It was after this look of wondrous love that Peter went out and wept bitterly. At last he remembered. It seemed too late, but it was not too late. The heart of Jesus was not closed against him, and he rose from his fall a new man. What place had the denial in the story of the training of Peter? It had a very important place. Up to that last night, there was still a grave blemish in Simon's character. His self-confidence was an element of weakness. Perhaps there was no other way in which this fault could be cured but by allowing him to fall. We know at least that, in the bitter experience of denial, with its solemn repenting, Peter lost his weakness. He came from his penitence a new man. At last he was disinthralled. He had learned the lesson of humility. It was never again possible for him to deny his Lord. A little later, after a heart-searching question thrice repeated, he was restored and recommissioned--"Feed my lambs; feed my sheep." So the work was completed; the vision of the new man had been realized. Simon had become Cephas. It had been a long and costly process, but neither too long nor too costly. While the marble was wasting, the image was growing. You say it was a great price that Simon had to pay to be fashioned into Peter. You ask whether it was worth while, whether it would not have been quite as well for him if he had remained the plain, obscure fisherman he was when Jesus first found him. Then he would have been only a fisherman, and after living among his neighbors for his allotted years, he would have had a quiet funeral one day, and would have been laid to rest beside the sea. As it was, he had a life of poverty and toil and hard service. It took a great deal of severe discipline to make out of him the strong, firm man of rock that Jesus set out to produce in him. But who will say to-day that it was not worth while? The splendid Christian manhood of Peter has been now for nineteen centuries before the eyes of the world as a type of character which Christian men should emulate--a vision of life whose influence has touched millions with its inspiration. The price which had to be paid to attain this nobleness of character and this vastness of holy influence was not too great.