But John’s disciples were not separated off from the outside mass by baptism alone. To the mind of his countrymen a religion was not a religion at all, unless it included a _regimen_, unless it parcelled out their days, according to hours of prayer and times of fasting. With such a distinctive rule John provided his followers. He taught them to pray,(82) he accustomed them to voluntary fasts;(83) and on some points of ceremonial, such as purification, he may have had tenets of his own.(84) We will now trace the steps by which our Lord gathers disciples round Him. It is possible that even before our Lord left Galilee He had been the centre of a group of young men who looked up to Him, and the Galileans among John’s disciples might therefore have heard of Him. It falls in also with this supposition, that our Lord seems to have been already acquainted with Philip of Bethsaida, and to have purposely sought him out. We read—“He _findeth_ Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.”(85) Philip hastens to Nathanael,(86) who came from Cana in Galilee, and tells him that the Messiah has been found in the person of “Jesus the son of Joseph, _the man from Nazareth_.”(87) The words in italics _may_ imply “of whom we have all heard;” for Cana was not more than six miles from Nazareth, and Bethsaida was in the same district. The Baptist, we know, regarded Him, when He came to be baptised, as his equal or superior in the favour of God. Five of the Apostles—John, Andrew, Peter, Philip and Nathanael—were drawn to our Lord in the few days spent at Bethabara on His return from the desert; and probably all these went back with Him to Galilee. Among these five we find traces of a lasting tie. This is worth noting, because such a tie would naturally arise from comradeship in early years, and of this comradeship St John’s Gospel speaks. These five had gone together from Galilee, in the zeal of their young days, to listen to the strange preacher in the desert of Judæa; they had lived together, faring alike, and baring their hearts each to the other in the confidence of youth. We can understand that this would bind men fast together, and that St John writing his Gospel at the end of his life, with possibly St Andrew at his side, should have been mindful of all the circumstances in which these old friends took part, and have gladly taken occasion to mention their names.(88)