Light of the World. Ye are the light of the world.-Matt. v, 14. T the time these words were spoken by the AT off the city of Alexandria, a noted tower which was reckoned as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was built of white marble and arose story above story to the height of five hundred feet. Its galleries and balustrades and pilasters and columns were of the finest marble, and all were finely wrought. It was the pride of the monarch who caused its erection and it took the name of the island upon which it was built. Its name suggests its purpose and means "to shine" or "to be bright." It was a beacon tower, and was dedicated by its architect Sostratus to "The gods the preservers, for the benefit of seamen." All through the night, upon its top, fires were kept burning, the light of which we are told could be seen out upon the sea for forty miles. For three hundred years and more it had already stood in the entrance way of that harbor which was dangerous and difficult of access, to warn of danger and to guide to safety; and after that, it stood and shone for seven hundred years. We move down the centuries. Out in the Atlantic, off the rugged coast and cliffs of Cornwall, miles out in the open sea, anchored and rooted to the sunken rocks of Eddystone, Smeaton built the lighthouse which has made his name immortal. For a hundred and thirty years, or nearly that, it braved the sea and bid its bold defiance to the howling storm and hungry waves. In the midnight darkness when the moon and stars were clouded, in the dangerous calm and in the raging storm, that tower stood erect, and with a steady light shone out upon the changing sea, pointing to the harbor and the dangerous shoals to tell the sailor where he was and where to go. On the old Eddystone tower which stood so long to gladden the sailor on that dangerous coast was inscribed:-"To give light, to save life." These celebrated towers, together with others on ocean rocks and the bold head-lands on the shore, are fitting types of earnest, faithful Christians, who, through storms and clouds and nights of darkness and the changing scenes of earthly existence, stand firm for God and fling the luster of their steadfast characters over the changing seas of human life, and hold with firm, unwavering grasp, before the eyes of men, the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, to warn of danger and to guide to safety. "Ye are the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hid.”—So says the Master. It is taken for granted that the world is in darkness. Away back on the first morn of creation, when darkness covered the earth, God said "Let there be light and there was light." The world now alienated from God lies in moral darkness. Four thousand years of sin have been gathering their gloom which now hangs like a pall over the earth. Christ has gone up on the mountain slope a few miles distant from Capernaum. A little company of his disciples is gathered around him. These are men and women in humble life. They are representatives of a poor, despised and subjugated people,-obscure, untitled, unlettered,-without distinction and without prospects of advancement in the world. To these he speaks. He would have them know him and to represent him, his truth and his life in times to come. He knows man and he knows God and his truth. He does not take up the musty old traditions of the elders, but reveals what really concerns men to know; what is the true and lasting blessedness of life and what we must really be and do to be true men and women, and how we must live to reach the goal and end designed in human life. With the eye and courage of a fearless prophet he taught them that this did not consist in legislative wisdom-as some of the noble heathen thought-nor in the mere ceremonies of religion, nor anything merely outward, but in meekness, purity, charity, longsuffering and goodness,-in what we are in the sight of God and in relation to his government over us. The words and life and death of Christ shed forth a heavenly luster and manifested a type of life and heroism new to the world, and heaven-born. He taught that there was life to win and death to shun, safety to embrace and danger to avoid, a life destined to bud in righteousness and to bloom in eternal freshness. These truths which Christ uttered will never be surpassed or become old. The centuries may wear away the rocks and move back the river gorge and even level mountains to the plain; but the lapse |