12 I GO A -FISHING. 



I am afraid that there was something of the human 

 nature of disappointed fishermen in the Galilaeans that 

 morning when they saw the gray dawn and had taken no 

 fish, for their reply was in much the same tone that the 

 unsatisfied angler in our day often uses in answer to that 

 same inquiry. It is just possible that John, the gentle 

 John, was the respondent. It may have been the some- 

 what sensitive Peter, or possibly two or three of them to- 

 gether, who uttered that curt " No," and then relapsed 

 into silence. 



But when the musical voice of the Master came again 

 over the water, and they cast where he bade them, John 

 remembered that other day and scene, very similar to 

 this, before they were the disciples of the Lord, when he 

 went with them in their boat and gave them the same 

 command, with the same miraculous result, and said to 

 Simon, " Henceforth thou shalt catch men." 



The memory of this scene is not unfitting to the mod- 

 ern angler. Was it possible to forget it when I first wet 

 a line in the water of the Sea of Galilee ? Is it any less 

 likely to come b^ck to me on any lake among the hills 

 when the twilight hides the mountains, and overhead the 

 same stars look on our waters that looked on Gennesaret, 

 so that the soft night air feels on one's forehead like the 

 clews of Hermon ? 



I do not think that this was the last, though it be the 

 last recorded fishing done by Peter or by John. I don't 

 believe these Galilee fishermen ever lost the love for their 

 old employment. It was a memorable fact for them that 

 the Master had gone a-fishing with them on the day that 

 he called them to be his disciples ; and this latest meeting 

 with him in Galilee, the commission to Peter, " Feed my 

 sheep," and the words so startling to John, " If I will that 



