In the third place this candle means Erectness. How straight it stands in the candlestick! Stand up straight, girls and boys. Do not stoop. Do not hump yourself over your school desk. Walk erect. It means so much now, it will mean much more in later years. Some day, if you heed my word, you will be grateful that the preacher once said to you so emphatically that you could not forget, "John, Mary, stand up straight."
Fourth, the candle stands for Light. It is useless until the wick is lighted. It burns for others. Your life is a light. Jesus wants all Christians to think of themselves as lights in the world. "Let your light shine." Be a lighted candle for the Lord.
MEMORY VERSE, Proverbs 20: 27
"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord."
MEMORY HYMN [84]
"The spacious firmament on high."
ALAS, THE MARKS
There is an old, old story about a father who had great difficulty in making his boy obey. The boy did wrong in spite of all that the father could say or do. One day the father said to the boy, "Here is the shed door, now every time you do wrong I am going to pound a nail into the door." One by one the nails were pounded into the door, until it was literally filled with nails. The boy did not like the looks of the door, the thought of it began to trouble his conscience. So he spoke to his father about it. "Well," said his father, "I'll tell you what we will do. Every time you are obedient, every time you do a good deed rather than a wrong one, we will pull a nail out." The bargain was struck, and as, one by one, the nails were driven in, so, one by one, they were pulled out.
Finally the day arrived when there was but one nail left. You can imagine the joy of the boy when he and his father went together to pull that nail out. With great glee the claws of the hammer were fastened about the head of Mr. Nail and, jerk, out he came. "Oh," exclaimed the boy, "the marks are left." Yes, it was true, for every nail driven in and pulled out a mark was left, and it was an ugly looking door. "That is the sad thing about it all," said the father, "every time you do an evil deed a mark is left upon the life. It is never the same as if the evil deed had not been committed. It is fine that we have all the nails out, but it would have been much better had they never been driven in."