The highest development in pictorial art is proved when the artist can with a few rapid lines represent some view or figure so as to give a good idea of its characteristic features. The three or four brief and casual references in the Gospels to Andrew reveal him to us with such graphic distinctness and power that we seem to have known him all our lives.
He was originally with John the Baptist and was one of the first two men who followed the Messiah. The Baptist was standing with these two of his disciples, “and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God.” The apostle who writes this tells us that one of these two was Andrew, but with characteristic modesty he omits to mention who the other was, because it was himself. These two men follow the Master, who presently turns to ask what they require: they only ask, “Rabbi, where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day.” All this was very characteristic of these two reticent, deep-natured, men; the silent, unquestioning, patient following, the one inquiry which at length falls from their lips, and the nature of that inquiry which divine love had awakened in their souls. It was neither doctrinal nor polemical; simply “Rabbi, where dwellest THOU?”
The other disciple is then modestly left out of the narrative, but of Andrew we are told that, “He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, we have found the Messias!...and he brought him to Jesus.” There Andrew's part is over for the time. Be it so: he had done a good day's work.
We see in a watch the hands doing their work out toward the world. They are revealed to all as they do their work—important work too—in public. So that when we look at the watch we hardly ever think of anything but the hands and what they indicate. But do they move themselves? No, round at the back, hidden away and difficult to discover, is the fusee, the cogs of which move them. It is a modest, curiously-shaped, wheel that does its work so quietly that you may have a watch for a life-time and not know even that it has a fusee. But the hands cannot move without it, and it is from its direct proximity to the hidden central spring that it has its power. Thus Simon Peter, like the hands of the watch did his work mainly in public, and Andrew his, like the fusee, in retirement. Simon Peter preached to the multitudes, and brought thousands to Christ; but Andrew it was who had given the first impulse by bringing Simon himself to Christ. It seemed a small individual service; but if we think of what Peter afterward accomplished, we see that it had a vast result.
And this kind of direct individual work is always needed. Priscilla's quiet words turn the stream of Apollos' eloquence into the right direction. Luther is instructed by von Staupitz; Farel by Lefevre; Calvin by his cousin Olivetan; John Wesley by Peter Boehler. Augustin's mother Monica it was who took him to hear Ambrose preaching; and when she had by this means turned him from his Manichmænism at Ostea, she said, “I am now satisfied, and have nothing further to wish for from this life.”
After this the two brothers were appointed to the service of the apostolate. As they were at their daily work, fishing, they were called from that and all else to be fishers of men. And they illustrate the different ways of fishing: Peter fished with a net and brought multitudes in with a sweep of the great waters, whilst Andrew fished with a line. He had already caught one fish, and this proved to be a very large one. Now the qualities needed for the two kinds of fishing are in many ways distinct. Patience and vigilance are needed in both cases; but whereas the net-fisherman has his attention on large things, the rise and fall of sea-tides, gales, and shoals, the line-fisherman has a careful watch for the little ripple, the slight depressions of the float, the faintest pressure on the line. This quality we see in Andrew. When the multitude stood starving around them, and the rest of the disciples were in despair, it was Andrew that saw the boy standing with the bread basket, and, with the practical eye of one accustomed to see small things and seize small opportunities, he said, “There is a lad here [another would not have noticed a lad at all!] which hath five barley loaves [he had not only counted them, but knew what they were made of!] and two small fishes.”
If he had only stopped there, what a glorious speech it had been! what audacity of faith it implied! But unfortunately he added on some reasoning of his own and produced a most ridiculous anti-climax; like that divinity student that, being asked who the first king of Israel was, hesitatingly answered “Saul “; and then, seeing he was correct, proceeded triumphantly...” afterward called Paul.” Ah, we often begin in the spirit and end in the flesh! The fact was, logic was not Andrew's gift: Paul, John, and others of them had that gift, but not he. So the sentence ends in the veritable bathos, “but what are they among so many?” What indeed!
But do not let the stupidity of the closing question make us forget that after all it was Andrew that saw the boy and the loaves, the small means which his faith in his Master's power led him to bring into notice. And if he had faith that would believe in a small miracle, but would not stretch to a big one, are we not reminded of many eminent theologians in the present day, who are exactly in the same condition? Excellent mathematicians and scientists they are too, and will spend years getting fish out of old rocks: but the fish are dead and the flesh gone. They call it paleontology, and they seem to like it.
But Andrew was evidently held in esteem by his companions and worthy of being referred to in difficult circumstances like that “Brother Jonathan” Trumbull, whom Washington always consulted. Men with little logic have sometimes much sagacity. Thus when the Greeks come up and go to Philip, he turns to Andrew for advice. By this time we are pretty certain what his advice is likely to be. He has a way of bringing, and referring people and things, direct to his divine Master: so we read, “and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.” He subsequently labored in Scythia and was put to death in Achaia on a transverse cross. He is the patron saint of the Russians and. Scots; but what he has done to deserve that his name and cross should be interwoven with the resentful thistle and the pugnacious motto Nemo me impune lacessit is not easy to say. J. C. B.