some wonderful
person, she repeated His own request, but with a changed meaning,--"Sir,
give me this water." Perhaps to make her feel her sinfulness and to lead
her into a better life, He showed her that though He was a stranger, He
knew her past history. Her astonishment increased and she exclaimed,
"Sir, I perceive that Thou art a Prophet." Ashamed, she quickly changed
the subject.

She and her people claimed that Mount Gerizim was the holy place of the
Holy Land; while the Jews said that Jerusalem was "the place where men
ought to worship." She wanted the Prophet she had so unexpectedly met to
decide between them. With calmness, solemnity and earnestness, He made a
sublime declaration to her, meant for Jews, Samaritans and all men. It
was this: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this
mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.... The hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in
spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers.
God is a spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and
truth."

But this did not satisfy her. It was all so new and strange, so
different from what she and her people believed, that she was not
prepared to accept it from an unknown stranger, though he seemed to be a
prophet. She thought of One greater than she thought He could be, One
who was wiser than any prophet then living, or who ever had lived, One
who she believed was to come. So, with a sigh of disappointment, her
only reply was, "I know that Messiah cometh; ... when He is come, He
will declare unto us all things."

How the quickened ear of John must have made his heart thrill at the
name Messiah. Until a few weeks before, he too had talked of His
coming, but already had heard Him declare many things which no mere
prophet had spoken. Is he not prompted to break the silence of a mere
listener? Is not his finger already pointed toward Jesus? Are not the
words already on his tongue?--"O woman, _this is He_," when Jesus makes
the great confession he made before Pilate, saying to the Samaritaness,
"I that speak unto Thee, am He."

So it was that He whose coming the angels in their glory announced to
the shepherds in Bethlehem, He whom the Baptist proclaimed to multitudes
on the Jordan, He whose glory was manifested to the company in Cana,
made Himself known to this low, ignorant, sinful, doubting, perplexed
stranger, in words "to whic