“What do you say of this Man that cured you?” said Bishop Caiaphas.
“I say he’s a prophet,” said the man.
Dr. Dayton laughed. “I think it’s much more likely that you’re a rogue, my friend. The age of miracles is past and done. In this day of light we do not see miracles, nor does God operate in any other way than according to His divine law of order and of common-sense. When a man who is blind receives his sight, he does it through an orderly change of his body, that is just as perfect and just as slow and according to divine order as the creation of light itself is according to divine order. Health and disease must always be according to order, and cannot be in any other way.”
The man looked steadily at Dr. Dayton as he was speaking. “I don’t know just what you mean,” he said, “but if you mean that I wasn’t blind before, I only know that I was blind. Here are my father and mother–you can ask them.”
The man and his wife were sitting at the far end of the room, as close to the wall as possible, and side by side. Seeing the eyes of the committee fixed upon them, the father slowly arose, holding his cane somewhat tremulously in his hand. He had a weak face and a retreating chin and a twitching movement about the jaw.
“Is this man your son?” said Dr. Hopkinson, of St. David’s Church.
“Yes, sir, he be,” said the man. The woman also had risen and stood close to her husband, but a little behind him.
“Are you sure he has been blind for all these years?”
“Yes, sir,” said the father, “I am sure of that. You see, he couldn’t pretend to be blind all these years and me and his mother not know it.”