"Shine Inside"

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Title:     "Shine Inside"
Author: Howard J. Chidley [More Titles by Chidley]

[Christian story -- From: Fifty-Two Story Talks to Boys and Girls]

As I was passing along the street the other day I saw on the window of a bootblack's parlour the words, "Shine Inside."

I want to turn these words around and make a motto of them for you boys and girls. For I think that if every boy and girl would shine inside, our homes, and the world in general, would be a much happier place.

Of course there are some boys and girls who shine only on the outside. A little while ago I read a story about Byron, a great poet, of whom you will learn later in school. A man said to Sir Walter Scott that he wished he might have seen Byron when he was alive. He said he had only seen a photograph of him. Scott said, "Yes, the luster is there [in the photograph], but it is not lighted up." Now, there are some boys' and girls' faces that have a luster, but it is not lighted up.

Or their faces are like a mirror that shines brightly only when there is sunlight or some other light falling upon it. The mirror only shines outside. The luster is not always lighted up. I know boys and girls who shine outside only when other boys and girls play the game which they want them to play, or when they get the clothes they want to wear or the food they want to eat, or when they are out in pleasant company. But when they don't have their own way, then their faces are very cloudy.

But the boy or girl who shines inside is one who "irons out his wrinkles with a smile" even though things do not exactly please him, and he thinks of other people instead of himself.

Now, how can boys and girls shine inside so that they will always shine outside whether they have their own way or not? Well, you remember that the Bible says that when Moses came down from the mountain his face shone, because he had been talking with God. That is the secret, boys and girls. When a man or a woman or a boy or a girl talks often enough with God in prayer and asks to be made like Christ, then a light is lighted within him which causes his face to shine. You remember Christ said, "I am the Light." Let Him into your heart, and you will shine inside.

"The man worth while is the man with a smile
When everything goes dead wrong."

[The end]
Howard J. Chidley's short story: "shine Inside"

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