while, as with Palissy, the Huguenot potter, the very furniture of the
house was brought out to feed the flame in which the precious glaze was
being precipitated.

If the Christian worker longs to benefit the poor slum district in
which he is located, he must be prepared to live amongst the people and
expend himself. Presently, in his hollow cheeks, his sallow
complexion, his attenuated form, his diminishing strength, you will see
that he is paying the price for his 100-candle illuminating power,
because he is being consumed. Every successful worker for God must
learn that lesson. You must be prepared to suffer; you can only help
men when you die for them. If you desire to save others you cannot
save yourself; you must be prepared to fall into the ground and die, if
you would not abide alone: there must be with you, as with Paul, the
decaying of the outward man, that the inward man may be renewed day by
day. You must be prepared to say with him, "Death worketh in us, but
life in you."

_If you burn, you will shine_. The burning and the shining do not
always go together; often the burning goes on a long time without much
illumination resulting from the expenditure. Those who are rich in
gifts and natural endowments cast in much, and the poor cast in all
their living; this they continue to do, year after year, and none seems
to heed the awful cost at which their testimony is given. Moreover, to
use a well-known phrase, the game hardly seems worth the candle. The
area they influence is so limited, the souls affected so few, the
glimmer of their light, like a street-lamp in a fog, hardly reaches
across the street or to the ground. Sometimes it appears only to make
the darkness denser and thicker. In many cases, the saints of God have
burnt down to the last film of vital energy and expired, and there has
been no shining that the world has taken cognisance of. Their bitter
complaint has been, "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength
for nought, and in vain." But even these shall shine. They shall
shine as the stars for ever and ever in that world where all holy and
faithful souls obtain their due.

Let us see to the burning; God will see to the shining. It is ours to
feed the sacred heaven-enkindled flame with the daily fuel of the Word
of God and holy service; and God will see to it that no ray of power or
love is wasted. He will place reflectors around us, to catch up and
repeat the influences