'So have I lighted you, not that you may shine for yourselves, but that
you may give light unto all. I have set you like a city on a hill, that
the whole earth may see and share in your light. Shine therefore; so
shine before men, that they may see your good things and glorify your
father for the light with which he has lighted you. Take heed to your
light that it be such, that it so shine, that in you men may see the
Father--may see your works so good, so plainly his, that they recognize
his presence in you, and thank him for you.' There was the danger always
of the shadow of the self-bushel clouding the lamp the Father had
lighted; and the moment they ceased to show the Father, the light that
was in them was darkness. God alone is the light, and our light is the
shining of his will in our lives. If our light shine at all, it must be,
it can be only in showing the Father; nothing is light that does not
bear him witness. The man that sees the glory of God, would turn sick at
the thought of glorifying his own self, whose one only possible glory is
to shine with the glory of God. When a man tries to shine from the self
that is not one with God and filled with his light, he is but making
ready for his own gathering contempt. The man who, like his Lord, seeks
not his own, but the will of him who sent him, he alone shines. He who
would shine in the praises of men, will, sooner or later, find himself
but a Gideon's-pitcher left broken on the field.

Let us bestir ourselves then to keep this word of the Lord; and to this
end inquire how we are to let our light shine.

To the man who does not try to order his thoughts and feelings and
judgments after the will of the Father, I have nothing to say; he can
have no light to let shine. For to let our light shine is to see that in
every, even the smallest thing, our lives and actions correspond to what
we know of God; that, as the true children of our father in heaven, we