at length I have found thee, now waiting to receive my longing soul. Take and snatch me from among mortals, and present me to my Master, that he who redeemed me on thee may receive me at thy hands."

The instrument of his martyrdom is commonly affirmed to have been what is called a cross decussate, made by two pieces of timber crossing each other in the middle, in the form of the letter X, and hence known by the name of St. Andrew's Cross.

His body was afterwards removed to Constantinople, and he is considered by the modern Greeks as founder of the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan Church.

Andrew is also the patron saint of Scotland; and the Scotch had a tradition that his remains were brought to their country, and entombed at St. Andrew's, in the fourth century. The day reserved to him in the Calendar is November 30. This day leads the season of Advent; and the honor of thus announcing the time of the Lord's coming is said to be assigned to him, on account of his having been the first who came to Christ.

JAMES THE GREATER.

JAMES, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of John, is the third named on Matthew's list of.the apostles. Of his father we are told nothing; but his mother, as appears by a comparison of parallel passages, was Salome, who emulated her children in attachment to the Saviour, and is spoken of as one of those women who followed and occasionally served him, who accompanied him to the cross, and were the first who were permitted to see him after his resurrection. This James has received the surname of the Greater, or Elder, to distinguish him from the other apostle, James the Less, of whom I shall speak hereafter.

He, with his brother John, pursued the same occupation with their townsmen Peter and Andrew, and were partners with them. They were also washing their nets on the shore, when Jesus entered the vessel of their partners. They beheld the miraculous draught of fishes; they assisted to secure it; they were astonished at it, and when Jesus, after calling Peter and Andrew, called them also, "they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him."

Here I cannot help requesting my readers to pause a moment, and consider the fortunes, the singular, and, if the word were holy enough, I would say romantic, fortunes of these four men. Simon and Andrew, James and John, brethren of two different families, dwell together with their parents in a village at the northern extremity of a lake or small sea, in the district of Galilee, and on the confines of the land of Judæa. The sea is a large sea to them, and to them the towns which here and there dot its coast, and the light barks which, for the purposes of amusement, or traffic, or their own calling, skim along its pleasant waters, are the world. They are fishermen. Day by day do they rise up to the contented exercise of their toil, to throw their nets, to spread their sails, to ply their oars, and, when successful in pursuit, to dispose of their freight in their native village or the neighboring towns, for the support of themselves and their families. They are friends, partners; they have joined themselves to each other in their humble profession, and agreed to share profit and loss, storm and calm, together. Their low-roofed dwellings look out on each other and on their native lake, and within these dwellings are bosoms which throb anxiously at their protracted absence, and beat gladly at their return. Their boats contain all their wealth, and their cottages all that they love. Their fa

thers, perhaps their ancestors, were fishers before them. They themselves have no idea of a different lot. The only changes on which they calculate are the changes of the weather and the vicissitudes of their calling; and the only great interruptions of the even courses of their lives, to which they look forward, are the annual journeys which they take, at the periods of solemn festival, to the great city of Jerusalem. Thus they live, and thus they expect to live, till they lie down to sleep with their fathers, as calmly, as unknowing, and as unknown as they.

Look at them, on the shore of their lake. Think not of them as apostles, as holy men; but look at them as they actually were on the morning when you first hear of them from the historian. They have been toiling through a weary night, and have caught nothing; and now, somewhat disheartened at their ill success, they are engaged in spreading their nets, washing them, and preparing them, as they hope, for a more fortunate expedition. Presently surrounded by an eager crowd, that teacher approaches whom they have before seen, and whose instructions some of them have already listened to. With his demeanor of quiet but irresistible dignity, he draws toward the spot where they are employed; he enters Simon's vessel, and prays him to thrust out a little distance from the land; then he speaks to that

assembled multitude as never man spake; then he bids Simon launch out farther, and cast his net in the deep; then follows the overwhelming draught of fishes; and then those four partners, filled with wonder and awe, are called to quit their boats, and throw by their nets, and become fishers of men.

And now what a change, like the change of a dream or of enchantment, has passed over their lives, dividing what was from what was to be! It was long before they themselves were aware how entire and how stupendous it was. In a few years they are to be the principal actors in the most extraordinary events of recorded time. Home, kindred, country, are to be forsaken forever. Their nets may hang and bleach in the sun; their boats may rot piecemeal on the shore; for the owners of them are far away, sailing over seas to which that of Genesareth is a pond; exciting whole cities and countries to wonder and tumult; answering before kings; imprisoned, persecuted, tortured; their whole existence a storm, and a greater one than ever swept over their lake. On the peaceful shore of that lake even their bones may not rest. Their ashes are to be separated from the ashes of their kindred. Their blood is to be sprinkled on foreign soils; the headsman and executioner are to preside over their untimely obsequies. A few years