"One of the two which heard John speak, and followed Him,
was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother." John i. 40.
{1} WITH this Festival we begin our year,—thus ushering in, with a few
weeks of preparation, the day of Christ's Nativity. St. Andrew, whom we
now commemorate, has been placed first of the Apostles, because (as far
as Scripture informs us) he was the first among them who found the Messiah,
and sought to be His disciple. The circumstances which preceded his call
are related in the passage of the Gospel from which the text is taken.
We are there informed that it was John the Baptist who pointed out to him
his Saviour. It was fitting that the forerunner of Christ should be the
instrument of leading to Him the first-fruits of his Apostles.
St. Andrew, who was already one of St. John's disciples, was attending
on his master with another, when, as it happened, Jesus passed by. The
Baptist, {2} who had from the first declared his own subordinate place
in the dispensation which was then opening, took this occasion of pointing
out to his two disciples Him in whom it centred. He said, "Behold the Lamb
of God;" this is He of whom I spake, whom the Father has chosen and sent,
the true sacrificial Lamb, by whose sufferings the sins of the world will
be expiated. On hearing this, the two disciples (Andrew, I say, being one
of them) straightway left John and followed Christ. He turned round and
asked them, "What seek ye?" They expressed their desire to be allowed to
wait upon His teaching; and He suffered them to accompany Him home, and
to pass that day with Him. What He said to them is not told us; but St.
Andrew received such confirmation of the truth of the Baptist's words,
that in consequence he went after his own brother to tell him what he had
found. "He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We
have found the Messias ... and he brought him to Jesus."
St. John the Evangelist, who has been guided to preserve various notices
concerning the separate Apostles which are not contained in the first three
Gospels, speaks of Andrew in two other places; and introduces him under
circumstances which show that, little as is known of this Apostle now,
he was, in fact, very high in the favour and confidence of his Lord. In
his twelfth chapter he describes Andrew as bringing to Christ certain Greeks
who came up to Jerusalem to worship and who were desirous of seeing Him.
And, what is remarkable, these strangers had first applied to St. Philip,
who, though an Apostle himself, instead of {3} taking upon him to introduce
them, had recourse to his fellow-townsman, St. Andrew, as if, whether from
age or intimacy with Christ, a more suitable channel for furthering their
petition. "Philip cometh, and telleth Andrew; and again, Andrew and Philip
tell Jesus."
These two Apostles are also mentioned together in the sixth chapter
of the same Gospel, at the consultation which preceded the miracle of the
loaves and fishes; and there again Andrew is engaged, as before, in the
office of introducing strangers to Christ. "There is a lad here," he says
to his Lord, a lad who, perhaps, had not courage to come forward of himself,
"which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes."
The information afforded by these passages, of St. Andrew's especial
acceptableness to Christ among the Apostles, is confirmed by the only place
in the other Gospels, beside the catalogue, in which his name occurs. After
our Lord had predicted the ruin of the Temple, "Peter, James, John, and
Andrew asked Him privately, Tell us when shall these things be?" [Mark
xiii. 3.] and it was to these four that our Saviour revealed the signs
of His coming, and of the end of the world. Here St. Andrew is represented
as in the especial confidence of Christ; and associated too with those
Apostles whom He is known to have selected from the Twelve, on various
occasions, by tokens of His peculiar favour.
Little is known of St. Andrew in addition to these inspired notices
of him. He is said to have preached the Gospel in Scythia; and he was at
length martyred {4} in Achaia. His death was by crucifixion; that kind
of cross being used, according to the tradition, which still goes by his
name.
Yet, little as Scripture tells us concerning him, it affords us enough
for a lesson, and that an important one. These are the facts before us.
St. Andrew was the first convert among the Apostles; he was especially
in our Lord's confidence; thrice is he described as introducing others
to Him; lastly, he is little known in history, while the place of dignity
and the name of highest renown have been allotted to his brother Simon,
whom he was the means of bringing to the knowledge of his Saviour.
Our lesson, then, is this; that those men are not necessarily the most
useful men in their generation, not the most favoured by God, who make
the most noise in the world, and who seem to be principals in the great
changes and events recorded in history; on the contrary, that even when
we are able to point to a certain number of men as the real instruments
of any great blessings vouchsafed to mankind, our relative estimate of
them, one with another, is often very erroneous: so that, on the whole,
if we would trace truly the hand of God in human affairs, and pursue His
bounty as displayed in the world to its original sources, we must unlearn
our admiration of the powerful and distinguished, our reliance on the opinion
of society, our respect for the decisions of the learned or the multitude,
and turn our eyes to private life, watching in all we read or witness for
the true signs of God's presence, the graces of personal holiness manifested
in His elect; {5} which, weak as they may seem to mankind, are mighty through
God, and have an influence upon the course of His Providence, and bring
about great events in the world at large, when the wisdom and strength
of the natural man are of no avail.
Now, first, observe the operation of this law of God's government, in
respect to the introduction of those temporal blessings which are of the
first importance in securing our well-being and comfort in the present
life. For example, who was the first cultivator of corn? Who first tamed
and domesticated the animals whose strength we use, and whom we make our
food? Or who first discovered the medicinal herbs which, from the earliest
times, have been our resource against disease? If it was mortal man, who
thus looked through the vegetable and animal worlds, and discriminated
between the useful and the worthless, his name is unknown to the millions
whom he has benefited. It is notorious, that those who first suggest the
most happy inventions, and open a way to the secret stores of nature,—those
who weary themselves in the search after Truth, who strike out momentous
principles of action, who painfully force upon their contemporaries the
adoption of beneficial measures, or, again, who are the original cause
of the chief events in national history, are commonly supplanted, as regards
celebrity and reward, by inferior men. Their works are not called after
them; nor the arts and systems which they have given the world. Their schools
are usurped by strangers; and their maxims of wisdom circulate among the
children of their people, forming, perhaps, a nation's {6} character, but
not embalming in their own immortality the names of their original authors.
Such is the history of the social and political world; and the rule
discernible in it is still more clearly established in the world of morals
and religion. Who taught the Doctors and Saints of the Church, who, in
their day, or in after times, have been the most illustrious expounders
of the precepts of right and wrong, and, by word and deed, are the guides
of our conduct? Did Almighty Wisdom speak to them through the operation
of their own minds, or rather, did it not subject them to instructors unknown
to fame, wiser perhaps even than themselves? Andrew followed John the Baptist,
while Simon remained at his nets. Andrew first recognised the Messiah among
the inhabitants of despised Nazareth; and he brought his brother to Him.
Yet to Andrew Christ spake no word of commendation which has been allowed
to continue on record; whereas to Simon, even on his first coming, He gave
the honourable name by which he is now designated, and afterwards put him
forward as the typical foundation of His Church. Nothing indeed can hence
be inferred, one way or the other, concerning the relative excellence of
the two brothers; so far only appears, that, in the providential course
of events, the one was the secret beginner, and the other the public instrument,
of a great divine work. St. Paul, again, was honoured with the distinction
of a miraculous conversion, and was called to be the chief agent of the
propagation of the Gospel among the heathen; yet to Ananias, an otherwise
unknown saint, dwelling at Damascus, was {7} committed the high office
of conveying the gifts of pardon and the Holy Ghost to the Apostle of the
Gentiles.
Providence thus acts daily. The early life of all men is private; it
is as children, generally, that their characters are formed to good or
evil; and those who form them to good, their truest and chief benefactors,
are unknown to the world. It has been remarked, that some of the most eminent
Christians have been blessed with religious mothers, and have in after
life referred their own graces to the instrumentality of their teaching.
Augustine has preserved to the Church the history of his mother Monica;
but in the case of others, even the name is denied to us of our great benefactress,
whosoever she was, and sometimes, doubtless, the circumstance of her service
altogether.
When we look at the history of inspiration, the same rule still holds.
Consider the Old Testament, which "makes us wise unto salvation." How great
a part of it is written by authors unknown! The book of Judges, the second
of Samuel, the books of Kings, Chronicles, Esther, and Job, and great part
of the book of Psalms. The last instance is the most remarkable of these.
"Profitable" beyond words as is the instruction conveyed to us in every
word of Scripture, yet the Psalms have been the most directly and visibly
useful part of the whole volume, having been the prayer-book of the Church
ever since they were written; and have done more (as far as we dare judge)
to prepare souls for heaven, than any of the inspired books, except the
Gospels. Yet the authors of a large portion of them are altogether unknown.
And so with the Liturgies {8} which have been the possession of the Christian
Church from the beginning; who were those matured and exalted Saints who
left them to us? Nay, in the whole system of our worship, who are the authors
of each decorous provision and each edifying custom? who found out the
musical tunes, in which our praises are offered up to God, and in which
resides so wondrous a persuasion "to worship and fall down, and kneel before
the Lord our Maker?" Who were those religious men, our spiritual fathers
in the "Catholic faith," who raised of old time the excellent fabrics all
over the country, in which we worship, though with less of grateful reverence
for their memory than we might piously express? Of these greatest men in
every age, there is "no memorial;" they "are perished as though they had
never been, and become as though they had never been born."
Now I know that reflections of this kind are apt to sadden and vex us;
and such of us particularly as are gifted with ardent and enthusiastic
minds, with a generous love of what is great and good, and a noble hatred
of injustice. These men find it difficult to reconcile themselves to the
notion that the triumph of the Truth, in all its forms, is postponed to
the next world. They would fain anticipate the coming of the righteous
Judge: nay, perhaps they are somewhat too favourably disposed towards the
present world, to acquiesce without resistance in a doctrine which testifies
to the corruption of its decisions, and the worthlessness of its honours.
But that it is a truth, has already been showed almost as matter of fact,
putting {9} the evidence of Scripture out of consideration; and if it be
such, it is our wisdom, as it will become our privilege, to accustom our
minds to it, and to receive it, not in word merely, but in seriousness.
Why indeed should we shrink from this gracious law of God's present
providence in our own case, or in the case of those we love, when our subjection
to it does but associate us with the best and noblest of our race, and
with beings of nature and condition superior to our own? Andrew is scarcely
known except by name; while Peter has ever held the place of honour all
over the Church; yet Andrew brought Peter to Christ. And are not the blessed
Angels unknown to the world? and is not God Himself, the Author of all
good, hid from mankind at large, partially manifested and poorly glorified,
in a few scattered servants here and there? and His Spirit, do we know
whence It cometh, and whither It goeth? and though He has taught men whatever
there has been of wisdom among them from the beginning, yet when He came
on earth in visible form, even then it was said of Him, "The world knew
Him not." His marvellous providence works beneath a veil, which speaks
but an untrue language; and to see Him who is the Truth and the Life, we
must stoop underneath it, and so in our turn hide ourselves from the world.
They who present themselves at kings' courts, pass on to the inner chambers,
where the gaze of the rude multitude cannot pierce; and we, if we would
see the King of kings in His glory, must be content to disappear from the
things that are seen. Hid are the saints of God; if they are known to men,
it is accidentally, in their {10} temporal offices, as holding some high
earthly station, or effecting some mere civil work, not as saints. St.
Peter has a place in history, far more as a chief instrument of a strange
revolution in human affairs, than in his true character, as a self-denying
follower of his Lord, to whom truths were revealed which flesh and blood
could not discern.
How poor spirited are we, and what dishonour we put upon the capabilities
and the true excellence of our nature, when we subject it to the judgment
and disposal of all its baser specimens, to the rude and ignorant praise,
and poor recompensing of carnal and transgressing man! How shall the flesh
be at all a judge of the spirit? or the sinner of God's elect? Are we to
look downwards, not upwards? Shall we basely acknowledge the right of the
Many, who tread the broad way, to be the judges of holiness, which comes
from God, and appeals to Him? And does not the eye of faith discern witnesses
of our conduct, ever present, and far worthier of our respect, than even
a world of the ungodly? Is man the noblest being in the creation? Surely
we, as well as our Divine Lord, are "seen of Angels;" nay, and ministered
unto by them, much as they excel us in strength! St. Paul plainly tells
us, that it is God's purpose that "His manifold wisdom should be known
to the heavenly principalities and powers, through the Church." [Eph. iii.
10.] When we are made Christians, we are baptized "into that within the
veil," we are brought near to an innumerable company of Angels; and, resembling
them in their hidden condition, {11} share their sympathy and their services.
Therefore, the same Apostle exhorts Timothy to persevere in obedience,
not only by the thought of God, but by that of the Angels; and surely we
ought to cultivate the habitual feeling, that they see us in our most private
deeds, and most carefully guarded solitudes.
It is more than enough for a sinful mortal to be made a fellow-worker
and fellow-worshipper with the Blessed Spirits, and the servant and the
son of God Most High. Rather let us try to realize our privilege, and withal
humble ourselves at our want of faith. We are the elect of God, and have
entrance "through the gates into the" heavenly "City," while we "do His
commandments," [Rev. xxii. 14.] following Christ as Andrew did, when pointed
out to us by His preachers and ministers. To those who thus "follow on
to know" Him, He manifests Himself, while He is hid from the world. They
are near Him, as His confidential servants, and are the real agents in
the various providences which occur in the history of nations, though overlooked
by their annalists and sages. They bring before Him the temporal wants
of men, witnessing His marvellous doings with the barley loaves and fishes;
they, too, lead strangers before Him for His favourable notice, and for
His teaching. And, when He brings trouble and distress upon a sinful people,
they have truest knowledge of His will, and can best interpret His works;
for they had lived in contemplation and prayer, and while others praise
the goodly stones and buildings of the external Temple, have heard from
Him in secret {12} how the end shall be. Thus they live; and when they
die, the world knows nothing of its loss, and soon lets slip what it might
have retained of their history; but the Church of Christ does what she
can, gathering together their relics, and honouring their name, even when
their works cannot be found. But those works have followed them; and, at
the appearing of their Lord in judgment, will be at length displayed before
all the world, and for His merits eternally rewarded in His heavenly kingdom.
Copyright © 2000 by Bob Elder. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. See the Newman
website.
