JO Sermon Preached in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Shanghai, on Sunday Morning, August 12, by Dean Trivett to desuas John 1,51-52.
No' sooner does Andrew become disciple than he hastens to find Ris brother Simon Peter that he may tell him what a discovery he has made. Like everyone who hi heard. good tidings the first wish is to impart it to the one who is nearest and dearest to him, "We have found the Messiah," he say' tind he brings, him to Jesus.
"Now here is something T would avg you mark carefully. Peter was not first led to Jesus by the Dreaching of an eloquent. sermon. Fle was not attracted by the working of mighty inivacles. He was of convinced by any powerful rea-faoning. He had only heard the report of Andrew. Sust a word brotherly advice, of simple test many. But it vas the first link in the chain by which Peter was drawn out of the world and joined to Christ, Who can tell what. have happened if Andrew had been Hike go many professing disciples Jesus Christ in the present day, and never spoken of Jesus. Who can tell but his brother might have lived and died a fisherman on the Galilean Jake, But Andrew's heart was so full he could not keep sil and to' Andrew's out-spoken testi-many, under God, the great apostle Peter owed the first bennning of! Bight in his soul.
The Rexinning of Great Things "We have found the Messiah which is—the Christ—and he brought. him to Jesus." And Simon, the Galilean' fisherman, impulsive' passionate, weak, unreliable, a coward, became Peter the great apostle, the rock, fearless whole-hearted, And so the: leimply testimony of St. Andrew was under God the Leginning of great things for Peter and for the Christinn Church, an influence wir far reaching and stupendous results, And T would say without fear of auecesyful contradiction that the work of God will be forwarded, the Christian Church built up, sen saved and lives protected from ey more surely and effectively by such simple testimony from individieal nen and women than by all the direction and leadership that its most eloquent and forceful men can ive, Think for a moment of the place of such influence in everyday. life of the world about us, As we study, the actions of men we are struck by the fact that life is very largely determined by environment and cumstances. One does not need to xo very far for an illustration of this, We need only look at his own 3ife and compare it with the life that he led at home, before he came east, before he entered the "Servi-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.