It was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The first pale shafts of the rising sun were shooting across the eastern sky, revealing seven fishermen out upon the water in a little boat. All night they had been toiling, rowing and letting down their nets, but nothing had they caught. Disheartened by their fruitless toil, they were just about to give up further attempt when a once familiar form is seen standing upon the beach, and they hear a voice telling them to cast the net on the right side of the ship. They heed the direction, and the success which follows--a draught of one hundred and fifty-three fishes--confirms them in their belief that it was their risen Master who had given the command. Thereupon they drag the boats to shore, and find a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon and bread, whilst He whom all know to be the Lord, but whom none from holy awe dares ask, "Who art Thou?" bids them, "Come and eat." It is here that our text sets in--one of the most pathetic incidents in sacred story. To understand it properly, we go back in spirit to that scene in the high priest's palace when Peter, the bold and courageous, whose impulsiveness had caused him to promise great things, had shamefully and cowardly denied his Master in the hour of distress. Thrice had he averred that he knew not the man of whom they spoke, and aggravated his offense by denunciations and an oath. It was a grievous, a most terrible fall for the apostle, one that virtually excluded him from the circle of his fellow-disciples and from his holy office; and whilst it is true that he had wept in sorrowing repentance when the eye of his Master had met his insignificant look, yet the occurrence was such as to demand a personal heart-to-heart interview and setting aright. This interview took place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, after the miraculous draught of fish. Everything tended to prepare the apostle for the holy scene. It was just three years before, at the same sea, after a similar miracle, that the Lord had established him in his ministerial office. The early hour reminded him of the morning watch, that fire of coals answered to that fire of coals in the palace of Caiaphas,--all of this must have touched Peter's heart to the quick, made him exquisitively sensitive to the scene that followed. The particulars of that scene we shall now ponder, regarding, _I. The examination_, _II. the charge_.