ings and crossing the Jordan into Canaan. That well was the silent auditor of the blessings and curses which were rolled in impressive response from Gerizim to Ebal, and when the whole awe-struck congregationcovenanting Israel-standing between, shouted aloud the ratifying Amen.*

But these are all subordinate to the highest consecration of this holy ground, which was reserved not for patriarch or prince, but for the Lord of glory. All the older memories of the well of Jacob seemed to fade and pale, like the stars before the sun, as we stood by its margin that sultry forenoon of March and thought of HIM.

The various incidental circumstances of the simple Gospel narrative seemed strikingly to harmonise with the surroundings. The season of the year alone differed. The time at which the Divine Pilgrim was there, must

* It may not be out of place here to draw the distinction between the 'ain, or "fountain," and the Beer or "well," such as was that of Jacob. The former are found bubbling and gushing up at their source. As in the case of the one which to the writer is most memorable, the 'Ain es-Sultan, the fountain of Elisha, near Jericho, they may be traced far along the dry arid plain, by the beautiful fringe of verdure. The Beer or "well," is a shaft sunk deep into the earth, either built of stone or excavated in the solid rock. this account, had Jacob's Well been a mere fountain ('ain), it might have been movable, as we know those in the desert are, and in the course of centuries might have changed its locality. But being the Beer, or constructed well, the identity of the present with the original is unquestioned. The story of the patriarch's first transac tion is written as with an iron pen and lead on its rock for ever.

On

have been in early spring, corresponding with our January, when the first flush of early green, between the fall of the early and the latter rain, was tinging the wide plain-the initial pledge of the coming harvest. As we stood on the same spot, that harvest was fast whitening for the sickle. But the whole scene was vividly pictured. The Redeemer approaching by the same road we had travelled the preceding day (for the highways of Palestine are unchanged by centuries.*) We could picture Him traversing the hot plain till He came to the well side, exhausted with the fatigue of the long journey. A curb or parapet was generally put around the wells as a protection from cattle, also to serve the purpose of a lever for the drawers of water. "It was about the sixth hour," or high noon, when He seated Himself on this ledge or rim of the fountain, thus furrowed with the ropes by which the water was brought in buckets from its depths. Not inappropriate surely, was it, that He should occupy a spot beneath the shadow of Gerizim, "the mountain of blessing; "—He himself about to become so, in a nobler sense, to an outcast sinner,-"the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The disciples are sent on to the neighbouring town in the valley, to procure, as

The distance is twelve hours, or thirty-six miles, from Jerusalem, so that certainly the journey would be broken by one night's rest on the way. But by starting in the cool of the morning they could easily have reached Shechem by 'the sixth hour.'

best they can, victuals, after their toilsome journey across the mountains of Ephraim; although, owing to the scrupulous aversion with which Jew turned from Samaritan-scruples which, doubtless, to a certain extent were shared by these simple men of Galilee -this could not be unattended with difficulty. While their Lord, more weary and worn than they, remains by this wayside resting-place, His back probably to the sun, His face in the direction of Joseph's tomb and the gray basaltic rocks of Ebal.

Presently, from the glades of the adjoining olive forest, He beheld a figure approaching-a veiled Samaritan female-bearing an empty stone jar on her head; just as, with a most significant living comment on the Gospel narrative which never can be forgotten, we saw, on the occasion of our visit, when within a few paces of the well, a similar Samaritan woman at a little distance, bearing on her head a similar stone pitcher. It was the inspired story acted in impressive reality before the eye. Little did that inhabitant of some hovel on the slopes of Ebal imagine, how she had contributed in vivifying the mental picture, and leading more fully to realise the meeting between the Divine wayfarer and the unconscious trophy of redeeming grace.

The Samaritan woman of St John's Gospel has reached the fountain. It was only under peculiar and exceptional circumstances that a man, a stranger, could

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address a female; more exceptional still for a Jew to venture to break silence in presence of a woman of Samaria. On coming to the ledge, preparing to let down her bucket for a draught, strange and startling must it have been to hear from the lips of this son of Abraham the abrupt request, "Give me to drink." And not to anticipate by a further rehearsal of the narrative, save in its external drapery,-high above the heads of the drawer of water and the unknown Judean traveller, as has just been remarked, rose Gerizim;—to the Samaritans of this hour the chief of all holy places; now with a little Mahommedan temple, then crowned with the ruins of the old rival of Zion, partially rebuilt, to which the Samaritan woman pointed with sectarian defiant pride, saying, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain!" While all around, to the gentle hillsides which hid out the Jordan valley, lay the fields that would ere long exchange their early spring verdure for the glories of harvest, and in which He beheld the pledge and earnest of an undreamt-of reaping for the garners of immortality.

Such then is the outer framework of one of the most touching and significant of all gospel picturings. Let us close with a general spiritual lesson. On the modern Well, Ichabod, as we have seen, is written. A poor heap of ruins is all that is left to memorialise a spot around which angels may still gather as they recount its latest story; at all events, around which, thousand, thousand

human souls have gathered in thrilling interest, and drawn from its symbolic waters, lessons of faith and hope and holy consolation. The old material image may have perished, but the living water remains. As our eye rested on that well, its vanished outward attractiveness seemed like the silent remains of the great and good that have departed-a mass of humiliating ruin. But with it, as with them, there is a speech of the dead. There are sermons in stones. From their dumb, mutilated lips a voice has gone forth that has sent echoes round the world. We gazed on these poor fragments with something of the like interest, only multiplied a hundred-fold, with which the moss-grown martyr monuments are contemplated, underneath which slumber the ashes of the world's spiritual heroes. Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, there shall this memorial of wondrous grace and mercy to the chief of sinners be told!

Let us rejoice in the conviction, that, amid the wreck of desolating centuries, He who gave that Well all its glory, still lives and loves. He cannot perish. No spectacle in all Palestine is more picturesque or beautiful than the gatherings around these ancestral wells or fountains. The Syrian shepherds in their striped abbaŷs, with either the pastoral staff or the weapon slung over their shoulders; their flocks of sheep and goats, and at times the camels of the passing caravan, gathered around; some partaking of the re