hich they had spent the night, but in the little boat they carried
with them, the reason being added, "for they were not far from
land"--that is to say, not far enough to use the larger vessel any
longer. Peter, therefore, ran no risk of drowning. But his action
reveals the eagerness of love. No sooner has he only heard from another
that his Lord is near, than the fish for which he had been watching and
waiting all night are forgotten, and for him, the master of the vessel,
the net and all its contents might have sunk to the bottom of the lake.
What this action of Peter suggested to the Lord is apparent from the
question which a few minutes later He put to him: "Lovest thou Me more
than these?"

Neither would Peter have sustained any serious loss even though his nets
had been carried away, for when he reaches the shore he finds that the
Lord was to be their host, not their guest. A fire is ready lit, fish
laid on it and bread baking. He who could so fill their nets could also
provide for His own wants. But there was to be no needless
multiplication of miracles; the fish already on the fire was not to be
multiplied in their hands when plenty were lying in the net. He directs
them, therefore, to bring of the fish they had caught. They go to the
net, and mechanically, in their old fashion, count the fish they had
taken, one hundred and fifty and three; and John, with a fisher's memory
can tell you, sixty years after, the precise number. From these
miraculously provided fish they break their long fast.

The significance of this incident has perhaps been somewhat lost by
looking at it too exclusively as symbolical. No doubt it was so; but it
carried in the first place a most important lesson in its bare, literal
facts. We have already noticed the precarious position in which the
Church at this time was. And it will be useful to us in many ways to
endeavour to rid our mind of all fancies about the beginning of the
Christian Church, and look at the simple, unvarnished facts here
presented to our view. And the plain and significant circumstance which
first invites our attention is, that the nucleus of the Church, the men
on whom the faith of Christ depended for its propagation, were
fishermen.

This was not merely the picturesque drapery assumed by men of ability so
great and character so commanding that all positions in life were alike
to them. Let us recall to memory the group of men we have seen standing
at a corner in a