I GO A-FISHING. 



I. 



WHY PETER WENT A-FISHING. 



THE light of the long Galilee day was dying out beyond 

 the peaks of Lebanon. Far in the north, gleaming like a 

 star, the snowy summit of Hermon received the latest ray 

 of the twilight before gloom and night should descend on 

 Gennesaret. The white walls of Bethsaida shone gray 

 and cold on the northern border of the sea, looking to the 

 whiter palace of Herod at its farther extremity, under 

 whose very base began the majestic sweep of the Jordan. 

 Perhaps the full moon was rising over the desolate hills 

 of the Gadarenes, marking the silver pathway of the Lord 

 across the holy sea. The stars that had glorified his 

 birth in the Bethlehem cavern, that had shone on the gar- 

 den agony and the garden tomb, were shining on the hill- 

 sides that had been sanctified by his footsteps. The 

 young daughter of Jairus looked from her casement in 

 Capernaum on the silver lake, and remembered the solemn 

 grandeur of that brow which now, they told her, had been 

 torn with thorns. The son of her of Nain climbed the 

 rocks which tower above his father's place of burial, and 

 gazed down into the shining water, and pondered whether 



