Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/136

 minds his former repeated warnings of these very events, literally as they had been brought to pass. He said to them, "These are the words which I spake to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." Then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the scriptures. Then it was, that at last burst upon them the light so long shut out; they knew their own past blindness, and they saw in the clear distinctness of reality, all his repeated predictions of his humiliation, suffering, death, resurrection, and of their cowardice and desertion, brought before them in one glance, and made perfectly consistent with each other and with the result. So that, amid the rejoicings of new hope born from utter despair, at the same time expired their vain and idle notion of earthly glory and power under his reign. Their Master had passed through all this anguish and disgrace, and come back to them from the grave; yet, though thus vindicating his boundless power, he did not pretend to use the least portion of it in avenging on his foes all the cruelties which he had suffered from their hands. They could not hope, then, for a better fate, surely, than his; they were to expect only similar labors, rewarded with similar sufferings and death.

THE MEETING ON THE LAKE.

After this meeting with him, they saw him again repeatedly, but no incident, relating particularly to the subject of this memoir, occurred on either of these occasions, except at the scene on lake Tiberias, so fully and graphically given by John, in the last chapter of his gospel. It seems that at that time, the disciples had, in accordance with the earliest command of Jesus after his resurrection, gone into Galilee to meet him there. The particular spot where this incident took place was probably near Capernaum and Bethsaida, among their old familiar haunts. Peter at this time residing at his home in Capernaum, it would seem, very naturally, while waiting for the visit which Christ had promised them, sought to pass the time as pleasantly as possible in his old business, from which he had once been called to draw men into the grasp of the gospel. With him at this time, were Thomas, or Didymus, and Nathanael, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples, whether of the eleven or not, is not known. On his telling them that he was going out a fishing, they, allured also by old habits and a desire to amuse themselves in a useful way, de