The Lighthouse and the Conscience
Illustration★★★Every man should take heed to the way in which he treats his conscience. When we put a lighthouse on the coast, that in the night mariners may explore the dark and dreadful way of the sea, we not only swing glass around about it to protect it, but we enclose that glass itself in a net-work of iron wire, that birds may not dash it in, that summer winds may not sweep it out, and that swarms of insects may not destroy themselves and the light.
For if the light in the lighthouse be put out, how great a darkness falls upon the land and upon the sea! And the mariner, waiting for the light, or seeing it not, miscalculates and perishes. A man’s conscience ought to be protected from those influences that would diminish its light, or that would put it out.
— Anon
Anon.
The point
Just as a lighthouse's light is protected by glass and wire mesh from storms, birds, and insects, so a person's conscience must be carefully guarded from influences that would dim or extinguish it, lest disaster follow.