you caught anything? Have you any meat?"

The other disciples recognized his voice and they said to one another, “It is the Lord." Then they began to talk about how good it was that the Lord had come to them just at that time when they were all discouraged. Peter did not wait to make any remarks. He girt his fisher's coat about him and jumped overboard and swam ashore to be the first to greet his Lord.

The water in that lake is cold in the early spring -and this was at Easter time. I swam once in the Sea of Galilee in the month of March, and the water was like that in the Golden Gate at San Francisco. No matter-Peter was in a hurry to greet his Master and a cold plunge was nothing!

When Jesus was at Cæsarea Philippi, he wondered how men were regarding his ministry. "Whom do men say that, I am?" he said to his disciples.

The disciples answered that there was a wide difference of opinion on that point. Some said that he was John the Baptist risen from the dead; some said Elijah come to life again; others said Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

"But ye, whom say ye that I am." Well, they had not quite decided yet, all of them! Some of them felt that it might be six of one and half a dozen of the other, fifty-fifty perhaps, whether he was John the Baptist or Elijah, or somebody else. Not so this man of impulse! Peter burst out, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." He knew what he believed and why he believed it— flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but an inward experience of divine help. He was ready then and there to stake his all upon the claim that Jesus was the Saviour of the world. His mind was quite made up and he stood ready to act.

There came a day when the Master was speaking about forgiveness. "If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Forgive as you would be forgiven! If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you your trespasses. The sins you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Then Peter burst out: "Lord, how often? How oft shall my brother sin against mè and I forgive him? Until seven times?"

It was a fairly liberal offer. How many men are in the habit of forgiving those who wrong them "seven times?" Do they not frequently cut them off at the second or third offense?

Jesus, however, suggested a still higher standard of forgiveness. "Until seventy times seven!" Peter accepted it, apparently—and I doubt not but that this warm-hearted, impulsive man would have forgiven any one who had wronged him seventy times seven if the man had asked it. He had that quality of mercy which is twice blessed-it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. He did pray for mercy, and that same prayer taught him the need of showing mercy.

In these days when so many people "sit upon the ground and tell sad stories" of their doubts and their difficulties, it is refreshing to find a man who knew his own mind. When so many people are forever weighing this against that, and finding it hard to decide where the truth does lie, there is something stimulating about the example of this man who was ready to act. Many of our modern

problems are so vast, so intricate, so baffling, that we could sit down and talk about them until the Day of Doom without getting anywhere. Hundreds of people are sitting down with their laps full of difficulties taking it all out in looking helpless.

The time comes for men to get on their feet and do something about it. Do it! Do it now! Do it as well as you can, and the chances are that, in the light of that achievement, you will see what to do next. "Wisdom," some one said, "is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it."

Not every one that talketh endlessly about it, but he that doeth the will of the Father shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus saw those two men fishing. He said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." "Straightway they forsook their nets and followed." "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." Thank God for the Peters of the world, who do not stand forever shivering on the brink-they plunge in.

In the second place, notice the weakness of the

man.

When one is carrying a pan of water and it slops over on one side, his hasty action in changing the level usually causes it to slop over on the other side. So is the man of impulse! He spills out in one direction, and then a moment later, in a hasty reaction, he slops over in the opposite direction.

Here was Peter when he first met the Master, saying to him, "Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He felt that he was not good enough to be in the same boat where Christ was. Then a little later we find him clinging closer than all the rest. When some of the disciples "turned back and walked no more with Him," Jesus said to those who remained, "Will ye also go away?" Peter spoke right up: "Lord, to whom shall we go! Thou hast the words of eternal life." He insisted that he was in it to stay.

When Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples, He took a towel and a basin of water and washed their feet. They had been disputing on their way to the supper as to which one should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus