[Illustration: "THERE IS NOT A BREATH THE BLUE WATERS TO CURL.">[
Fishermen feel very downhearted and disappointed when the morning comes, after they have been out all night, and finds them with only a few fish in their boats: but these fishermen had got one fish. Peter said, "We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing."
The Lord Jesus knew all about that long night of toil, as He sat in Peter's boat, and taught the crowds of people who stood on the shore; and He knew how disappointed those tired fishermen must be. Presently He spoke to Peter, and said, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net."
Night is the best time for fishing, and all night they had toiled in vain. The empty nets were there; but in Simon's boat was the One who had made the fish, and He caused them to fill the nets in such numbers that the slender cords broke, and both the boats were overladen.
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
He felt what it was to be in the presence of the Lord; how unfit he was to be near Him; but yet he could not bear to let Him go; Jesus said to Peter, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."
"What does it mean?" May asked, when she had read this verse, "How could
Peter catch men?"
To find the answer to her question, we read in the second chapter of Acts about the first time Peter preached at Jerusalem, and how he told the very people who had taken Jesus of Nazareth, and "by wicked hands" had "crucified and slain" Him, that God had raised Him from the dead, and "made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." We read that while he spoke of Him three thousand people received his word gladly. Surely at that time there was a fulfilment of the Lord's promise to him. Peter had indeed become a fisher of men—rescued from the cold waters of death, caught away from the grasp of Satan, henceforth to belong to Christ for ever.
But before this time there had been that other scene beside the Galilean lake, of which we read at the end of the gospel of John.
Again after a weary night's fishing, the disciples had taken nothing; again, at the word of the Lord, the net was cast over the side of the boat, and drawn in "full of great fishes."