upon the suffering and the dying. Will not the greatness of thy privilege be the greatness of thy condemnation? He always chose thee to be with Him in special times when He went apart for prayer: to whom much is given, of them will much be required. Oh! how hast thou fallen!" and the spirits away in the darkness would say, "Thou art become even as one of us."

Then he would remember how in his own family, almost in his own flesh, he had received special mercy; and that work of healing would rise up to condemn him. Sin against mercy is sin without mercy; a thousand times thou art condemned, having sinned against such light and privilege and grace.

Then some spirits would whisper, "Dost thou remember how when many were leaving the Lord, because His doctrines were hard to receive and His steps hard to follow, He asked the question, 'Will ye also go away?' Who was it that answered so readily, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' Would it not have been better to have denied Him at the first than to have waited till the light had grown as clear as it has been, and to have deserted Him when He needed thee most? Better to have denied Him then, when evidence was feeble, than to disown Him, known as thou hast been privileged to know Him!"

We are not told one word about what Peter did or where he went, except that he went out weeping. When the morning came and they were leading Jesus away to crucifixion, John was there, but no mention is made of Peter. And yet I think I know where he went, and can see him taking his way across the brook, which so lately he had crossed with Jesus, to the garden of olive-trees. He would say to himself, "Here is the place where the Lord came and found me sleeping"; and "Here He said to me, 'Pray, pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'" Going a little farther, he would come to the place where the Master Himself had prayed. He would kneel and pray there too; in the place where there were still lying on the ground great drops of blood, the earth still wet with the strange sorrow of the Lamb. There, in his despair, he would kneel; and yet even in his despair would be turned towards God. His heart would be turned, even when he thought it never would be turned again; he would be there, without comfort, and yet God comforting him. Maybe, for him, too, there were strengthening angelic ministries; for there are more of these heavenly messengers with us than we think. Perhaps some words of ancient promise might be brought to his mind by God, as he was kneeling there; such as, "My soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken Thou me according to Thy word!" "A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He bring forth judgment into victory." "He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." But whatever means were adopted, we believe that God was with him—comforting, restoring, saving, strengthening him. All this prepares us for the scene by the Lake.

This must have struck Peter as very like another passage in the intercourse between him and Jesus. Strange scene! we are back in Galilee; we experience again a night of fruitless toil. This was my place of consecration at the first; and these nets, which I borrow now, were then my own; and it was in the morning that the Lord was standing on the beach, as He did even now.

There is no mere repetition in this story: to a soul in Peter's case the one impossible thing would be that he should ever regain the place from whence he fell. And the Lord was going to convince him, by means of these similar circumstances and the miraculous draught of great fishes, that there was for him, even for him, such a thing as a fresh start; and that he should not mourn because there was "no returning upon his former track." When the boat had been brought to land, the Lord questioned Peter, not saying, "Thou didst deny Me," but "Dost thou love Me?" and finally repeats in his ears the old word with which He moved him to tread the heavenly way at the first—"Follow thou Me."

There were now no boats or nets which Peter could leave for the Lord, but the whole drama of consecration is acted over again. "Follow Me, Peter; what thou hast missed shall yet be given thee; formerly there was a point beyond which thou couldst not follow Me; but now thou shalt tread in My footsteps, even to the cross which thou didst fear at the first, and to the shame from which erewhile thy soul recoiled." "Another shall carry thee whither thou wouldest not: this spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God."