ught to be educated and
restored to the privileges of social life and happiness from which
they have been unjustly and selfishly excluded.... The present
condition of my own private affairs and the desolate prospect of
the future do not deter me from persevering, nor shall I desist so
long as God gives me health of mind and one or two links by which I
may communicate with the selfish and insensible Levites of the
sighted world.... No permanent success will be gained till the
education of the blind and their reception into social life be
recognised and insisted on as a Christian duty; till the old and
selfish indifference of animalism, that is almost everywhere
manifested, be superseded by a more earnest and generous anxiety
for their wellbeing, something more worthy of the spirit of
humanity.

Until this real Christian sympathy be awakened to take the place of
that evasive and reluctant sham, so offensively paraded, misleading
the benevolent and deeply injuring us, we shall not be able to make
any progress. It is to arouse this sense of duty that I direct all
my efforts. I see plainly it is the only road to success. We must
first look to the enlightened, conscientious, and humane of every
creed, trade, profession, and rank, who believe in and practise
that Catholic duty of individual effort. Next those who by official
position ought to lead the way; and here we come first to the
minister of religion, who basely deserts his duty if he attempts to
snub into silence the just clamours of those who are hourly sinking
into the wretchedness of conscious degradation and social exile,
merely because the well-meaning sighted do not wish to be disturbed
in their enjoyment of all the blessings of the visible world and
social existence, by these melancholy and distressing subjects. If
the ministers of religion do but their duty, it must then be taken
up by the Board of Education, and public opinion will then call on
men of science, especially the medical profession, to direct their
physiological inquiries to higher subjects too long neglected. If
but one hundredth part of the mental energy that has been of late
years directed to the constitution and habits of the insect world
and of shellfish, had been devoted to an inquiry into the means of
restoring to h