A blind man's offering / by B. B. Bowen.

  • B. B. Bowen
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A blind man's offering / by B. B. Bowen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    inhabitants. In Sweden, one to every seven hundred and forty-seven; in Denmark, one to every eight hun- dred and forty-seven. Further north, there is consid- erable diminution. In Norway, one to every nine hundred; in Prussia, one to every thousand. It is found, by observation, that the same causes which operate in Europe, do not exert so great an influence in similar latitudes in this country. The exact num- ber of blind persons in the United States has not yet been ascertained. It is thought, however, to be not far from ten thousand. Language is inadequate to portray the ignorance and imbecility, the wretchedness and poverty, to which the blind, as a class, have in all ages been condemned. We shall not pause here to show the tendency of blind- ness to poverty. That begging was almost the only employment of the blind in past ages, and that the place to find them was in the alms-house, or by the way-side, in the quaint, but forcible language of another, “with their abject hats abjectly protruded, and their cold hands extended for still colder charity,” — needs no proof from 11s. It is, indeed, cheering to find that there has been, here and there, one who has risen superior to what would seem almost insurmount- able obstacles, and who has taught the world, by example, that there is no physical calamity, however great, but must yield to the well directed and earnest efforts of a brave and energetic mind. The annals of philosophy, literature, science, and the arts, furnish many striking instances of blind men, whose rare attainments have astonished those who, with greater facilities, have failed to equal them. The reader need not be told that the greatest poet of antiquity, and his only compeer of modern times, wrote
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