Spirit, and can be acceptably worshipped only by the mind or spirit, in the exercise of spiritual affections and affinities, that assimilate the soul of the worshipper to the Divinity, who is Spirit, and the loving Father of all human spirits. "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ; when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he.”

Thus, worship by external rites, restricted to particular times, or to a particular place, as was that of the Jews, he tells the woman, is soon to be superseded by the spiritual worship, which he describes. The Jewish worship was to be continued till after the manifestation, or coming of the Redeemer and his kingdom. It was to prepare the way for the Redeemer, that this worship had

been instituted and was continued in Jerusalem, and that the prophets from time to time announced and prepared the minds of the people of Judea to expect the coming of the Messiah. Hence the Jews knew what their worship meant. The Samaritans, receiving only the Pentateuch, and discarding the other sacred writings of the Jews, including the Prophets, knew not the purport of their worship. It was from the Jews that the Messiah, or the salvation he was to bring, should come. Afterwards their ritual, external worship was to be superseded by the true, internal, soul-worship of the Father.

This true worship, Jesus tells the woman is soon to prevail, — is already begun. It was realized in its perfection in himself, and he was sowing the seeds that would perfect it in his disciples, and through them in all who should receive and live the truth, which Jesus taught and lived.

He had now made himself known to the woman as the Messiah, - had announced and described to her the Divine life and the true spiritual worship of the Father, which he came to introduce. Upon the communication to the woman of this sublime truth by Jesus, a celebrated German divine makes the following remark. "The aristocracy of education, the one-sided intellectualism of the ancient world,

was uprooted by Christ when he uttered this grand truth to an uneducated woman, who belonged to an ignorant and uncultivated people. For all men alike, the HIGHEST must spring from life, and not from culture.” *

As Jesus was thus concluding his discourse with the woman, his disciples came with the provisions they had purchased; and they marvelled that he should be talking with the woman. Yet none of them, however curious they might be to learn why, or upon what subjects, he had been conversing with the woman, presumed to question him. The woman in joyful haste, leaving the vessel she had brought to take water from the well, ran to the city, and says to the men she met, "Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?" They then came out of the city, and in crowds thronged the way to Jesus.

In the meanwhile, the disciples urge him to partake of the food they had procured. "But he said to them, I have meat to eat, that ye know not of." They, understanding his words in their literal sense, began to divine where he could have obtained food in their absence, and why he con

*Neander's Life of Christ, p. 184.

versed with the Samaritan woman, supposing him infected, like themselves, with the national prejudice, which prevented the Jews from having any friendly intercourse with the Samaritans. Jesus then drops the figure, and in plain language says to them, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." As if he had said, To sow the seed for the general diffusion of the kingdom of God among men,—to fulfil the gracious purposes of my mission, this is my most satisfying

refreshment, the repast most invigorating and grateful to my spirit, that can suspend even the sensations of bodily fatigue and hunger.' While he would

thus make his disciples comprehend the unquenchable zeal he felt, and the joy it gave him to announce glad tidings to the poor, to direct as many as possible in the way to spiritual blessedness and eternal life, crowds of people were seen approaching from the city. Animated with the prospect of prosecuting with success the object of his mission, and of communicating to these Samaritans the divine truths he was commissioned to proclaim to the world, he continues his discourse, comparing the crowd before him to a field of wheat, ripe for gathering, himself and his disciples to reapers.

It was in the midst of seed-time, which in that

region ranges between the middle of October and the middle of December, and the laborers were seen preparing and sowing the fields for a future harvest; and Jesus says to his disciples, "Say not ye there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already for the harvest." As if he had said, The husbandman labors, as you see, endures heat and fatigue, and, often made anxious by drought and other unpropitious aspects of the season, waits long in submission and patience for the appointed months of harvest. But see, without the toil or delay of going from place to place, these poor, unhappy, ignorant, and despised Samaritans are flocking towards us to find the Messiah, and to be instructed in his kingdom. The food, the refreshment of my spirit, of which I spoke just now, my chosen and chief joy, as I am preparing you to do to others, is to teach this multitude, and as many as will hearken to me, the will of my Father, and to lead them into the way that conducteth to eternal life.' Still continuing his discourse, Jesus adds, "He that reapeth [in this field] receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that