St. John the Evangelist and Apostle was the son of Zebedee and Salome, a Galilean, and younger brother of St. James the Great. John was a disciple of John the Baptist, and is supposed to have been with Andrew, when the two left the Baptist to follow Christ. John was the youngest of all the Apostles, being about twenty-five when called, and he lived seventy years after the Crucifixion. He lived a bachelor. John went with Peter to the sepulchre on hearing the news from Mary Magdalene, and he outran Peter and had the first view. He and Peter returned to their fishing, and he first recognised Christ walking on the shore. After the meeting of the Apostles, John preached first in Jerusalem, then went to Parthia. He afterwards took charge of all the Churches of Asia. In the persecution of 95, John was apprehended in Asia, and sent to Rome, where he was thrown into a caldron of boiling oil; but he was not injured. He was afterwards banished by Domitian to the isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago, and there he wrote the Revelation. At the death of Domitian in 97, John returned to Ephesus, some months after the martyrdom of St. Timothy there. He was pressed to take charge of that Church. John wore a plate of gold on his forehead, as an ensign of his Christian priesthood. It was to confute the blasphemies of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of Christ, that John composed his gospel in 98, at the age of ninety-two. He also wrote the three epistles. He died in peace at Ephesus at ninety-four, though some ancients said he never died. He was buried on a mountain outside of Ephesus, and his dust was said to be famous for the miracles it wrought. AS TO ST. JOHN'S GRAVE. St. Augustine mentions and ridicules a tradition that St. John ordered his own grave to be made, lay down in it, and went to sleep,--still sleeping there, as is manifest by the heaving of the earth over him as he breathes. This was the tradition founded on John xxi. 22, 23, where Jesus said to Peter, "If I will that he [John] tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Some afterwards explained this by saying that John died without pain or change, and immediately rose again in bodily form, and ascended into heaven to rejoin Christ and the Virgin. ST. JOHN RECLAIMING A YOUNG ROBBER CHIEF.