feeding and trimming before it can be what it ought to be.

On the other hand, all deep experience of the purifying power of Christ
upon character will show itself in conduct. It is all very well for
people to profess that they have received the forgiveness of sins and
the inner sanctification of God's Spirit. If you have, let us see it,
and let us see it in the commonest, pettiest affairs of daily life. The
communication between the inmost experience and the outermost conduct is
such as that if there be any real revolution deep down, it will manifest
itself in the daily life. I make all allowance for the loss of power in
transmission, for the loss of power in friction. I am glad to believe
that you and I, and all our imperfect brethren, are a great deal better
in heart than we ever manage to show ourselves to be in life. Thank God
for the consolation that may come out of that thought--but
notwithstanding I press on you my point that, making all such allowance,
and setting up no impossible standard of absolute identity between duty
and conduct in this present life, yet, on the whole, if we are Christian
people with any deep central experience of the cleansing power and
influence of Christ and His grace, we shall show it in life and in
conduct. Or, to put it into the graphic and plain image of my text, If
we are light we shall shine.

III. Again, and very briefly, this obligation of giving light is still
further enforced by the thought that that was Christ's very purpose in
all that He has done with us and for us.

The homely figure here implies that _He_ has not kindled the lamp to put
it under the bushel, but that _His_ purpose in lighting it was that it
might give light. God has made us partakers of His grace, and has given
to us to be light in the Lord, for this among other purposes, that we
should impart that light to others. No creature is so small that it has
not the right to expect that its happiness and welfare shall be regarded
by God as an end in His dealings with it; but no creature is so great
that it has the right to expect that its happiness or well-being shall
be regarded by God and itself as God's only end in His dealings with it.
He gives us His grace, His pardon, His love, the quickening of His
Spirit by our union with Jesus Christ; He gives us our knowledge of Him,
and our likeness to Him--what for? 'For my own salvation, for my
happiness and well-being,' you say. Certainly, blessed be His name for