rds, and opened his soul to him as a rose to the morning sun, was
a nature rich in its possibilities of noble and beautiful character.
The John we know is the man as he ripened in the summer of Christ's
love. He is a product of pure Christ-culture. His young soul
responded to every inspiration in his Master, and developed into rarer
loveliness every day. Doubtless one of the qualities in John that
fitted him to be the closest friend of Jesus was his openness of heart,
which made him such an apt learner, so ready to respond to every touch
of Christ's hand.

It would be interesting to trace the story of this holy friendship
through the three years Jesus and John were together, but only a little
of the wonderful narrative is written. Some months after the first
meeting, there was another beside the sea. For some reason John and
his companions had taken up their fishing again. Jesus came by in the
early morning, and found the men greatly discouraged because they had
been out all night and had caught nothing. He told them to push out,
and to cast their net again, telling them where to cast it. The result
was a great draught of fishes. It was a revealing of divine power
which mightily impressed the fishermen. He then bade them to follow
him, and said he would make them become fishers of men. Immediately
they left the ship, and went with Jesus.

Thus John had now committed himself altogether to his new Master. From
this time he remained with Jesus, following him wherever he went. He
was in his school, and was an apt scholar. A little later there came
another call. Jesus chose twelve men to be apostles, and among them
was the beloved disciple. This choice and call brought him into yet
closer fellowship with Jesus. Now the transformation of character
would go on more rapidly because of the constancy and the closeness of
John's association with his Master.

A peculiar designation is given to the brothers James and John. Jesus
surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder. There must have been a
meaning in such a name given by Jesus himself. Perhaps the figure of
thunder suggests capacity for energy--that the soul of John was
charged, as it were, with fiery zeal. It appears to us, as we read
John's writings, that this could not have been true. He seems such a
man of love that we cannot think of him as ever being possessed of an
opposite feeling. But there is evidence that by nature he was full of
just such