“O yes, it will do very well. Make my shoes and my son’s on the same last.”
“That cannot be, your reverence. If a shoe is to fit it must be made on a last that is just the size of the person’s foot who is to wear it.”
“Is that so?” said the minister. “You say every pair of shoes must be made on their own last or they will not fit. And yet you think that God must make all Christians on your last; and if they do not think and feel just as you do you think they are not true Christians.”
“I thank your reverence for this lesson,” said the shoemaker. “I will try and remember it, and pray God to help me to overcome my prejudices.”
This is a good lesson for us all to learn.
The last lesson of which we may speak, as taught us by the history of this apostle, is about—the benefit of trials.
When Jesus foresaw the great trial that was coming on Peter, during the night of his betrayal, he could easily have saved him from it if he had thought it best and wisest to do so. Before leaving the upper chamber in Jerusalem where he kept the Passover for the last time with his disciples, he could have sent Peter on some errand or could have given him something to do that would have occupied him till the next day. Then he would not have been exposed to the temptation of denying his Master. This could easily have been done. But Jesus did not do this. And the reason was he knew very well that though the trial would be very painful to Peter, and would cause him to shed many bitter and sorrowful tears, yet it would be useful to him in the end, and would help to make him a better minister than he could have been without it. It would show him his own weakness, and teach him how to sympathize with others in their troubles and to be kind and tender in his dealings with them. And this is what Jesus meant when he said to Peter after telling him about this coming trial: “And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”
And no doubt Peter had this sorrowful event in his mind, and the benefit he had derived from it, when, in one of his epistles, he compares the trials through which God causes us to pass to the fire into which the jeweler puts his gold when he desires to have it purified. I. Peter i: 17. He was a more useful minister for having passed through this trial than he ever could have been without it. The benefit of it followed him through all his life. And this was the reason why Jesus did not save him from that trial, but saved him in it.
And in the same way God intends to do us good by all the trials through which he causes us to pass. It is not for his pleasure, but for our profit that these trials are allowed to come upon us; and the profit will surely follow if, as Paul says, we are rightly “exercised thereby.”