course, but because of the great patience and faithfulness of Him who is
the Light. A very rickety cheap lantern may carry a clear light, and the
man in the ditch find good footing in the road again.

You and I are meant to be the human lanterns carrying the Light, and
letting it shine clearly fully out. And you know when some one else is
providing the light the chief thing about the lantern is that the glass
of the lantern be kept dean and clear so the light within can get freely
out. The great thing is that _we shall live clean transparent lives_ so
the Light within may shine clearly out. We may live unselfish clean
Christly lives, by His great grace. And through that kind of lives, the
Light itself shines out, and shines out most, and most clearly.

Over at the mouth of the Hudson, where I call it home, there are some
strange things seen. Sometimes the glass of this human lantern gets
smoky, badly smoked. And sometimes it even gets cobwebby, rather thickly
covered up. And even this has been known to happen up there,--it'll seem
very strange to you people doubtless--_this_; they write finely phrased
essays on the delicate shading of grey in the smoke on the glass of the
human lantern.

They meet together and listen to essays, in rarely polished English, on
the exquisite lace-like tracery of the cobwebs on the glass of the human
lantern. But look! Hold your heart still and look! There's the crowd in
the road in the dark, struggling, jostling, stumbling, and falling into
the ditch at the side of the road, ditched and badly mired, because the
light hasn't gotten to them. The Light's there. It's burning itself out
in passionate eagerness to help. But the human lanterns are in bad
shape.