After the evening meal in Emmaus the two disciples there “rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem,” with joyful and quickened steps to report the glad tidings of what they had seen and heard.  Andrew and John were to be of the number who, in three years, would hail these disciples from Emmaus.  Like them, Andrew and John hastened away from the sheltering booth on the Jordan bank on a like errand.  But they went not together, nor to an assembled company.  They each went in search of his own brother—­Andrew for Peter, and John for James.  Andrew found his brother first.  Afterward John found his:  so we infer from his narrative.  Each carried the same tidings, “We have found the Messiah!”

[Illustration:  THE BAPTISM OF JESUS Old Engraving Page 64]

Andrew is thought to have asked leave to bring his brother.  “He brought him to Jesus.”  When John wrote that simple statement, he did not think how much was included in it concerning Peter and his own relation to him.  As little did Andrew think to what the promptings of his brotherly affection would lead.  His mission seems to have been that of bringing others to Christ—­his own brother, the lad with five loaves and two fishes, and certain Greeks who desired to see Jesus.  John only has made note of these three incidents.  In so doing he has given to us the key to the character of his friend, and caused him to be held in everlasting remembrance.  Andrew is remembered in the cross that bears his name; in his anniversary day; in the choice of him for the patron saint of Scotland; in orders of knighthood, and in Christian societies of brotherhood named after him, as an example and inspiration to the noblest of Christian endeavor—­that of bringing old and young to Christ.

It is John alone who wrote of that memorable day on the Jordan.  His impressions were deep and lasting.  The record of them is so fresh and minute that we seem to be perusing a notebook which was in his hands when these events were transpiring.  His memory is distinct of the exact location of each; of the attitudes and movements of the actors,—­as when “John stood,” and “Jesus walked,” and “Jesus turned”; of the fixed and earnest look of Jesus—­as on Andrew and John in the way, and Peter in the place of His abode.  John remembered the words of the Baptist, and of his two disciples, and of Jesus.  He remembered the day not only, but that “it was about the tenth hour when he accepted the invitation to come and see where Jesus was tarrying.”

All these pictures hung unfading on the walls of John’s memory.  This was not strange.  It was the day and the hour for which he looked through all his early years, and to which he looked back in his latest.  Then was the beginning of a most blessed relationship, alone in the history of mankind; that which was to make his name immortal, and radiant with a halo which encircles none other.