_A TRANSFORMED FISHERMAN_
"_Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing._"
--JOHN xxi. 1-14.
Simon Peter had often gone a fishing, but never had he gone as he went in
the twilight of that most wonderful evening. He handled the ropes in a new
style, with a new dignity born of the bigger capacity of his own soul. He
turned to the familiar task, but with a quite unfamiliar spirit. He went a
fishing, but the power of the resurrection went with him.
This action of Simon Peter's is the only true test of the reality of any
spiritual experience. How does it fit me for ordinary affairs? A spiritual
festival should do for the soul what a day on the hills does for the
body--equip it for the better doing of the duties in the vale.
This action is also a preparative to a renewal of the gracious experience.
The road of common duty was just the way appointed for another meeting
with his Lord, for in the morning-light there came a voice across the
waters: "Children, have ye any meat?" "And that disciple whom Jesus loved
saith unto Peter: 'It is the Lord.'"