crossing its waves; this He did partly, perhaps, for His convenience in moving from place to place, and partly it may have been to comfort those whose lives are spent upon the sea, and to encourage them in all their dangers and distresses to pray to Him as their Saviour, who having known by His own experience all the hardships and difficulties to which they are exposed, is able, they may be very sure, to pity them, and not less willing to help and to save.

E. Mamma, I think you told me once, that very beautiful flowers grow on the edge of this lake?

M. Yes, we are informed by travellers that the western banks of it are clothed with large and beautiful rhododendrons, growing down close to the water's edge; and a very sweet Poet has told us, that

"All thro' the summer night,

Their blossoms red and bright,

Spread their soft breasts unheeding to the breeze,

Like hermits watching still

Around the sacred hill,

Where erst our Saviour watched upon His knees."

Full, as it is, of dear and sacred recollections, and surrounded with natural beauties, this lake must, indeed, be a most lovely and interesting place. In grandeur of appearance, it is said to be almost equal to that beautiful lake of Geneva, of which you have heard so much; its waters are deep and still, surrounded almost entirely with lofty hills; and though it is subject to occasional storms, they never disturb it for any great length of time. I am glad you mentioned the flowers, for it is interesting to you to know something of a spot where much of our Lord's time was

spent, and where we are now to accompany Him, that we may find fresh reason to wonder and adore.

nets.

You heard last Sunday how long a time He spent in instructing His disciples; but now that He was come down from the mountain, the multitudes continued to follow Him with as much interest as ever; and as He approached the lake, they continued to press upon Him to hear the word of God. Now there were too ships standing by the lake; but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their And our Lord entered into one of these ships, which belonged to His own disciple Simon, and begging him to push out a little way into the water to escape from the crowd, He sat down and taught the people out of the ship. And when He had finished speaking, He told Simon to launch out farther into the lake, and to let down his nets for a draught of fishes. All night had Simon and his companions been toiling without catching any fish, and so he told our Lord; adding, however, with cheerful obedience, "Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net." Hitherto, our Lord's miracles had been chiefly confined to the curing of diseases; but they were enough to give a humble and ingenuous mind a deep reverence for His word, and a ready compliance with His will. At the same time it does not appear that either Peter, or his companions James and John, who were in another boat close at hand, had any expectation of what followed. For when the net, which he had let down at the command of Jesus, inclosed such a multitude of fishes, that it broke with their weight, and even the boats were beginning to sink with the

load, they were astonished and filled with awe. They wondered, probably, to see that the dominion of Jesus was in the seas as well as on the dry land; that it reached even to the mute creatures in the secret depths of the waters, as well as to the bodies of men; and that under His feet were put all things here below, even "the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea." Peter, above all the rest, was so astonished, that he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He felt, no doubt, that he was in the presence of a very great and a very holy being: and immediately his own exceeding sinfulness rushed to his mind, and made him sensible how utterly unworthy he was of Christ's presence in his boat, and that he had more need really to be alarmed than comforted at feeling himself so near to Him.

E. I do not wonder, Mamma, that Peter felt afraid; but I am sorry that he asked Christ to depart from him, because you know nobody else could help him or forgive him his sins.

M. Exactly so, my child; that sinfulness, of which he complained so bitterly, was the very thing that made Christ's presence so needful to him, and should have led him rather to say, "Abide with me, for without thee I shall be ever wretched and for ever lost, O Lord." At the same time we cannot but see, that Peter's was a holy fear, of that very kind which led Moses to say, "I exceedingly fear and quake;" and Isaiah to cry out, "Woe is me, for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips: mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts;" and even Daniel, that "man greatly beloved," to fall with his face upon the

ground, because he could not bear the sound of that voice, and the sight of that countenance! Happy those, however, whom even terror brings to a sense of their sins; and happier still if we are thereby led to confess our sins to Him who came into the world for the express purpose of saving us from them. For as a conviction of our own unworthiness must naturally follow a sense of the divine perfections, so it is exactly the feeling which should lead us nearer to our gracious and compassionate Redeemer, instead of driving us from Him. Whether we feel it or not, of this we may be very sure, that what Peter said of himself is true of all men; we too are sinful creatures, and, it may be, much more so than Peter was; but a humble confession of our guilt is not likely to send our Lord away from us on the contrary it will be sure to draw down upon us His pity and His help. To Peter, oppressed with a sense of sin, our Saviour's answer was such as to drive all alarm from his mind: "Fear not; away from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

E. That is like what our Lord said before, when Peter and Andrew, and James and John, were first told to follow Him.

M. So it is; and we can easily understand that this miracle was well fitted to convince the disciples that our Lord was able to fulfil the promise which He then made, and which He now repeated, of causing them to become fishers of men. In their labours afterwards in the world as His Apostles, they would often, I dare say, think of this day. If they should meet with great difficulties, and find that the spreading of the Gospel was a slow work, they might turn back their minds to the lake of Gennesareth, and comfort themselves with the thought

that Christ could at any time bless their labours, and allow them to bring multitudes of souls to Him. On the other hand, should their endeavours prosper far beyond their expectations; should they be so happy as to be continually adding numbers to the Christian Church, the remembrance of this miracle might serve to keep them humble; might prevent them from setting too high a value on their own exertions; and lead them instead to say with the Psalmist, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give the praise." How suitable then was such a miracle to the future Apostles of Christ; and especially just at the moment when He was about to call upon them again to follow Him, and to require them from this time to forsake every thing else, that they might become His ministers. "From henceforth," said Christ to Peter, "thou shalt catch men." And from henceforth, giving up their trade as fishermen, with their property, and all their gains, not for a time only, as they had done before, but altogether, "they forsook all and followed Christ."

See Luke v. 1—11.

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY EVENING.

THE LEPER CLEANSED.

The next occurrence which we read of in the Gospels is a very remarkable one, the cure of a leper. You know already what a very dreadful disorder leprosy was; for we had occasion to mention it more than once when we were going through the Old Testament. E. Yes, I remember perfectly the history of Na