particular. If we begin to think ourselves strong in any characteristic, then is the moment of our danger. By many sore experiences Paul was led to say, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" for his weakness sent him to the Lord, who said, "My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness." But the converse of his words is also sadly true; for when we are strong, then are we weak, and when we begin to think that some one principle is powerful in us, we are in danger of failing in that very thing. What need, therefore, of unslumbering vigilance in our daily lives! Finally, if Peter's fall is a warning against overconfidence, his restoration ought to be an antidote to all despair. We have seen how aggravated his guilt was, yet Jesus took him back; and no matter how heinous our iniquity may have been, he will heal our backsliding also, if we go to him in penitence and prayer. The greatest sin we can commit against him is to despair of his grace. Oh, if there be any one here to-night who has been denying Christ, let me beseech him now to return! As you think of your father's house, where you were taught to know and love the Lord; as you remember the privileges you enjoyed in the Sundayschool, and at your mother's knee, where first you learned to lisp the words of prayer; as you recall the ecstasy of the hour when, before the Church and the world, you confessed Christ as your Saviour and Lord; and then, as you reflect on all that you have done since on your falseness, your impurity, your profanity, aye, it may be your dishonesty-you may be apt to sink into despair. But no! no! no! Do not despair. Do not judge the Lord Jesus by the standard of your own heart; do not judge him even by the character and conduct of those who call themselves his followers. Judge him only by his own words and actions! Is it not written, "If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and Even from thence! What do these with all thy soul." side of hell. He will heal your backsliding; he will love you freely. Go, and weep your tears of penitence over his feet, for he saith unto thee, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." XI. BY THE LAKE OF GALILEE. JOHN xxi. HE twenty-first chapter of the Gospel by John, to which TH we are indebted for the incidents which are now to come under our review, may be regarded as an appendix to the treatise in which it is incorporated. But, though bearing upon it the mark of having been written at a later date than the main narrative, it has also unmistakable indications of the same author's hand. The simplicity of the style, the incidental allusions in the story, the recurrence of certain forms of expression which are frequently found in his other writings, and the personal references in the closing verses, are all characteristic of "the disciple whom Jesus loved;" and, as we pass from the body of the Gospel into this epilogue, we are conscious of no such transition as that which we must have felt had we been going from the writings of one author to those of another. Like the side-chapel in some beautiful cathedral, while it has certain features of distinctive excellence, it so harmonizes in manner and appearance with the principal edifice as to convey the impression that it is the creation of the same great architect who designed the structure of which it is an adjunct. Nor is it difficult to divine the motives by which its author was actuated in making this addition to his former work. Principally and especially, he desired to commend to his readers the gentleness of Christ, as that comes out in his treatment of the apostle who had thrice denied him; but in cidentally he gives us also an account of the renewal of Peter's commission, and so accredits him to all his readers. I call particular attention to this incidental effect produced upon the student by this chapter, because Renan has affirmed that "in his old age the Apostle John commenced to dictate a few things which he knew better than the rest, with the intention of showing that in many instances in which only Peter was spoken of, he had figured with him, and even before him."* But who that has read the Gospel even in the most cursory manner can accept such a statement? Is it possible that the divinest book in the world could have had its origin in the personal pique and petty pride of its author? Is it conceivable that the man who throughout his treatise has never mentioned his own name, and has kept himself studiously in the background, was yet at the very same time filled with jealousy of Peter? But, in addition to these weighty considerations, we point to this supplementary chapter, and ask if it be not patent to every one who cares to see it, that John has written this narrative with a kind of brotherly pride in his fellow-disciple, and with the view of exalting him in the estimation of his readers? No doubt there is an implied reproof of Peter's curiosity in the twenty-second verse; but why should John, in recording that, be accused of being jealous of Peter, any more than Matthew should be blamed for the same thing, because he tells that on one occasion the Master said to the same disciple, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The truth is, that John here has supplied us with information without which it would hardly have been possible for us to understand how the Peter of the denials became in the short space of fifty days the Peter of the Pentecost. The *Renan's "Life of Jesus," English people's edition, pp. 15, 16. other evangelists, indeed, have given us hints of his repentance; but if it had not been for the account which John has furnished of his running to the sepulchre, and of his interview with the risen Lord by the Lake of Galilee, we might have been disposed to accuse him of forwardness and presumption in taking such a prominent part in the organization of the Church. As it is, however, this commission given to him by the Lord is the warrant for his activity on the day of Pentecost. But to give an intelligent presentation of the subject, we must go back to the point at which we closed our last discourse. After Peter's denials our Lord was taken from the palace of the high-priest to the hall of Pilate, and thence to the house of Herod, who sent him back to the Roman governor, by whom he was given over to crucifixion. At the ninth hour of the sixth day of the week the Lord yielded up the ghost; and as the reality of his death was ascertained by the spear-thrust of the Roman soldier shortly afterward, there was still time before the Sabbath began for a hasty funeral. So Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, having obtained from Pilate the necessary permission, took the body, and, with the assistance of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, "wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock," and which had been only recently finished in a garden hard by Calvary. In this tomb the body of the Lord Jesus lay all through that silent Sabbath. But on the morning of the first day of the week, in spite of the sealed stone which had been put at the door of the sepulchre, and to the dismay of the soldiers who had been set as a watch beside it, he came forth, "having burst the bands of death because it was impossible that he should be holden of them." At what precise moment he arose from the dead we are nowhere informed. We know, however, that he did not hurry from the tomb, like as a crim |