elist adds, "None of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art Thou?
knowing that it was the Lord"--a remark which unquestionably implies
that there was some ground for the question, Who art Thou? They knew it
was the Lord from the miracle He had wrought and from His manner of
speaking and acting; but yet there was in His appearance something
strange, something which, had it not also inspired them with awe, would
have prompted the question, Who art Thou? The question was always on
their lips, as they found afterwards by comparing notes with one
another, but none of them durst put it. There was this time no
certification of His identity further than the aid He had given, no
showing of His hands and feet. It was, that is to say, by faith now they
must know Him, not by bodily eyesight; if they wished to deny Him, there
was room for doing so, room for questioning who He was. This was in the
most delicate correspondence with the whole incident. The miracle was
wrought as the foundation and encouraging symbol of their whole vocation
as fishers of men during His bodily absence; it was wrought in order to
encourage them to lean on One whom they could not see, whom they could
at best dimly descry on another element from themselves, and whom they
could not recognise as their Lord apart from the wonderful aid He gave
them; and accordingly even when they come ashore there is something
mysterious and strange about His appearance, something that baffles
eyesight, something that would no longer have satisfied a Thomas,
something therefore which is the fit preparation for a state in which
they were to live altogether by faith and not at all by sight. This is
the state in which we now live. He who believes will know that his Lord
is near him; he who refuses to believe will be able to deny His
nearness. It is faith then that we need: we need to know our Lord, to
understand His purposes and His mode of fulfilling them, so that we may
not need the evidence of eyesight to say where He is working and where
He is not. If we are to be His followers, if we are to recognise that He
has made a new life for us and all men, if we are to recognise that He
has begun and is now carrying forward a great cause in this world, and
if we see that, let our lives deny it as they may, there is nothing else
worth living for than this cause, and if we are seeking to help it, then
let us confirm our faith by this miracle and believe that our Lord, who
has all power in