but my heart is not. I have
heard the missionaries preach the gospel of forgiveness. You owe your
life to the preaching of the gospel. If my heart was as dark now as
it was before the gospel was preached here, I should strike off your
head in an instant!"

Then he released the carpenter without injuring him and accepted from
him a blanket as an apology for the insult. How faithfully this man
was practising the duty of forgiveness which Jesus taught!

_The only other thing of which we shall now speak, as taught by our
Saviour in the parables, is_--THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD EXAMPLE.

The parable which teaches this lesson is that of the lighted candle.
It is one of the shortest of our Lord's parables, and yet the truth
it teaches is very important. We first find this parable in the
sermon on the mount. These are the words in which it is given:
"Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matt, v: 15. This
parable is so important that we find it repeated in three other
places. Mark iv: 21, Luke viii: 16, and xi: 33.

We find the same idea taught by one of England's greatest writers.
Looking at a candle shining through a window, he says:

"How far yon little candle throws its beam!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

And the lesson we are here taught is that we should always set a good
example by doing what we know to be right, and then, like a candle
shining in a dark place, we shall be useful wherever we go. Let us
look at one or two incidents that illustrate this.

"A Boy's Influence." Two families lived in one house. In each of
these families there was a little boy about the same age. These boys
slept together. One of them had a good pious mother. She had trained
him to kneel down every night, before getting into bed, and say his
prayer in an audible voice, and to repeat a text of scripture which
she had taught him. Now the first time he slept with the other little
boy, who never said any prayers, he was tempted to jump into bed, as
his companion did, without kneeling down to pray. But he was a brave
and noble boy. He said to himself--"I am not afraid to do what my
mother taught me. I am not ashamed for anybody to know that I pray to
God. I'll do as I have been taught to do." He did so. He let his
li