Philippians 3:12

On The Trail

I follow after. Philippians 3:12 (AV).

“ Follow my Leader” is a great game. But to make it a thorough success the leader must not be one who simply goes up one garden path and down another. He must go here, there, and everywhere. It is that that makes the game worth playing.

When anyone is following in the footsteps of a person, not in play but in earnest, we say they are “on the trail” of that person. In the Pilgrim's Progress we are told of four boys who went on a pilgrimage with their mother. Their father was on before, he had in fact reached the end of his journey, and was in the City of God. “The boys all take after their father,” said their guide in speaking of them to a friend by the way, “and covet to tread in his steps; yea, if they do but see any place where the old pilgrim hath lain, or any print of his foot, it ministereth joy to their hearts, and they covet to lie or tread in the same.”

Life is like the game of “Follow my Leader”; it is going on the trail of someone. Boys and girls must have a leader. Think how absurd it would be to try to follow our own lead. There would be no progress made: we should be just like the cat that chases its own tail. I have read of a sort of caterpillar, called the “Processional Caterpillar,” which walks in long lines, each one following closely the next in front. A certain man once saw a number of these marching round the molding of a stone vase in his garden. He got some more and filled up the gap between the tail and the head of the procession, and watched to see what the caterpillars would do. They actually went on following each his neighbor in front; they walked round that vase for a week and covered nearly a mile of distance!

You may, like the boys in the Pilgrim's Progress, follow on the trail of a good and brave man. Let me give you a little bit from a great man's speech. Abraham Lincoln, the famous American President, consecrated the battlefield of Gettysburg as a place for people to be buried in. On that occasion he said, “We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or detract. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we may take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” These are words that might have been spoken to the boys and girls of today.

But the best of leaders is Jesus Christ. He asks much from those who follow Him. He leads by paths that are sometimes very difficult and dangerous; but He is faithful; He will never betray those who honestly try to follow Him. In the end He will lead them to what is best of all being with Him all the time.

James Gilmour, the famous missionary to the Mongolians, when near the end of his life, wrote to a friend, and in the letter he said: “When I was a young man in Glasgow, I thought I heard Jesus calling, ‘Go ahead, James Gilmour'; and when I offered myself to the London Missionary Society I thought He said, ‘ Go to Mongolia, James Gilmour. ' I made a mistake; He did not say, ‘ Go ' but ‘ Come after Me, follow Me.'”

And so He says to every boy and girl here.