V.  “Then Jesus taketh bread and giveth them, and fish likewise.”

There is no mistaking the act; it was a sacramental act.  Here, upon the lake shore, without a church, without an altar, the true feast of the Lord was observed.  For what does the Holy Supper, which is the bond and seal of the Church’s fellowship, stand for, if it is not for this, the sanctification of the common life?  Bread and wine, the commonest of all foods to an Oriental, are elements indeed, because they are necessary to the most elementary form of physical life, things used daily in the humblest home.  By linking Himself imperishably with these commonest elements of life, Christ makes it impossible to forget Him.  Once more the thought shines clear, Jesus among the common things of life.

And then there comes one last touch in the beautiful story.  While these things happened, the day was breaking.  Is there one of us long tossed on sunless seas of doubt, long conscious of failure and disappointment in life?  Are there those of us whose sorrow lies deeper than that which is personal—­sorrow over our failure in Christ’s work, pain over a life’s ministry for Christ that has known no victorious evangel?  Turn your eyes from that barren sea to Him who stands upon the shore; He shall yet make you a fisher of men.  Turn your eyes from that bleak, dark sea of wasted effort where you have fared so ill; it is always dark till Jesus comes, it is always light when He has come.  There is a new day breaking for the churches—­a day of widespread evangelistic triumphs that shall eclipse all the greatest triumphs of the past, if we will but go back to Christ’s school and learn of Him how to save the people.  And to each of us He says to-day:  “I am the living bread; I am the bread of life come down from heaven.  If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.”  “Come and dine.”  Will you come?

SMITH

ASSURANCE IN GOD

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

GEORGE ADAM SMITH, divine, educator and author, was born at Calcutta in 1856, and educated at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland.  He is at present professor of Old Testament Language, Literature and Theology in the United Free Church College, Glasgow.  He is author of “The Historical Geography of the Holy Land,” “Jerusalem, the Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Time to A.D. 70” (1908).  He is generally regarded as one of the most gifted preachers of Scotland.

SMITH

Born in 1856

ASSURANCE IN GOD

Preserve me, O God.—­Psalm xvi., 16.