earliest glimpse of Him; certainly, as it seems to us, the eleven' would have been here on the eager look out. But we only see seven, and on the day now spoken of, Peter speaks, and what does he say? 'I go!' Yes, but whither? We find from his answer that he is not going up, but going down; not going to the mountain, but to the sea.

3. The announcement of Peter seems to have been made in a fit of despondency. We do not forget the remark of Dr. Trench;- The announcement of Peter, I go a-fishing, is not, as is sometimes strangely supposed, that he has lost his hope in Jesus as the Messiah, has renounced his apostleship, and now returns to his old occupations, there being no nobler work for him in store.' No; but with all our venerating regard to this authority, and, after all, we hope not in real conflict with it, we do think that these words were spoken under passing impressions like those just stated. A wrong step is different from a wrong course, and a man may do in one wild moment of distress what he would not for worlds think of doing in saner moments. Christ had told Peter and his companions to give up fishing when they became His disciples, at least, fishing of the kind that belonged to their old vocation; henceforth they were not to be fishers of fish, but fishers of men; therefore, when He said 'Follow Me,' they instantly left all and followed

Him. Peter made emphatic reference to this fact on a certain memorable occasion, when the young ruler came, whom Jesus looking upon loved, when this ruler could not resolve to sacrifice everything in the world for Jesus; when Peter said, 'Lord, we have left all and followed Thee!' And when Christ's reply foretold the magnificent rewards of grace to those who in this life, for His sake, gave up all, both the words of the disciple and those of the Master seem to speak of the forsaken fishing boat as the sign of a final and consummated act—an act involved in discipleship, and essential to the confession of faith. We never hear of them working at their old craft for a living while they looked upon themselves as the apostles of Christ.

When, therefore, Peter says, 'I go a-fishing,' does he not mean-at least in the heat of his speech-'I give up my glorious hopes and return to my old line of life?' So it seems. We picture the Apostles as waiting and waiting at Jerusalem for another Divine visit of the same kind as before, but this visit had not been granted then. Then, solemnly and sadly, they came back to the familiar place by the waterside; and there they waited and waited. Every night Peter's heart would say, 'He will come to-morrow;' but to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow came, and no Jesus. Then that heart

cried out, in a burst of passionate sadness, 'I give up, for He will not come any more.' The problem of life was too hard to solve; the mystery of Jesus too dark to pierce. In a cloud like this I think it was that Peter said, 'I go a-fishing.'

'They say unto him, we also go with thee.'

'Certain men,' it has been remarked, 'seem to be naturally and unaccountably influential. When your spirits touch theirs, you feel shocks of delight, and a fascination that holds or moves you like a hand. Whether they speak or keep silent, they are like electric batteries, and are charged with a force vast and inexplicable, which they are for ever pouring out, and by which they irresistibly stir and sway the lives that are all round them." From certain signs that appear in the account of him, we have thought that Peter had this kind of electricity; and we can understand that in consequence of this alone, and quite apart from reason, what he decided upon would, in a special degree, have influenced the decision of others.

We can imagine the exchange of such words as these between him and them: 'I go to the mountain.' 'We go with thee.' 'I will seek the Lord.' 'We will seek the Lord with thee.' 'I

1' Bernard of Clairvaux.' By Charles Stanford. In the Evangelical Magazine, August, 1881,

am sad.' 'We are sad.' 'I give up.' 'We give up.' 'I go a-fishing.' 'We also go with thee.'

It is patent that great leaders, besides higher qualities, have a certain kind of natural force and 'going' power peculiar to themselves; but more or less, for good or evil, every man must be influential; and, more or less, what he does others will do.

We can imagine, for instance, such interchange of language as this between the lives of a parent and his children: 'I am going into the ways of the world.' 'We also go with thee.' 'I believe, and am therefore going to cast in my lot with those who believe.' 'We also go with thee.' 'I am going, at all costs, to do only the holy right in my daily transactions.' go with thee.'

We also

'They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.'

1. Here is one instance, out of many, of Christ not allowing His disciples to prosper while in a, wrong course. Look at these men! They might go a-fishing,' but they should find no fish. They might toil all night, but they should take nothing. There was a spell on the boat, a fatal enchantment about the waters; and everything was contrary. It is an evil omen when Christians prosper while in a course of

practical unbelief. This omen is not seen in lives that are to reach a high standard and are to do noble things. In such cases love blights the prosperity and tangles the schemes of the errorists. Take an illustration from the land. God says to wandering Israel: 'I will edge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.' Take an illustration from the sea-here it is: "That night they caught nothing.'

2. On the other hand, sensitive consciences will need to be reminded that want of success is not in every instance from something wrong on the part of the sufferer. The fear is, that those for whom the warning is not meant will take it, and that those for whom it is will not; hence the need of this qualification. A ship may be manned by good Christians, yet founder; a concern in which none are embarked but disciples may toil all night, and catch nothing. Your property is afloat on a fickle element, in a fluctuating atmosphere; the cunning of that which you wish to capture, and the peculiarities of those with those with whom you are in partnership, may make success precarious; or perhaps the most trying event has come at the most trying moment, the trying event of failure after a life which has been not so much like a night as like a day, and a day of prosperity; then, just when you were saying, 'What a crowning