are from God to you. He has spoken first to you. Study his acts-all are for you. Behold his death on the crossthere God is calling, calling you! See him rising and ascending and believe upon him, and you will one day be with him where he is.

Edward N. Packard.

CHRIST'S FIRST DISCIPLES

JOHN 1: 35-46

"Come and see.”

We read how Jesus got his first disciples, and it seems the most natural thing in the world. What happens is as simple as the words that produce it: "Come and see." Indeed, those three words indicate the whole process.

It begins with an invitation, a personal, friendly invitation. One who is liked says "Come;" one who is trusted shows the way. John the Baptist, standing with two of his closest disciples, points his finger toward the passer-by and says, with evident intention, "Behold the Lamb of God." No wonder they who rely on their teacher follow the new figure. And when they venture to ask him who turns a kindly face toward them where he is to be found, he bids them come and see. No wonder they go. By and by Andrew goes after his brother Simon to tell him that he has found the Messiah and to say, Come with me and see him too. And apparently John goes after his brother James with the same word. No wonder the brothers come.

And the next day Jesus sets out for Galilee. As he starts he meets Philip and says, "Follow me." Now Philip is of the same town as Andrew and Peter. He has seen them many a day mending their nets on the beach, and with them the other pair of brothers who belonged to the same fishing-fleet. He sees these four men turning homeward with Jesus. No wonder he follows also. And even as he

decides for himself he thinks of his friend Nathanael; he ought to know about this. And so he looks around for him, spies him under the fig tree and calls, "Nathanael, Nathanael, we have found the hope of Israel. His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph, and he comes from Nazareth." And when Nathanael demurs, "Can it be from Nazareth?" Philip urges him, "Yes; it can. Come and see." No wonder he comes with his friend.

There was somebody saying "Come" all the time when the work of winning disciples began-somebody, too, who was loved or respected, so that there was a weight of influence in the invitation.

"Come and see," they said, wherein appears another element of naturalness in the action. They took it for granted that their friends would like to find out about the news. Curiosity is not the exclusive property of man among the animals, and yet it is a peculiarly human trait, and the desire to know has been an unconquerable force in the advancement of life. When from vulgar curiosity you rise to an eager search after knowledge, and then from intellectual alertness to the yearnings of the heart after truth, you reach a mighty impulse to move a man to action. Those who were the first disciples stirred this impulse. "Come and see," they said, and they roused the interest of those they went after. It was a very indefinite expectancy which was thus stirred; somewhat different, perhaps, in each case. We cannot call it a clear and heartfelt seeking of Christ. And yet we cannot but regard it as important. For such a spirit of inquiry has started men towards Christ ever since the days of the wise men. He himself appealed to this instinct, and many of his most notable converts, like the woman of Samaria, would never have been reached but for their curiosity. And to-day it happens here and there that one slips into a religious service with no special purpose and no adequate thought of what it involves, to find himself

at length accepting the Saviour who is preached and offering his heart to the new service.

We may call the impulse curiosity, but it is something nobler than that. It is more than inquisitiveness. It is spiritual sensitiveness. So these men who followed the call to Christ in the beginning did not realize just why they started, or to what they were to come, but they had a want in their hearts that made them movable. They turned easily Christward because they were restless elsewhere.

This sense of simplicity in the making of the first disciples is still further impressed upon us by the openness with which all is done. "Come and see," says Jesus to the hesitating men. There is no ceremonial about an approach to him. He is not concerned to protect his majesty from the sight of any eyes. Great men often have been hedged about with protecting formalities. Such separation has been felt necessary to indicate their superiority, and especially where circumstances might prejudice their claim to popular acceptance. When Robert Burns appeared to startle and illumine the literary life of Edinburgh, it would have been hazardous to let society know that he was sharing with a writer's apprentice a bed in a garret chamber for which they paid three shillings a week. So it might be thought doubtful wisdom to let Andrew and John, searching for signs of the Messiah, look in upon the humble lodging-place of the Hope of Israel; or, again, to let Nathanael, perplexed and critical, come face to face with the lowly Nazarene. How impossible that the day upon which the prophets said the glory of the Lord should be revealed should have this dull dawn! But Jesus has nothing to conceal. He will make frank disclosure of himself and his surroundings. "Come and see." All is open and approachable. He may not reveal all his truth at once -for all could not be borne at the outset. But that does not mean that he must mislead or dissemble.

He has no

traps to set. That is the devil's way: to suppress and gloss over; to show the fair side; to hide himself behind attractive appearances. But Christ himself speaks straight out, calls men directly to himself, and bids them see the plain facts about him just as they are. There is no sheltering of majesty and there is no subterfuge of policy. Come and see. Pretentious teachers have shut themselves away from the gaze of those they would charm. They have spoken from caves or Vaticans or darkened rooms; have resorted to new phraseologies and veiled their teaching in strange ecstasies and occult modes of thought. How much it means that when Jesus made a beginning of getting his disciples, he was outdoors, in the daylight, with the sane perspective of the world about, and that in such free and sensible surroundings he said, Come nearer to me and judge for yourselves what we ought to be to one another.

And here we come at last to the fact which most of all makes this beginning of discipleship seem simple and natural: it is the forming of a personal attachment. "Come and see" is the winning invitation; and when they come, it is to see Christ himself. It is not where he lodges, or Nazareth, whence he came, or the precise prophecy that he fulfils, that holds their attention, but the Man himselfthis most approachable and yet most wonderful Man. It is easy to get near him, and he seems very human, so gentle, appreciative, kindly. He does not frighten; he does not vaunt himself. He fits into their thoughts and moods so quietly that he seems at once the nearest of friends. And yet he awes them, too, with a sense of authority and resource. Otherwise he had not held them, who wanted more than friendliness. There was that in his look, his word, his action, that justified the strange name by which his forerunner had called him, and that caught their watchful thought about the Messiah. There was something be