fishing village or with whom we have spent a night at
sea fishing, and whose talk has been _at the best_ old stories of their
craft or legends of the water. Such men were the Apostles. They were
men who were not at home in cities, who simply could not understand the
current philosophies, who did not so much as know the names of the great
contemporary writers of the Roman world, who took only so much interest
in politics as every Jew in those troublous times was forced to
take--men who were at home only on their own lake, in their fishing
boat, and who could quite contentedly, even after all they had recently
gone through, have returned to their old occupation for life. They were
in point of fact now returning to their old life--returning to it partly
because they had no impulse to publish what they knew, and partly
because, even though they had, they must live, and did not know how they
should be supported but by fishing.

And this is the reason of this miracle; this is the reason why our Lord
so pointedly convinced them that without Him they could not make a
livelihood: that they might fish all the night through and resort to
every device their experience could contrive and yet could catch
nothing, but that He could give them sustenance as He pleased. If any
one thinks that this is a secular, shallow way of looking at the
miracle, let him ask what it is that chiefly keeps men from serving God
as they think they should, what it is that induces men to live so much
for the world and so little for God, what it is that prevents them from
following out what conscience whispers is the right course. Is it not
mainly the feeling that by doing God's will we ourselves are likely to
be not so well off, not so sufficiently provided for. Above all things,
therefore, both we and the Apostles need to be convinced that our Lord,
who asks us to follow Him, is much better able to provide for us than we
ourselves are. They had the same transition to make as every man among
ourselves has to make; we and they alike have to pass from the natural
feeling that we depend on our own energy and skill for our support to
the knowledge that we depend on God. We have to pass from the life of
nature and sense to the life of faith. We have to come to know and
believe that the fundamental thing is God, that it is He who can support
us when nature fails, and _not_ that we must betake ourselves to nature
at many points where God fails--that we live, not by