Remember a small light will do a good deal when it is in a very dark place. You put one little tallow candle in the middle of a large hall, and it will give a good deal of light.
Away out in the prairie regions, when meetings are held at night in the log school-houses, the announcement of the meeting is given out in this way: "A meeting will be held by early candle-light." The first man who comes brings a tallow-dip with him. It is perhaps all he has; but he brings it and sets it on the desk. It does not light the building much; but it is better than none at all. The next man brings his candle; and the next family bring their candles. By the time the house is full, there is plenty of light. So if we all shine a little, there will be a good deal of light. That is what God wants us to do. If we cannot all be lighthouses, any one of us can at any rate be a tallow candle.
A little light will sometimes do a great deal. The city of Chicago was set on fire by a cow kicking over a lamp, and a hundred thousand people were burnt out of house and home. Do not let Satan get the advantage of you, and make you think that because you cannot do any great thing you cannot do anything at all.
Then we must remember that we are to _let_ our light shine. It does not say, "_Make_ your light shine." You do not have to _make_ light to shine; all you have to do is to _let_ it shine.
I remember hearing of a man at sea who was very sea-sick. If there is a time when a man feels that he cannot do any work for the Lord it is then--in my opinion. While this man was sick he heard that a man had fallen overboard. He was wondering if he could do anything to help to save the man. He laid hold of a light and held it up to the port-hole. The drowning man was saved. When this man got over his attack of sickness he got up on deck one day, and was talking with the man who was rescued. The saved man gave this testimony. He said he had gone down the second time, and was just going down again for the last time, when he put out his hand. Just then, he said, some one held a light at the port-hole, and the light fell on his hand. A man caught him by the hand and pulled him into the lifeboat.
It seemed a small thing to do to hold up the light; yet it saved the man's life. If you cannot do some great thing you can hold the light for some poor, perishing drunkard, who may be won to Christ and delivered from destruction. Let us take the torch of salvation and go into these dark homes, and hold up Christ to the people as the Savior of the world. If these perishing masses are to be reached we must lay our lives right alongside theirs, and pray with them and labor for them. I would not give much for a man's Christianity, if he is saved himself and is not willing to try and save others. It seems to me the basest ingratitude if we do not reach out the hand to others who are down in the same pit from which we were delivered. Who is able to reach and help these drinking men like those who have themselves been slaves to the intoxicating cup? Will you not go out this very day and seek to rescue these men? If we were all to do what we can we should soon empty the drinking saloons.
I remember reading of a blind man who was found sitting at the corner of a street in a great city with a lantern beside him. Some one went up to him and asked what he had the lantern there for, seeing that he was blind, and the light was the same to him as the darkness. The blind man replied: "I have it so that no one may stumble over me."
Dear friends, let us think of that. Where one man reads the Bible, a hundred read you and me. That is what Paul meant when he said we were to be living epistles of Christ, known and read of all men. I would not give much for all that can be done by sermons, if we do not preach Christ by our lives. If we do not commend the Gospel to people by our holy walk and conversation, we shall not win them to Christ. Some little act of kindness will perhaps do more to influence them than any number of long sermons.