In one of his instructive editorial comments Mormon exhorts us not just to accept the work of God but to lay hold on it. He promises that, thus tightly grasped, it will lead the man and woman of Christ through all the vicissitudes of mortality and thence on to eternal life. To Latter-day Saints seeking to tread the straight and narrow path, Men and Women of Christ, a fascinating distillation of relevant prophetic direction though the ages, is a kind of traveler's guide for the journey. The author reminds us that, as its name implies, the geometry of the path does not allow any cutting of corners. Enlightenment increases as the traveler's expanding stride gradually develops his spiritual muscles and he increasingly takes on the cardinal virtues that fortify him against the dangers of the road—qualities such as faith, endurance, meekness, love, patience, gentleness, valiance. These simultaneously equip him for the eventual destination. While it imaginatively employs the metaphor of the path, this book is anything but a literary exercise. Based solidly on the word of God, it buttresses its concepts and arguments with scripture. A persistent theme too is the importance of the ultimate reality—things as they really are and really will be, in Jacob's words—rather than of the vagaries, follies, and temporal extravagances by which the worldly set so much store. And using this sound basis the book clothes anchoring principles in the vivid prose and the inventive phrases that are the mark of Elder Maxwell's appealing style. Practical, reliable, creative, interesting, this "traveler's guide" also is user-friendly all the way. With unusual insight and power it presents from scripture the qualities the true disciple is urged to acquire. And from its built-in indicators one can at any point determine—and then adjust as necessary—one's position on the path that leads form the "natural man" to becoming a man or woman of Christ.