n the darkness, the path before him is thrown into the light. The
passage, then, which seems to suggest a doctrine of self-display, is
really a teaching of self-effacement. Here is a railway-train
thundering along some evening {10} toward a broken bridge, and the
track-walker rushes toward it with his swinging lantern, as though he
had heard the great command, "Let your light shine before men;" and the
train comes to a stop and the passengers stream out and see the peril
that they have just escaped, and give thanks to their Father which is
in heaven. And this is the reward of the plain, unnoticed man as he
trudges home in the dark,--that he has done his duty well that night.
He has not been seen or praised; he has been in the shadow; but he has
been permitted to let his little light shine and save; and he too gives
thanks to his Father in heaven.

Here, again, is a lighthouse-keeper on the coast. The sailor in the
darkness cannot see the keeper, unless indeed the shadow of the keeper
obscures for a moment the light. What the sailor sees is the light;
and he thanks, not the keeper, but the power that put the light on that
dangerous rock. So the light-keeper tends his light in the dark, and a
very lonely and obscure life it is. No one mounts the rock to praise
him. The vessels pass in the night with never a word of cheer. But
the life of the keeper gets its dignity, not {11} because he shines,
but because his light guides other lives; and many a weary captain
greets that twinkling light across the sea, and seeing its good work
gives thanks to his Father which is in heaven.

{12}

V

THE CENTURION

_Matthew_ viii. 5-11.

One of the most interesting things to observe in the New Testament is
the series of persons who just come into sight for a moment through
their relation to the life of Jesus Christ, and are, as it were,
illuminated by that relationship, and then, as they pass out of the
light again, disappear into obscurity. They are like some
western-fronting window on which the slanting sun shines for a moment,
so that we see the reflection miles away. Then, with the same
suddenness, the angle of reflection changes, and the window grows dark
and insignificant once more. This centurion was such a person. Jesus
perhaps never met him before, and we never hear of him again, and yet,
in the single phrase, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel," Jesus stamps him with a special character