follower. What joy! What if
the way be a bit rough; it's following _Him_; that's enough. He calls me
to be His personal friend. I can hardly take it in,--His _friend_? Yes,
that's His own word. Well, let any thorns tear because of the narrowing of
the road; I'm His friend, man, do you hear? His _friend_,--do you get hold
of that word? What can any thorn thing do against that!

"We" may go hand in hand now,--His is pierced; I feel the scar where our
hands touch. But we're together at last, _the_ thing He has been working
for. I can feel His presence. I can hear the low music of His voice
within. Thorns don't count here. Oh, yes, I _feel_ them; they haven't lost
their power to slash and sting,--but--with _Him_ so close
alongside!--Wondrous Christ, here I am at Thy feet, Thy glad slave
forever. I'm wholly Thine. It's my own choice. I'll never go any other way
by Thy grace. This is the second bit that comes, the glad surrender of
life to His mastery. Do you know about this? You will, when you've _seen
Christ_.

Then you come to know, without being able to tell just how, that He is
not only _with_ you, but _within_ you. At first His presence may have
seemed as something outside yourself. You were looking away at some One
who was looking at you. And His look at you broke your heart, and made
your will, once so strangely strong in itself, now as strangely pliable to
His as only a strong will can be. But now He is living within you. You may
not be clear just how the change came. But you do know that there's a
something which you come to know is a some One, who is within. His
presence is peace past understanding, but not past appreciation. There's a
longing for His Word, a desire to talk with Him even when you don't want
to ask for something, a deep heart-cry for purity, a burning within to
please Him. These all seem to come from Him, and at the same time to be
satisfied by Himself, even while they remain and increase.

And yet more, while this Presence within seems so quietly real and
exquisitely peace-bringing, there is still the outer presence, the One
whose presence it was at the first that brought all this change. Two
presences, one above, enthroned there; one within, enthroned there; yet
they seem the same, as though one personality with two presences had come
into your consciousness. There's the Lord Jesus above at the Father's
right hand; here's the Holy Spirit within at my right hand,[120] yet in
practical effect they