He saw a man… sitting at the receipt of custom. — Matt 9:9
The men who collected the toll were a low class of Jews. As a rule they were dishonest, extortioners, men who robbed the people by overtaxing them. As Jesus passed this booth by the seaside, that day, he looked in and saw the very man he wanted. It was not the publican, as he then was, that attracted Jesus, but the man who would emerge under the influence of divine love. As Michael Angelo saw his wondrous statue of the young David in the soiled and castaway block of marble, so Jesus saw in the outcast Levi the apostle whose name is now so honoured.
“Each human soul is like a cavern full of gems. The casual observer glances into it through some cranny, and all looks dark and sullen. But let light enter it, lift a torch up to the walls, let God’s sunlight fall into it and flood its open recesses, and lo! It will flash with crystals and with amethysts, and each separate crystal will quiver under the touch of brightness with a transporting discovery of its own nature.”