has
gone away ahead of any other. He is the Lone Man in both character and
experiences. And in some of His experiences He will ever remain the lone
occupant of the hilltop. But He is eager for our companionship. He longs
for the personal touch. He wants us to have all He has got. He has blazed
a way through the thicket where there was no path before. He left the
plain marks on the trees as He went through, so we could surely find the
way. And now He eagerly beckons us to follow.

But following means climbing. It's a hill road, sometimes down hill,
sometimes up hill. Which makes stiffer climbing? Usually the one you are
doing seems the harder. Sometimes the road is a dead level between hills.
And dead level walking--the monotonous dead-a-way, with no bracing air, no
inspiring outlook--is often much harder than down hill or up. And so it
too is climbing. Following means climbing. He climbed. He made the high
climb all alone. No other ever had the courage to climb so high as He.
It's easier since He has smoothed down the road with His own feet; yet it
isn't easy; still it is easier than not climbing; that is, when you reckon
the whole thing up--with _Him_ in.

Now He asks you and me to climb. He cannot climb for you. That is, I mean
He cannot do the climbing you ought to do. He has climbed for us, marked
out the hill path, and made it possible for us to climb up too. But the
after-climbing He cannot do for us. Each must do his own climbing. So
lungs grow deeper, and heart-action stronger, and cheeks clearer, and
muscles firmer. Step by step we must pull up, maybe through a fog, with no
view of beauty, no bracing air yet, only His strong beckoning hand.

But those who reach up and get hold of hands with Him, and get up even to
some of the lower reaches of the climb, stand with full hearts and dumb
lips. They can't find words to tell the exhilaration of the climb, the
bracing air, the far outlook, and, yet more, the wondrous presence of the
Chief Climber, even though there's a bit of smarting of face and hands
where the thorny tanglewood tore a bit as you went by.

Just now I want you to come with me for a bit of a look at the Lone Man,
who has gone before. I mean at the Man Himself. We want to take a look at
the characteristics of His life; what the Man was in His character.

And please understand me here. Following does not mean that we are to try
to imitate these characteristics. No, it's something both simpler and
ea