We remember, says one, to have read a conversation with the keeper of the lighthouse at Calais. The watchman was boasting of the brilliancy of his lantern, which can be seen ten leagues at sea, when the visitor said to him, "What if one of the lights should chance to go out?"
"Never; impossible," he cried, with a sort of consternation at the bare hypothesis. "Sir," he cried, pointing to the ocean, "yonder, where nothing can be seen, there are ships going to every part of the world. If, to-night, one of my burners were out, within six months would come a letter—perhaps from India, perhaps from America, perhaps from some place I never heard of—saying, such a night, at such an hour, the light of Calais burned dim, the watchman neglected his post, and vessels were in danger. Ah, sir, sometimes in the dark nights, in stormy weather, I look out to sea, and I feel as if the whole world were looking at my light. Go out? Burn dim? Oh, never!"
Was the keeper of this lighthouse so vigilant, did he feel so deeply the importance of his work and its responsibility; and shall Christians neglect their light, and suffer it to grow dim—grow dim when, for need of its bright shining, some poor soul, struggling amid the waves of temptation, may be dashed upon the rocks of destruction? No. "Hold forth the word of Life." This is the way to save souls. "Holding forth the word of life," says the Apostle; why? "that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain nor labored in vain."
"For sadder sight the eye can know
Than proud bark lost, or seaman's woe—
The shipwreck of the soul." —Brust.