u fishers of men." That promise holds just as good
to you and me as it did to His disciples, and is as true now as it was
in their time.

Think of Paul up yonder. People are going up every day and every hour,
men and women who have been brought to Christ through his writings. He
set streams in motion that have flowed on for more than a thousand
years. I can imagine men going up there, and saying, "Paul, I thank
you for writing that letter to the Ephesians; I found Christ in that."
"Paul, I thank you for writing that epistle to the Corinthians."
"Paul, I found Christ in that epistle to the Philippians." "I thank
you, Paul, for that epistle to the Galatians; I found Christ in that."
And so, I suppose, they are going up still, thanking Paul all the
while for what he had done. Ah, when Paul was put in prison he did not
fold his hands and sit down in idleness! No, he began to write; and
his epistles have come down through the long ages of time, and brought
thousands on thousands to a knowledge of Christ crucified. Yes, Christ
said to Paul, "I will make you a fisher of men if you will follow Me,"
and he has been fishing for souls ever since. The devil thought he had
done a very wise thing when he got Paul into prison, but he was very
much mistaken; he overdid it for once. I have no doubt Paul has
thanked God ever since for that Philippian gaol, and his stripes and
imprisonment there. I am sure the world has made more by it than we
shall ever know till we get to heaven.

5. The "I Will" of Comfort.

The next "I will" is in John, fourteenth chapter, verse eighteen: "_I
will not leave you comfortless_."

To me it is a sweet thought that Christ has not left us alone in this
dark wilderness here below. Although He has gone up on high, and taken
His seat by the Father's throne, He has not left us comfortless. The
better translation is, "I will not leave you _orphans_." He did not
leave Joseph when they cast him into prison. "God was with him." When
Daniel was cast into the den of lions, they had to put the Almighty in
with him. They were so bound together that they could not be
separated, and so God went down into the den of lions with Daniel.

If we have got Christ with us, we can do all things. Do not let us be
thinking how weak we are. Let us lift up our eyes to Him, and think of
Him as our Elder Brother, who has all power given to Him in heaven and
on earth. He says: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
worl