success!' something snapped, the net was broken, and all, all you had, was scattered in the depths of the sea.

On Tuesday morning, September 20, 1864, a happy family assembled round a certain breakfast table, in the full flow and graceful play of family love and eager conversation. The postbag, as usual, lay upon the table, and after a while the master of the house took out The Liverpool Evening Mail, and glancing over it, as the rest were in merry talk, read an article headed, 'The Bank Failure at Leeds.' It was a long story, and was read with a calm face, but it was like the bursting of a shell. All in a moment the good man knew that he and his were ruined. Home and farm, books and garden, horses and carriage; gone at a flash. Not a silver article on the table was his own, and even the familiar carpet on which his feet rested would soon be hung out of the window, with a ticket on it. The loser was a noble Christian; he had toiled hard and fought long, morning of honour and gladness had long shone upon him; but now all the brightness of prosperity was over, all his wealth had gone down into the sea, and he had to begin again. Yet,' said he, a few days later, though it all seems like a dream, God so wonderfully supports me, that it is not in the power of man to hurt me, nor of the world to disturb my peace.' The issue

proved that the very loss was gain to him; and so, faithful heart, yet sufferer of many losses in this world, believer in Christ, yet misinterpreter of Providence, losses will be gain to you. Your soul may, even now, have a midnight sun; and in the darkest hour of outward affliction there may be the dawn of a morning of fresh delight and rich discovery, the opening of the day of which it is written, 'Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.'

'But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered Him, No. And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.'

Weary and dispirited, as they were making for the shore, they saw standing on it a shape that was dim in the mist of the morning. It was Jesus, but they knew not that it was Jesus.' His voice pealed out upon the silence, but it woke within them no answering echo of memory. 'Children,' said He. The rough navigators were not used to this word of soft endearment, but their hearts burst into no flame of glad surprise; we might have expected this, for only Jesus would be likely thus to speak.

It was like Him to come after them when they would not go after Him, and to call them His children after all! It was a disclosure of His grace, and a ray of His glory after trying dispensations and long delays. But this thought did not seem to spring within them. 'Have ye any food?' He asked. Wherever disciples toil the Lord looks on; when they are under sharp discipline, let them remember who is the disciplinarian; if they suffer failure, let them know that the watchful eye sees, that the great heart feels; and that though Christ has allowed the grief, He does not willingly grieve' them. Let them call to mind that He who 'decks the lily in its pride, and stills the clamour of the raven's nest,' has taught His children the prayer, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' and therefore is not likely to let them starve. In answer to this enquiry they only said 'No;' the short word of cross, aching, disappointed men. Then said He, 'Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find.' It was the advice of One who is slow to take offence, and whose precept usually implies a promise; of One who for years had shared their lowly lodging and their simple fare, and who well knew their ways; of One whose infinite grandeur does not keep Him from interest in our commonest callings, and who, though the High and Lofty One,' is willing to direct us in all our work, great or

little. 'Jesus Christ,' says one of our teachers, 'knows all about fishing, all about shop-keeping, all about banking, all about all kinds of commerce; He knows your Stock Exchange better than you know it, your Bank of England, and all your little mercantile concerns. It is an insufferable calamity to think that business is not religion, and that religion is not business.' Yes, He can tell mental or manual toiler, tradesman or merchant, anxious mechanic or worried housekeeper, on which side of the vessel to cast the net. He so directed these fishermen ; and although they failed to recognise Him all at once, all felt and all obeyed the magnetism of a power and the law of a voice irresistible as that which once went with the words, 'Let there be light!'

'They cast, therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.'

1. This startling wonder was to remind the disciples that they had been consecrated to be 'fishers of men.' Two years and a-half before, this very party had spent a similar night, followed by a similar morning. In that night, as in this, they had caught nothing. In the morning, when the boats were beached, and the men were seated under the low wall of rock, moodily mending their torn tackle, Jesus came. At His will simply, and with no belief in any good that would come of it, Peter let down the

net once more, and on drawing it up again it was so laden with fish that he and his mates were not only surprised, but terrified. Jesus then said, not only to Simon, but, as it afterwards appeared, also to each one of the others, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men.'

The Divine Symbolist delighted to clothe directions for the spiritual work of His servants in language borrowed from their worldly employments. No employment so vividly symbolises the ministry of all Christians, and especially the lives of those who have given themselves wholly to it,' as that of a fisherman. Obviously, and before anything else, it suggests downright hard work. The word 'minister,' like the word 'fisherman,' is not simply the name of an office or the name of a dignity, but the name of a toiler. The fisherman's work is not fancy work, is not popular work, is not the work of a mere verbalist, or of a dramatist; it is not always work that can be set to music, nor work that can be carried on like a dramatic performance before the smile of an admiring public, but is often what the natural man feels to be dry, unromantic, and against the grain.

The symbol also suggests 'diversity of operations.' It is a medieval notion, adopted by modern ritualists, that the only way of taking the fish is by the net, which is understood to be