diate view in Babylon or Edom or Jerusalem, than did the fisherman of Galilee as he hung upon the words and looks of that unknown Teacher who appeared on the shores of his native lake. Gradually, dimly, doubtfully, the vision rose within his mind; sometimes an awful consciousness of some divine presence, which, like Gideon or Manoah, he "prayed to depart from him;" sometimes of an earthly empire, in which they who had "left all and followed him" should reign as satraps of the King of Zion; sometimes of the blaze of glory which rested on the ancient tabernacle, as when he woke upon the holy mount and spake "not knowing what he said." But, amidst all these dark and wavering images, his face was set in the right direction, and therefore, in that memorable scene of which every detail of place and circumstance is described to us with unusual precision, when at Cæsarea Philippi, far withdrawn from the gaze of the multitude beneath the snowy heights of Hermon, the question was solemnly put "But whom say ye that I am?"—the heavenly truth flashed upon him, and his whole being expressed himself in the words which did indeed contain the meeting point between the two dispensations: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;" the anointed Messiah, whom prophets and kings have desired to see; the Son of Him who once again, as at the burning bush, had come with ever-living power to visit and redeem his people. Well might the solemn blessing which follows announce to us, as with a trumpet's voice, that this was at once the crisis of Peter's life and of the Christian faith: "Thou hast told me what I am, and I will tell thee what thou art." In that confession were wrapt up the truths which were to be the light of the future ages of Christendom; on him who had uttered it devolved at once the awful privilege of passing from the Jew into the Christian, from the prophet to the apostle, from Simon the son of Jona into Peter the rock.

Gradually, too, and doubtfully, and with many a wild and wayward impulse, did the enthusiasm of Peter kindle not merely

into admiration for the divine Teacher, but love for the divine Friend. That central fire which was the life of the whole career of every one of the apostles, so far as they were apostles at all, in him existed, not more deeply and truly, it may be, but more visibly, as the one absorbing element into which his natural enthusiasm resolved itself. Amidst all the impetuous sallies of zeal-amidst all the weaknesses consequent on his presumption and vehemence—whether when he drew the sword in the garden, or gave way to the panic of the moment in the house of Caiaphas

this was still the sustaining, purifying, restoring principle: "He needed not save to wash his feet, and was clean every whit."

Whatever else might be the feelings with which he looked upon our Lord-with whatever grounds the early Church may have traced to his hand the representation of the Prophet and Lawgiver which is preserved to us in the Gospel of St. Matthew -it may have been a true feeling which ascribed to his more personal and direct teaching that second Gospel which, though in substance the same, is yet so remarkably contrasted with it in the minuteness and liveliness with which it records the outward actions, the look and manner, the very Syriac words which fell from Him who there appears not merely as the Fulfiller of the ancient covenant, but in the closer and more personal relation of the human Protector and Friend-a Friend not only in boundless power and goodness, but in all human sympathy and tenderness. "He loved St. John exceedingly," says Chrysostom; “but it was by Peter that he was exceedingly beloved."

And now let us carry our thoughts a few years forward and place ourselves in that early period of the Christian Church of which our only historical record is to be found in the first twelve chapters of the Acts. It is indeed a scene only known to us dimly and partially; the chronology, the details of life, the characters and fortunes of the several apostles, are wrapt in almost impenetrable darkness. One colossal figure, however, emerges