Consider again, that whilst all these things are true, there is yet a solemn possibility that men—­even good men—­may stifle and smother and shroud their light.  You can do, and I am afraid a very large number of you do do, this; by two ways.  You can bury the light of a holy character under a whole mountain of inconsistencies.  If one were to be fanciful, one might say that the bushel or meal-chest meant material well-being, and the bed, indolence and love of ease.  I wonder how many of us Christian men and women have buried their light under the flour-bin and the bed, so interpreted?  How many of us have drowned our consecration and devotion in foul waters of worldly lusts, and have let the love of earth’s goods, of wealth and pleasure and creature love, come like a poisonous atmosphere round the lamp of our Christian character, making it burn dim and blue?

And we can bury the light of the Word under cowardly and sheepish and indifferent silence.  I wonder how many of us have done that?  Like blue-ribbon men that button their great-coats over their blue ribbons when they go into company where they are afraid to show them, there are many Christian people that are devout Christians at the Communion Table, but would be ashamed to say they were so in the miscellaneous company of a railway carriage or a table d’hote.  There are professing Christians who have gone through life in their relationships to their fathers, sisters, wives, children, friends, kindred, their servants and dependants, and have never spoken a loving word for their Master.  That is a sinful hiding of your light under the bushel and the bed.

IV.  And so the last word, into which all this converges, is the plain duty:  If you are light, shine!

‘Let your light so shine before men,’ nays the text, ’that they may see your 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.