ther, had incurred censure: one other instance there is, in which he alone is checked by his LORD, where his zeal outran the forbearance enjoined by Him on all: no other instances remain except those which in the time of the extreme humiliation and passion they incurred in common with all the Apostles. And here still the peculiar affection of our LORD for S. John is conspicuous. The last supper, of which there is a retrospective mention in my text, was prepared on the Thursday before the Passion, by sending Peter and John before Him from Bethany to Jerusalem. And at the supper, Peter deems not his own great intimacy with our LORD sufficient for propounding to Him the question, "Who it was that should betray Him?" who was the miserable man in their chosen company to whom the marks of election and special love should turn to seals of deeper reprobation; for whom it had been good had he never been born. He moves John, while reclining next our LORD, to propose that question ;no envy or jealousy disturbing the friendship, which here, as in many other occasions, we may observe between these two Apostles. In the Agony of the garden that followed, it is Peter, and James, and John, who are called to be nearest to the suffering LORD, as they had been alone with Him in the mount of Transfiguration: and here, when drowsiness and sorrow unite to prevent their watching with Him as He directed, their neglect is followed by the predicted consequence, when the dark hour

of His apprehension arrives. All forsake their LORD: he not excepted, the chief of their number, who began, with blameable impetuosity, to make show of resistance, and who had felt most confidence in himself and when he, Simon Peter, afterwards followed timidly at a distance the impious band that bore his Master away, it is but an unsupported conjecture that supposes John to have been the other disciple mentioned in that part of the history. But we know that S. John was present when the presence of no other of the Apostles is recorded, when the awful scene of the crucifixion was near its close: having with pious affection supported thither the Blessed Mother, who with Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, the mother of S. James the Less, stood near the foot of the Cross. And here it is that he receives from the dying LORD Himself the charge of that Mother as her adopted son: to him, as the LORD's specially beloved Disciple, is that charge committed, rather than to her nephews and former members of her household, though that number included two eminent Apostles, S. James the Less, and S. Jude. Will it disturb the impression of this most affecting incident to remark what a confutation it affords of the opinion which some now strangely love to revive from heretics of old, that these two excellent persons were her sons, (to whom the two first Gospels so clearly assign another mother)? To whom could the words, Woman, behold thy son!" be addressed by Him who came

to sanctify all human relations, but to one who were otherwise son-less? who, in losing Him from the earth, her great earthly as well as heavenly support, had lost her only Son,-the first-born, the last, the only one, that the most pious Christian conception could voluntarily assign to her whom the HOLY GHOST had overshadowed for the generation of the Incarnate WORD,-whom the Church ever designates as by her distinguishing constant title, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And to whom were the words spoken, "Behold thy Mother!" but to one that felt the undivided obligation of filial duty and tenderness, now devolved by that charge upon himself? one whose heart responded to that charge as that of no other among the disciples could; who for the sake of JESUS, his LORD and GOD, looked with love and reverence to her whose relation to Him has made her blessed to all generations; and who accordingly made his home to be hers till the day of her decease; when falling asleep in CHRIST, [not assumed up to the throne of heaven, as a far later story would tell,] she awaits in assured happiness with all faithful souls the perfect consummation of bliss hereafter.

Such then as S. John approved himself towards his LORD in the days of His humiliation and mortal weakness, when He was hidden from carnal eyes by the circumstances of obscurity or of scandal that encompassed Him, such did the Apostle approve himself far more, when CHRIST's resurrection be

spoke the power of His kingdom to be already begun, and the heaven which His death had merited actually opened to believers. When that message of a life that should never end first came faintly and doubtfully to the depressed minds of the Apostles from the reports of Mary Magdalene and others, it is again Peter and John in whom we observe the first desire to verify their story. In the race they ran to the sepulchre, it is S. John who arrives there first, though awe and hesitation restrain him from investigating the matter: in this Peter precedes, and then both see and believe. A few days after, in Galilee, when both the sons of Zebedee, with S. Peter, and S. Thomas, and three other disciples, are found once more fishing on the lake of Tiberias, and a figure on the shore directs them how to cast the nets, and the consequence is such a multitude of fishes as they are not able to draw,-it is John whose instinct of love penetrates the disguise, and tells Peter that it is the LORD. It might strike the recollection of both how a few short years before the same LORD had in His mortal days given a similar direction,—a like miraculous draught following: though then they drew the net ; now they could not: then the net brake; but now, for all the greater multitude of fishes, when it was drawn to land, the net was unbroken then the ship began to sink, and Simon Peter, affrighted, besought the LORD to depart from him, a sinful man; whereas now, as soon as he heard that it was

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the LORD, and believed it was so, he plunged into the water to go to Him. These circumstances, symbolizing the greater power of the risen LORD,-or rather the greater power He obtained for the fishers of men, when the mysteries of His redemption were accomplished, were not lost on S. John; who, ever calmer than S. Peter, while his emotions were the deepest, tranquilly remained with the rest in the vessel till it was brought to the shore. And then, when the awe-stricken but joyful company gather round Him who had thus appeared to them, and "none of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the LORD",-then it is that the scene of the text occurs. When Simon Peter had thrice answered to his LORD's moving interrogations, and thrice confessed with pure affection Him whom he had thrice denied ; when he had heard also the thrice repeated charge to feed His flock, both the sheep and the lambs; when also as assurances of his LORD's love to him, he receives what only the Cross of CHRIST has turned into a message of love, the account of the death whereby he should glorify GOD, with outstretched arms and limbs bound by barbarous persecutors; then it is that he turns and sees S. John behind: and then he asks his LORD, if such commission and such honourable martyrdom were his own, what was then to be the fate of this still more loved disciple. The Saviour puts aside the question of mere curiosity with a mild rebuke, while He tells him that his sole concern is to follow His steps and