IO I GO A -FISHING. 



he who had been murdered by the Jerusalem Hebrews had 

 not power to say unto himself " Arise." 



Never was night more pure, never was sea more win- 

 ning ; never were the hearts of men moved by deeper 

 emotions than on that night and by that sea when Peter 

 and John, and other of the disciples, were waiting for the 

 Master. 



Peter said, " I go a-fishing." John and Thomas, and 

 James and Nathanael, and the others, said, " We will go 

 with you," and they went. 



Some commentators have supposed and taught that, 

 when Peter said, " I go a-fishing," he announced the inten- 

 tion of resuming, at least temporarily, his old mode of life, 

 returning to the ways in which he had earned his daily 

 bread from childhood ; that his Master was gone, and he 

 thought that nothing remained for him but the old hard 

 life of toil, and the sad labor of living. 



But this seems scarcely credible, or consistent with the 

 circumstances. The sorrow which had weighed clown the 

 disciples when gathered in Jerusalem on that darkest 

 Sabbath day of all the Hebrew story, had given way to 

 joy and exultation in the morning when the empty tomb 

 revealed the hitherto hidden glory of the resurrection, joy 

 which was tenfold increased by an interview with the risen 

 Lord, and confirmed by his direction, sending them into 

 Galilee to await him there. And thus it seems incredible 

 that Peter and John — John the beloved — could have been 

 in any such gloom and despondency as to think of re- 

 suming their old employment at this time, when they were 

 actually waiting for his coming who had promised to meet 

 them. 



Probably they were on this particular evening weary 

 with earnest expectancy, not yet satisfied; tired of waiting 



