lf not being able to contain the books that might
be written about Christ has always seemed to me to be in his spirit,
the words of a very simple-minded and aged man. It is enchanting,
because it contains two of the most beautiful episodes in the whole of
the Gospel History, the charge to St Peter to feed the lambs and sheep
of the fold, where one of the most delicate nuances of language is lost
in the English translation, and the appearance of Jesus beside the sea
of Galilee. I must not here discuss the story of the charge to St
Peter, though I once heard it read, with exquisite pathos, when an
archbishop of Canterbury was being enthroned with all the pomp and
circumstance of ecclesiastical ceremony, in such a way that it brought
out, by a flash of revelation, the true spirit of the scene we were
attending; we were simple Christians, it seemed, assembled only to set
a shepherd over a fold, that he might lead a flock in green pastures
and by waters of comfort.

But a man must not tell two tales at once, or he loses the savour of
both. Let us take the other story.

The dreadful incidents of the Passion are over; the shame, the horror,
the humiliation, the disappointment. The hearts of the Apostles must
have been sore indeed at the thought that they had deserted their
friend and Master. Then followed the mysterious incidents of the
Resurrection, about which I will only say that it is plain from the
documents, if they are accepted as a record at all, from the
astonishing change which seems to have passed over the Apostles,
converting their timid faithfulness into a tranquil boldness, that
they, at all events, believed that some incredibly momentous thing had
happened, and that their Master was among them again, returning through
the gates of Death.

They go back, like men wearied of inaction, tired of agitated thought,
to their homely trade. All night the boat sways in the quiet tide, but
they catch nothing. Then, as the morning begins to come in about the
promontories and shores of the lake, they see the figure of one moving
on the bank, who hails them with a familiar heartiness, as a man might
do who had to provide for unexpected guests, and had nothing to give
them to eat. I fancy, I know not whether rightly, that they see in him
a purchaser, and answer sullenly that they have nothing to sell. Then
follows a direction, which they obey, to cast the net on the right side
of the boat. Perhaps they thought the