all human duties in the one sweet obligation, 'Follow Me,' and even
more by His Spirit that dwells in us, and whispers in our ears, 'This
is the way; walk ye in it,' and enlightens every perplexity, and
strengthens all feebleness, and directs our footsteps into the way of
peace; that living and personal Ark of the covenant of the Lord of the
whole earth is still the guide of waiting and docile hearts. Jesus
Christ's one word to us is, 'If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.
And where I am'--of course, seeing he is a follower--'there shall also
My servant be.'

The one Pattern for us, the one Example that we need to follow, the one
Strength in our perplexities, the true Director of our feet, is that
dear Lord, if we will only listen to Him. And that direction will be
given to us in regard to the trifles, as in regard to the great things
of our lives.

III. And so the last thought that is here is the watchful following.

'Come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye ought to
go.' In a shipwreck, the chances are that the boats will be swamped by
the people scrambling into them in too great a hurry. In the
Christian life most of the mistakes that people make arise from their
not letting the ark go far enough ahead of them before they gather up
their belongings and follow it. An impatience of the half-declared
divine will, a running before we are sent, an acting before we are
quite sure that God wills us to do so-and-so, are at the root of most
of the failures of Christian effort, and of a large number of the
miseries of Christian men. If we would only have patience! Three-
quarters of a mile the ark went ahead before a man lifted a foot to
follow it, and there was no mistake possible then.