r good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.' In the next
chapter our Lord says: 'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to
be seen of them. Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love
to pray standing in the synagogues that they may be seen of men.' What
is the difference between the two sets of men and the two kinds of
conduct? The motive makes the difference for one thing, and for another
thing, 'Let your light so shine' does not mean 'take precautions that
your goodness may come out into public,' but it means 'Shine!' You find
the light, and the world will find the eyes, no fear of that! You do not
need to seek 'to be seen of men,' but you do need to shine that men may
see.

The lighthouse keeper takes no pains that the ships tossing away out at
sea may behold the beam that shines from his lamp; all that he does is
to feed it and tend it. And that is all that you and I have to do--tend
the light, and do not, like cowards, cover it up. Modestly, but yet
bravely, carry out your Christianity, and men will see it. Do not be as
a dark lantern, burning with the slides down and illuminating nothing
and nobody. Live your Christianity, and it will be beheld.

And remember, candles are not lit to be looked at. Candles are lit that
something else may be seen by them. Men may see God through your words,
through your conduct, who never would have beheld Him otherwise, because
His beams are too bright for their dim eyes. And it is an awful thing to
think that the world always--_always_--takes its conception of
Christianity from the Church, and neither from the Bible nor from
Christ; and that it is you and your like, you inconsistent Christians,
you people that say your sins are forgiven and yet are doing the old
sins day by day which you say are pardoned, you low-toned, unpraying,
worldly Christian men, who have no elevation of character and no
self-restraint of life and no purity of conduct above the men in your
own profession and in your own circumstances all round you--it is you
that are hindering the coming of Christ's Kingdom, it is you that are
the standing disgraces of the Church, and the weaknesses and diseases of
Christendom. I speak strongly, not half as strongly as the facts of the
case would warrant; but I lay it upon all your consciences as professing
Christian people to see to it that no longer your frivolities, or
doubtful commercial practices, or low, unspiritual tone of life, your
s