Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a luster, he that runs may read.

Cowper’s couplet imagines moral or spiritual example as a kind of public illumination. To “shine by the side of every path we tread” suggests that one’s conduct should accompany daily life—ordinary “paths”—with a steady radiance, not a private or occasional brilliance. The second line alludes to the biblical phrase “he that runneth may read” (Habakkuk 2:2), implying clarity and legibility: virtue should be so plain in action that even a hurried passerby can recognize it. The emphasis is on conspicuous integrity—goodness made readable through consistent behavior rather than through proclamation.