VIII. The Gift of God and the Living Water. 66 JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, IF THOU KNEWEST THE GIFT OF GOD, AND WHO IT IS THAT SAITH TO THEE, GIVE ME TO DRINK; THOU WOULDEST HAVE ASKED OF HIM, AND HE WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEE LIVING WATER."-JOHN IV. 10. THE GIFT OF GOD AND THE LIVING IN the preceding chapter, we considered the astonishment expressed by the woman of Samaria at having her religious scruples so tampered with, as to be solicited by a member of the rival tribe for a draught of water from the well of Sychar. We saw to what painful excesses these neighbouring kingdoms had pursued their jealousies, social and ecclesiastical;-indulging in mutual anathema and excommunication, such as has seldom been equalled in the war of race, and the often fiercer war of opinion. To such extremes, indeed, was this repulsion carried, that it would doubtless form matter of wonder to this female, how he who now sought the boon, unless very different from others of his countrymen, should have no conscientious scruple in touching rope or pitcher that had been defiled by alien hands. While, on the other hand, we might have expected her to repudiate the thought of these being polluted and desecrated by the fingers or lips of a hated Jew. His answer in the circumstances must have sounded startling. Instead of the retort and retaliation for which she was doubtless prepared, He arrests her attention, and at once softens and subdues any resentful feeling, by the reply, "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," and He would not have refused thee; He would not have been so ungracious as to reject the request preferred by a toilworn traveller. Uninfluenced and unbiassed by any such selfish and contracted feelings, "He would have given thee;" and given thee something better, nobler than that earthly element: "He would have given thee living water." Living water! The mysterious suggestive words could not fail to arrest her attention; and more arresting still, as it always is, the magic power of kindness. Who could this be, in Jewish attire, speaking in the Jewish dialect, yet in words strangely conciliatory? so different, probably, from other Judean pilgrims she may have met, time after time, at the same spot, with whom she was wont to engage in virulent and fiery debate and banter, meeting and parting with expressions of mutual contempt and scornful hatred. "Living water: "-The expression may have stimulated better, profounder thought. She was evidently not a stranger to religious truth. Apart altogether from her knowledge (derived from their revered Pentateuch) of Father Jacob, and the great theme of ecclesiastical dispute as to the worship on Gerizim and Zion, she expected "Messias, who is called Christ," one greater than the greatest of the prophets, who was to "tell all things," and the blessings of whose kingdom she may have heard that these prophets had, again and again, described under the similitude of refreshing water. Be this as it may, the Divine Speaker, in rising above her sectarian prejudices, seemed at once to secure her interest. With a divine sagacity, He seizes on what was most likely to rouse and sustain her attention and gain the great end in view, her everlasting salvation. He makes nature His text. He who, on other occasions, took the sower at Gennesaret, the bread at Bethsaida, the vine on Olivet, the golden goblet and its contents at Siloam, to discourse of Himself and spiritual verities, takes the water at their side to symbolise and illustrate the better "wells of salvation." No more is said about the quenching of His own thirst. He merges His own lower wants in the higher, deeper necessities of one who has never as yet risen above the material to the spiritual. "Living water!" How that image from that day forward must have been enshrined in her heart of hearts. It must have been to her like the never-to-be-forgotten look which the Saviour cast upon Peter; or the "Lovest thou me?" on the shores of Tiberias; or the pronouncing of her own name to Mary on the resurrection morn; or the "Peace be unto you!" breathed on the gathered disciples. Yes, ever afterwards, when, as a new creature, she trod her native valley, the ear of faith must have caught in every murmuring brook divinest music, every stream that furrowed the mountain sides must have sang the song of redeeming love, or been like an angel whispering to her, and beckoning her nearer to her Saviour-God! But giving these words a general application, let us advert more particularly to the two salient points in this reply of Christ, the two hinges, so to speak, on which this golden gate turns: "The GIFT OF GOD, and the LIVING WATER." First, THE GIFT OF GOD. There is nothing in this world which is not a gift of God. Every morsel of the bread which perisheth, the sunlight which gladdens us, the atmospheric air which sustains us, the fuel garnered deep down in earth's store-houses to warm us, the succession of seasons, the living streams which fertilise our fields, the waving harvests which crown the year with their plenty, the thousand tints of loveliness. and beauty in garden, and dell, and forest; far more, the blessings which rejoice and consecrate social life— the well-springs of gladness in our domestic circles ; these are severally and collectively "gifts of God." Every good and perfect gift is from above." But what are these to the gift here pre-eminently spoken of? —the Gift of gifts—a gift whose magnitude transcends |