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illustrates —

I. The general duty of ENDEAVOURING TO IMPART TO OTHERS THE SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS ENJOYED BY OURSELVES. There is all the difference here between natural and Spiritual things. The discovery of a hidden treasure would beget no anxiety that others should know of it. The discovery of a remedy for a direful disease would inspire eagerness in most men to give it a wide notoriety; but not necessarily in all cases, inasmuch as the discovery involves no change in the character. But the man who has lighted on heavenly treasure has found that, the direct tendency of which is to the overcoming of selfishness. A man renewed by God's Spirit, who does not desire and seek the renewal of others, is a contradiction in terms. The wealth acquired by the believer is kept through being dispersed; the cure accomplished through the blood of the Redeemer is a cure which is radical only in proportion as it seeks its own extension. Let, then, men take it as a test by which to try their own spiritual condition. Andrew findeth his brother Simon. He felt at once the communicative and diffusive nature of religion.

II. The special duty of BEGINNING WITH THOSE WITH WHOM WE ARE MORE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED.

1. Our own household and relatives have the first claim upon us; parents and masters are bound, if they would imitate Andrew, to provide first for their own children and servants; or parishioners or citizens are bound to provide for their own poor, before they attempt the relief of other parishes and other cities. To Englishmen, their necessitous countrymen especially come first, before they turn their attention to the African or New Zealander. There is nothing of selfishness in this. We must enlarge our operations with the enlargement of our ability. But God may be said to have parcelled out mankind into concentric circles, and he hath made it incumbent upon us that we go carefully round the inner circle before we pass on to the outer; so that, while benevolence is not to be churlishly limited, she is not to leave waste ground here, in her eagerness to spread culture over some remote and savage section of the earth.

2. But as Andrew did not stop short at his brother, so home missions must expand into foreign.

3. The great lesson, however, is that we should care for the conversion of those with whom we were associated when unconverted. The merchant, who nearly lost his soul in hunting after gain, but who is now seeking treasure above — is he doing his best to cause those who were one with him in the struggle after perishable wealth to be one with him in labouring for the incorruptible? The young man who was the slave of vice, driven headlong by his passions, and who has now forsaken the haunts of licentiousness — is he striving to withdraw from those pleasures his former associates, and to lead them to take delight in heavenly things? The young woman whose whole mind was engaged in frivolous amusements, but who now seems awake to the solemnities of eternity — is it her endeavour to teach the thoughtless With whom she squandered away life that there is something more to be cared for than dress, and something more communicative of happiness than the dance? All such cases may be gathered under the "first" of our text. The converted man's first care will be for those with whom he has been intimately associated, either in relationship, or friendship, or business.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

WEB: One of the two who heard John, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.