“It is the little rift within the lute That by-and-by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all; The little rift within the lover’s lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all.” Let us judge ourselves, that we be not judged by the Lord. Let us count no wrong a trifle. Let us never imagine that our defects in one kind will be atoned for by excellencies in another. Our friends may say this, in charity, for us; it is a fatal thing when a man begins to say so to himself. “May the God of peace sanctify you fully. May your whole spirit, soul, and body in blameless integrity be preserved to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. v. 23). II. The _effect_ upon surrounding darkness of the light of God in Christian lives is described in verses 11-14, in words which it remains for us briefly to examine. Verse 12 distinguishes “the things secretly done” by the Gentiles, “of which it is a shame even to speak,” from the open and manifest forms of evil in which they invite their Christian neighbours to join (ver. 11). Instead of doing this and “having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,” they must “rather reprove them.” Silent absence, or abstinence is not enough. Where sin is open to rebuke, it should at all hazards be rebuked. On the other hand, St Paul does not warrant Christians in prying into the hidden sins of the world around them and playing the moral detective. Publicity is not a remedy for all evils, but a great aggravation of some, and the surest means of disseminating them. “It is a shame”--a disgrace to our common nature, and a grievous peril to the young and innocent--to fill the public prints with the nauseous details of crime and to taint the air with its putridities. “But all things,” the apostle says--whether it be those open works of darkness, profitless of good, which expose themselves to direct conviction, or the depths of Satan that hide their infamy from the light of day--“all things being reproved by the light, are made manifest” (ver. 13). The fruit of the light convicts the unfruitful works of darkness. The daily life of a Christian man amongst men of the world is a perpetual reproof, that tells against secret sins of which no word is spoken, of which the reprover never guesses, as well as against open and unblushing vices.