well-deserving knight, if I offend History? She has stated her case, Sir Bartimeus has written it, and then so late in the day I come with a different story, a truer but different story. What will they do?
One of his stories was the famous one of Croesus, and the irony of his fate, and the warning words of Solon, all of which, rendered into quaint rich English, struck Cyril so much, that, mingling up the tale with reminiscences of Longfellow's "Blind Bartimeus," he produced, with much modesty at the breakfast-table next morning, the following very creditable boyish imitation:
On leaving the town, the beggar Bartimeus pleased him much by persisting in calling him "son of David," although he was told to be silent. The cycle of Galilean miracles appeared for a time to recommence in this country, which was in many respects similar to the provinces of the north.
Next day, each lesson was recited in its season, and recited well; but tears blurred many a page, and at recess not a few went to be alone with God. At eleven o'clock, Mr. Perkins came in as usual to sing with them, "Bartimeus" was the first hymn. All began it; but some voices faltered on the first stanza, more on the second, and soon the leader's voice was heard alone.
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