cident-so unexpected, so grateful. He who had wrought so great a wonder must have unknown and inconceivable powers, before which man, guilty as he feels himself, might well be afraid. Falling down at the feet of Jesus, he could only utter the words-"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Nor were his companions less astonished at the miracle. But Jesus had a high purpose with these simple, open-hearted friends. They had shown their sympathy of spirit with Him already, and now He designed to attach them permanently to His service. "Fear not," said He, come after me; from henceforth I will make you fishers of men. You catch the fish to their death; you will take men alive, to save them from death, and give them eternal life." It was enough. Words so apt had their effect. From that moment the four were His devoted followers. The rich gain they would have prized so highly, but an hour before, had lost its charm. Called to decide, there and then, as a proof of their fitness for discipleship, they forsook all, and followed Him at

once.

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The few who had first joined Christ, and by doing so had shown their fitness for His special intimacy and confidence, were thus, once more gathered round Him, and lived with Him henceforth, apparently in the same dwelling, on a closer and more tender footing than any He afterwards received. They had often heard Him speak of the kingdom of God; of the need of faith in Himself and of a sincere religious spirit, as the conditions of entering it, and they yearned for closer intercourse with Him, that they might learn more respecting it. Their instant obedience showed their devotion. All that had hitherto engaged their thoughts and care, their boats, their nets, their fishing gear, their daily toil for daily bread, were left behind. They placed themselves, henceforth, under the higher authority of God Himself; ready at any time to separate themselves even from their families, in the interest of the new Kingdom. Jesus had drawn them to Himself, as they were to draw others, not by craft or force, but by the power of His living words and the spirit of love. Their loyalty was free and spontaneous. The calm greatness of the character of Jesus shines out in such an unpretending beginning, as the germ and centre of a movement which is to revolutionize the world. But insignificant as it might seem, it was only so when judged by a human standard. Tainted by no selfishness, weak ambition, or love of power, the four simple, child-like, uncorrupted natures, touched with the love of Heavenly Truth, and eager to win others to embrace it, were living spiritual forces, destined by a law of nature to repeat themselves in ever wider circles, through successive generations.

The fishermen and sailors of the Lake of Galilee were a numerous and redoubted class, with something of the feeling of a clan. In the last Jewish war we find them, under the leadership of Jesus, son of Sapphias, seizing Tiberias, and burning and plundering the great palace of Antipas. Of the four who had now definitely cast in their

lot with Jesus, Peter and Andrew were apparently poor; James and John, in a better position. For the convenience of trade, both families had left the neighbouring town of Bethsaida, and had settled in Capernaum, one of the centres of the local fisheries, and of the occupations connected with them. Peter alone seems to have been married, and in his house Jesus henceforth found a home, as perhaps he had done on His former short stay.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CAPERNAUM.

THE final "call" addressed to Peter and his brother, and to James and John, at the Lake of Galilee, apparently insignificant as an event, proved to have been, in reality, one of the turning points in the history of the world. The "call" of Abraham had given the world, as an everlasting inheritance, the grand truth of a Living Personal God; that of Moses had created a nation, in which the active government of human affairs by one God was to be illustrated, and His will made known directly to mankind; but that of the poor Galilæan fishermen was the foundation of a society, for which all that had preceded it was only the preparation; a society in which all that was merely outward and temporary in the relations of God to man, should be laid aside, and all that was imperfect and material replaced by the perfect, spiritual, and abiding. The true theocracy, towards which mankind had been slowly advancing, through ages, had received its first overt establishment, when Peter heard, on his knees, the summons of Jesus to follow Him, and had, with the others, at once, from the heart, obeyed. Henceforth, it only remained to extend the kingdom thus founded, by winning the consciences of men to the same devotion, by the announcement of the Fatherhood of God; the need of seeking His favour by repentance; and faith in His divine Son, leading to a holy life, of which that of Jesus, as the Saviour-Messiah, was the realized ideal.

From the shores of the Lake, Christ went to the house of Peter, accepting his invitation to share his hospitality.

The little town itself, with its two or three thousand inhabitants, was surrounded by a wall, and lay partly along the shore; some of the houses close to the water; others with a garden between it and them. The black lava, or basalt, of which all were built, was universally whitewashed, so that the town was seen to fine effect, from a distance, through the green of its numerous trees and gardens. Peter's household consisted of his wife, and her mother-doubtless a widow-whom his kindly nature had brought to this second home, Andrew, his brother, and, now, of Jesus, his guest. James and John, likely, still lived with their father, in Capernaum, and the whole

four still followed their calling in the intervals of attending their new Master.

It appears to have been on a Friday that Jesus summoned Peter and his companions. The day passed, doubtless, in further work for the kingdom. As the sun set, the beginning of the Sabbath was announced by three blasts of a trumpet, from the roof of the spacious synagogue of the town, which the devout commandant of the garrison, though not a Jew, had built for the people. The first blast warned the peasants, in the far-stretching vineyards and gardens, to cease their toil; the second was the signal for the townsfolks to close their business for the week, and the third, for all to kindle the holy Sabbath light, which was to burn till the sacred day was past. It was the early spring, and the days were still short, for even in summer it is hardly morning twilight, in Palestine, at four, and the light is gone by eight. Jesus did not, however, go that night to Peter's house, but spent the hours in solitary devotion. We can fancy, from what is elsewhere told us, that the day closed while He still spoke to a listening crowd, under some palm-tree, or by the wayside. As the moon rose beyond the hills, on the other side of the Lake, He would dismiss His hearers, with words of comfort, and a greeting of peace, and then turn to the silent hills behind, to be alone with His Heavenly Father. On their lonely heights, the noise of men lay far beneath Him, and He could find rest, after the toils of the day. A wide panorama of land and water stretched away on all sides, in the white moonlight. He was Himself its centre, and gazed on it with inexpressible sympathy and emotion. We can imagine Him, spreading out His arms, as if to take it all to His heart, and then prostrating Himself, as it were with it, before God, to intercede for it with the Eternal; His brow touching the earth in lowly abasement, while He pleaded for man as His friend and brother, in words of infinite love and tenderness. "Rising, erelong, in strong emotion, it would seem as if He held up the world in His lifted hands, to offer it to His Father. He spoke, was silent, then spoke again. His prayer was holy inter-communion with God. At first low, and almost in a whisper, His voice gradually became loud and joyous, till it echoed back from the rocks around Him. Thus the night passed, till morning broke and found Him, once more prostrate as if overcome, in silent devotion, but the dawn of day was the signal for His rising, and passing down again to the abodes of men."

The morning service in the synagogue began at nine, and as the news of the great Rabbi being in the neighbourhood had spread, every one strove to attend, in hopes of seeing Him. Women came to it by back streets, as was required of them; the men, with slow Sabbath steps, gathered in great numbers. The elders had taken their seats, and the Reader had recited the Eighteen Prayers—the congregation answering with their Amen,-for though the prayers might be abridged on other days, they could not be shortened on the

Sabbath. The first lesson for the day followed, the people rising and turning reverently towards the Shrine, and chanting the words after 'the Reader. Another lesson then followed, and the Reader, at its close, called on Jesus, as a Rabbi present in the congregation, to speak from it to the people.

His words must have sounded strangely new and attractive, for, apart from their vividness and force, they spoke of matters of the most vital interest, which the Rabbis left wholly untouched. He had founded the kingdom of God, and now sought to build it up by realizing its conditions in the souls of men, who should each, forthwith, be living centres of influence on others. But a course so retired, and unknown to the world at large, as that which He followed, of speaking to modest assemblies in local synagogues, makes it easy to understand how His life might be overlooked by the public writers of the age. Yet, in the little world in which He moved, the noiseless words by which He carried on His work created an intense impression. He gave old truths an unwonted freshness of presentation, and added much that sounded entirely new, on His own authority, instead of confining Himself, like the Rabbis, to lifeless repetitions of traditional commonplaces, delivered with a dread of the least deviation or originality. They claimed no power to say a word of their own; He spoke with a startling independence. Their synagogue sermons, as we see in the Book of Jubilees, were a tiresome iteration of the minutest Rabbinical rules, with a serious importance which regarded them as the basis of all moral order. The kind, and quality of wood for the altar; the infinite details of the law of tithes; the moral deadliness of the use of blood; or the indispensableness of circumcision on the eighth day, were urged with passionate zeal as momentous and fundamental truths. The morality and religion of the age had sunk thus low, and hence, the fervid words of Jesus, stirring the depths of the heart, created profound excitement in Capernaum. Men were amazed at the phenomenon of novelty, in a religious sphere so unchangeably conservative as that of the synagogue. 'New teaching,' said one to the other, "and with authority-not like other Rabbis. They only repeat the old: this man takes on Him to speak without reference to the past." But if they were astonished at His teaching, they were still more so at the power which He revealed in connection with it. Among those who had gone to the synagogue that morning was an unhappy man, the victim of a calamity incident apparently to the age of Christ and the Apostles only. He was possessed by a spirit of an unclean demon." Our utter ignorance of the spiritual world leaves the significance of such words a mystery, though the popular idea of the time is handed down by the Rabbis. An unclean demon, in the language of Christ's day, was an evil spirit that drove the person possessed, to haunt burial places, and other spots most unclean in the eyes of Jews. There were men who affected the black art, pretending, like the witch of Endor, to raise the dead, and, for

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that end, lodging in tombs, and macerating themselves with fasting, to secure the fuller aid and inspiration of such evil spirits; and others into whom the demons entered, driving them involuntarily to these dismal habitations. Both classes were regarded as under the power of this order of beings, but it is not told us to which of the two the person present in the synagogue belonged.

The service had gone on apparently without interruption, till Jesus began to speak. Then, however, a paroxysm seized the unhappy man. Rising in the midst of the congregation, a wild howl of demoniacal frenzy burst from him, that must have frozen the blood of all with horror. "Ha!" yelled the demon. "What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, the Nazarene? Thou comest to destroy us! I know Thee, who Thou art, the Holy One of God!" Among the crowd Jesus alone remained calm. He would not have acknowledgment of His Messiahship from such a source. "Hold thy peace," said He, indignantly, "and come out of him.” The spirit felt its Master, and that it must obey, but, demon to the last, threw the man down in the midst of the congregation, tearing him as it did so, and, then, with a wild howl, fled out of him. Nothing could have happened better fitted to impress the audience favourably towards Jesus. This new teaching, said they amongst themselves, is with authority. It carries its warrant with it.

So startling an incident had broken up the service for the time, and Jesus left, with His four disciples, and the rest of the congregation. But His day's work of mercy had only begun. Arriving at His modest home, he found the mother of Peter's wife struck down with a violent attack of the local fever for which Capernaum had so bad a notoriety. The quantity of marshy land in the neighbourhood, especially at the entrance of the Jordan into the Lake, has made fever of a very malignant type at times the characteristic of the locality, so that the physicians would not allow Josephus, when hurt by his horse sinking in the neighbouring marsh, to sleep even a single night in Capernaum, but hurried him on to Tarichæa. It was not to be thought that He who had just sent joy and healing into the heart of a stranger, would withhold His aid when a friend required it. The anxious relatives forthwith besought His help, but the gentlest hint would have sufficed. It mattered not that it was fever: He was forthwith in the chamber, bending over the sick woman, and rebuking the disease as if it had been an evil personality, He took her by the hand, doubtless with a look, and with words, which made her His for ever, and gently raising her, she found the fever gone and health and strength returned, so that she could prepare their midday meal for her household and their wondrous guest.

The strict laws of the Jewish Sabbath gave a few hours of rest to all, but the blast of the trumpet which announced its close was the signal for a renewal of the popular excitement, now increased by the rumour of a second miracle. With the setting of the sun it