THE JOYS OF ANGLING 13 



The fields and gardens were beset 

 With Tulips, Crocus, Violet, 

 And now, though late, the modest Rose 

 Did more than half a blush disclose. 

 Thus all looks gay, and full of cheat 

 To welcome the new liveryM year." 



Would you go " a-angling " then, thou sedate 

 and solid citizen, be last of all restrained because of 

 the company you will keep. Do you not recall about 

 that historical fishers' lunch around the little camp- 

 fire by the waterside? " Peter saith, ... I go a 

 fishing. They say, . . . We also go with thee. 

 . . . Jesus stood on the shore. . . . Then Jesus 

 saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They 

 answered him, No. And he said, . . . Cast the net 

 on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. . . . 

 As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire 

 of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 

 Jesus saith, . . . Bring of the fish which ye have 

 now caught. . . . Come and dine. Jesus then 

 cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish 

 likewise." If, now, your conservatism still shies at 

 " new-fangled frivolities," read in the nineteenth 

 chapter of Isaiah about " all they that cast angle 

 into the brooks;" in the book of Job, where the Lord 

 asked him, " Canst thou take out a fish with the 

 hook? " or in the first chapter of Habakkuk, how 

 " they take up all of them with the angle." 



Perhaps the sustained interest of such men as 

 those referred to is not so surprising either, when 



