se it. Because the other
path is wide, I beseech you to avoid it.

III. Note the travellers.

On the one road there are 'few,' on the other, by comparison,'many.'
That was true in Christ's time, and although the world is better since,
and many feet have trodden the narrow way, and have found that it leads
to life, yet I am afraid it is so still.

Now, did you ever think, or do you believe, that the fact of a course of
conduct, or of an opinion, being the conduct or the opinion of a
majority, is _pro tanto_ against it? 'What _every_body says must be
true,' says the old proverb, and I do not dispute it. What _most_
people say is, I think, most often false. And that is true about
conduct, as well as about opinion. It is very unsafe to take the general
sense of a community for your direction. It is unsafe in regard to
matters of opinion, it is even more unsafe in regard to matters of
conduct. That there are many on a road is no sign that the road is a
right one; but it is rather an argument the other way; looking at the
gregariousness of human nature, and how much people like to save
themselves the trouble of thinking and decision, and to run in ruts;
just as a cab-driver will get upon the tram-lines when he can, because
his vehicle runs easier there. So the fact that, if you are going to be
Christ-like Christians, you will be in the minority, is a reason for
being such.

You young men in warehouses, and all of you in your different spheres
and circles, do not be afraid of being singular. And remember that Jesus
Christ, and one man with Him, though it is _Athanasius contra
mundum_, are always in the majority.

Now that is good, bracing teaching, apart altogether from Christianity.
But I wish to bring it to bear especially in that direction. And so I
would remind you that after all, the solitude in which a man may have to
walk, if he sets Christ before him, and tries to follow Him with His
cross upon his shoulders, is only an apparent solitude. For, look, whose
footsteps are these on my path, not without spots of blood, where the
tender feet have trod upon thorns and briars? There has been Somebody
here before me. Who? 'Let him take up his cross and follow _Me_.'
And if we follow Him, the solitude will be like that in which the two
sad disciples walked on the Resurrection day, when a third came and
joined Himself to them. So a second will come to each of us, if we are
alone, and our hearts will burn within us. Nor shal