On St. Peter's-day you will not suppose that I could pass over these words; they illustrate so strikingly, as other parts of this chapter do, the character of him whom we are commemorating. They illustrate the particular education to which he was subjected; the education which is needed for the impatient and self-confident man, who must be kept waiting, that his eagerness to know, which is in itself a blessing, may not become a curse; who must often have the very thoughts and convictions which are most honest and appear most indisputable, turned upside down, that he may not exult in them as _his_ thoughts and _his_ convictions, and so change the truth that is in them into falsehood. But the lesson, though peculiarly applicable to him, is a universal one, and shows the universal worth of Christ's sign. It is true of all symbols, that we can know little of them at first. The experience of life interprets them. And it is the hardest thing for all of us to believe that the Highest must wait upon the lowest; that it is not humility, but pride, to refuse the service. Wonderful thought to take in! God must stoop, or man cannot stoop. We must set ourselves up as gods, unless we believe that God's glory is shown in doing the lowest offices of a man. But why was not Peter right in that other prayer of his,--'_Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head_?' Did he not want a thorough cleansing? Does not each of us want it? The question is one which requires the most careful answer. If the Bible did not give it in the most express terms, we should be utterly at a loss where to find it. But from first to last the Jewish nation is spoken of as a pure and holy nation by those lawgivers and prophets who complain of its members for being stiff-necked and rebellious. There is nothing which the prophets are so earnest in as in persuading their countrymen that they are the people of God's covenant, and are therefore a holy people; that they are _forgetting_ His covenant, and _so_ are making themselves unholy. They call upon the people to repent and turn to God, and then He will restore them, He will purify them; the hearts which are red as scarlet, shall become as white as wool. The Jewish sects did not in the least understand this truth. They looked for an individual holiness, an individual cleanness, apart from the holiness of their nation. Each member of them wanted a holiness of his own; he regarded his race as unholy. He did not repent of the sins which kept him from sharing in the holiness which they all had in God.