the full. Let the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life have
their share in your allegiance. Be half for God, and half for the world.
Live partly for the world to come, and partly for this present world. By
no means throw overboard religion altogether, but let it have its proper
place, let it stand side by side with self-pleasing and worldliness.

But what says the Master?

'No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.'

Let us then choose this day whom we will serve. Shall it be Christ or
Satan, Jerusalem or Gerizim, God or the world?

For centuries after the time of Nehemiah, these Samaritans continued a
source of annoyance to the Jews, tempting all who were disaffected and
lawless to come to Gerizim, and vexing and troubling the Jews in every
possible way. No one who was travelling up to the rival temple was ever
made welcome in Samaria, or treated as he passed through with the
slightest show of hospitality. As our Lord and His disciples journeyed
up to the feast, we read that they came to a village of the Samaritans,
and our Lord sent messengers before Him to engage a lodging, where they
might find refreshment and shelter on their way. But we read,

'They did not receive Him, because His face was as though He would go to
Jerusalem.'

Sometimes they carried this antagonism to such a degree that they would
even waylay and murder the temple pilgrims who were on their way through
their country, and the poor travellers were compelled to take a much
longer route to Jerusalem, crossing the Jordan, and journeying on the
eastern side until they came opposite Jericho, and then ascending by the
long, winding, difficult road from Jericho to Jerusalem.

Once, in order to mortify the Jews, the Samaritans were guilty of a very
dreadful insult. The Passover was being kept in Jerusalem, and it was
customary in Passover week for the priest to open the temple gates just
after midnight. Through these opened gates, in the darkness of the
night, stole in some Samaritans, carrying under their robes dead men's
bones and bits of dead men's bodies, and these they strewed up and down
the cloisters of the temple, to make them defiled and unclean.

But perhaps the most trying thing which the Samaritans did was to put a
stop to a very old and very favourite custom of the Jews. For a long
time those Jews who lived in Jerusalem had been accustomed to let their
brethren in Babylon know the very tim