Witness : Christian

‘Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven’ (Matt. v. 16). We may do right things in an un- fortunate manner; speak kind words with the accent of a threat; and make our good gifts 124 SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS an offence. Against such defects of behaviour we must be on our guard.

‘So let your light shine’ that no accidents abate its force and beauty. Specialists in glass point out that the surfaces and forms given to the glass through which light passes, or from which it is reflected, are often faulty and wasteful. By various means they have devised, sunshine can be turned to better account than ever before.

Under certain conditions they in- crease the effective light to fifty times its present strength, they diffuse the illumination, they soften it, they concentrate rays of light into a single far-reaching beam, and give it most useful direction; they study its make, shape, and position, employing it as plain, rough, ribbed, or prismatic, as the situation may seem to demand. If we were to give equal consideration to the medium by which we reflect and transmit as ‘the light of the world,’ how immensely greater would be the effect we should produce!