whom this new life is to be found! The teaching of the need of the new birth leads not to dull helplessness but to eager faith in the Helper. He stands as the Lord of Life, able and pledged to renew all hearts that will open to him. Usually it is this side of the matter, the side where man sees it best and touches it for himself, that is put first. So, you will remember, John writes the two parts: "As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

We have but to receive him. God takes care of the new birth. There is then no least reason for turning away from the word of Jesus as a word beyond us. We have only to accept it with all its enforcement and its witness and to seek, each for himself and all together, the Saviour who gives the new heart that finds the new kingdom and establishes it on the earth.

William E. Strong.

CHRIST AT JACOB'S WELL

JOHN 4: 5-15

"So he cometh to a city of Samaria," etc.

I. Life as depicted in the New Testament is redolent of the Old Testament days. Especially is it true that every thing that happened in the time of Christ reminds us of the early history of Israel. Here, for example, was a village in Samaria, called Sychar. Twenty centuries before, the founder of the family from which the nation sprung owned a piece of land here, dug a well on it and then deeded the property to his favorite son. It made no difference that all this was so long ago; the facts were known and cherished, frequently thought of and often the subject of remark. Even the Samaritan woman, who found Jesus at the well, was proud of these facts of antiquity and did not fail to bring them to the notice of the stranger before her. “Our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle." It was not a mere chance that Jesus sat on Jacob's well, that the evangelist calls our attention to the fact, that Jacob gave the ground about the well to Joseph and that the Samaritan woman dwelt on the fact of Jacob's ownership. All this was in the divine plan. Those Old Testament times were a preparation for Christ's coming, and it was shown, as it must be shown, that Christianity, the new religion, was an outgrowth of Judaism, the old religion. The two were inseparable. Judaism was the bud that containednot always easily recognized, but still there--the embryo

that should develop into the full-blown flower of Christianity. The Old Testament dispensation-history, ritual and all-was peculiarly a series of types of Christ. Then, in addition, in nature itself, as Christ taught us, was an inexhaustible treasury of symbols of spiritual truths. Jacob was a type of Christ, resembling him in many particulars and designed by his experience to suggest principles that found their full exemplification in Christ himself. Joseph still more remarkably prefigured Christ. The well itself, which Jacob dug, was a symbol of Christ, and Christ sitting there, wearied, on its curbing and finding refreshment in its waters drew attention to the relation which he bore to the past. That well had been dug for him. Two thousand years before in the counsels of God it had been planned that Jacob, who had received the promise of the Messiah, should prepare refreshment for him and should furnish him a text for one of the greatest sermons the world ever heard.

II. But Christ makes a request of the Samaritan woman. She had come a long distance for water and was about to draw when Christ said to her: "Give me to drink." The request surprised and startled her, but he made it, and he makes similar requests of us.

What he asked of her was primarily a service. He would have her show him a kindness. It did not make so much difference what it was, if only it was something designed to help him and consequently something done out of regard for him. In another connection and long afterwards he said to his disciples: "Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ's, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." Here is the same test that he applied to the Samaritan woman. She must learn the joy of service and she must do the service for Christ's sake. It is a test he applies to all mankind. It is a great thing for us to discover that we can serve Christ, and a greater for us to find our joy and the aim of our life in such service.

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Christ sitting on the well-curb, weary, dusty, heated and athirst, asking of the Samaritan woman a drink of water, showed that he had the needs of our common humanity and that his appeal for a service was based on such needs. He desired service because he was a man, and this humanity he must reveal because it prepared the way for him to reveal, as he did shortly, that he was more than a man. Humanity is a proof of common needs and should awaken sympathy and love. Christ would arouse it in us towards himself, and having thus awakened right sentiments in us, he would turn our service towards our fellow men. "Inasmuch," he said, "as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me."

Christ would indicate the spirit of this service in the fact that a Jew asked it of a Samaritan. Here was a freedom from caste and human self-conceit so rare that it excited the surprise of the woman. "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?” The very name of the place where they were is supposed to be a mark of Jewish disdain, Sychar probably being a contemptuous name for Shechem and meaning a town of liars or drunkards. But Christ showed none of this feeling and the Samaritan woman could not understand it. There is no other hindrance to service that can compare with that of an aristocratic or caste feeling. Every rank in society is apt to consider some others a little lower in the social scale and to despise them in consequence. But such a feeling works equal disaster both to him who should bestow and to him who should receive a gift. It removes all motive for giving and makes one equally unwilling to receive. It is a thoroughly unchristian feeling and must be broken down. Christ, in asking aid of the despised and shameless woman before him, taught a lesson to humanity for all time.

III. But if Christ asks of us, it is to lead us to ask of

him. If Christ can be helped by us, a thousand times more can we be helped by Christ. Why then do we not ask him? Christ suggests the reasons when he says: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of him." We fail to ask through ignorance, and that ignorance pertains to two things:-we are ignorant as to the value of the gift and as to the character of the giver. If we knew the value of the gift, we should ask for it because we should want it. If we knew the character of the giver, we should ask for it because we should be certain Christ would give it. The gift itself is unspeakably precious. It is like a fountain of cool water to one perishing of thirst. It is life to the soul. Then, too, the giver is One of infinite love. He desires nothing so much as to bless needy humanity. The woman. was assured that had she asked, she would have received this living water. One thing is absolutely certain, that no one who really desires the water of life will be refused. He has but to ask for it, to receive it. There are many things in life we would like which we cannot get, but here is a gift, the most precious of all, which is unquestionably within our reach. "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

Living water is literally water that is not stagnant, but that flows up from a spring. Living water in the metaphorical and spiritual sense, in which our Saviour here uses the phrase, is the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. It is salvation. There is a peculiar propriety in this figure of speech, since salvation satisfies an unspeakable thirst in the soul and since it also flows up continually with fresh joy and blessing.

IV. The passage we are studying brings out the contrast between earthly and spiritual blessings.

The old dispensation exalted the privileges of this life and had little to say of the sanctions of the other world.