Many a hundred years had passed away.  The proud Pharisees of Jerusalem were still calling them dogs and infidels; when there came to that half-heathen city of Samaria such a one as never came there before or since; and yet had been very near that place, and those poor Samaritans, for a thousand years.

And being wearied with his journey, he sat down upon the edge of Jacob’s well, by Joseph’s tomb.  The well is still there, choked with rubbish to this very day; and Joseph’s tomb by it, all in ruins, among broad fields of corn.  And on the edge of that well he sat.  Along the very road which was before him, Jeroboam, and Ahab, and many a wicked king of Israel, had gone in old times, travelling between Shechem and Samaria:  along that road the terrible Assyrians had marched back to their own land, leading strings of weeping prisoners out of their pleasant native land, to slavery and misery in the far North.  He knew it all; and doubt not that he thought over it all, as never man thought on earth.  Doubt not that his heart yearned over these poor ignorant Samaritans, and over the sinful woman who came to draw water at the well.  After all, half-heathens as they were, Jacob’s blood was in their veins; and if not, were they not still human beings?  They were worshipping they knew not what:  but still they were worshipping the best which they knew.

’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. . . .  So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them:  and he abode there two days.  And many more believed because of his own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying:  for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’

Oh, my friends, despise no man; for Christ despises none.  He is no respecter of persons:  but in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.  Despise no man; for by so doing you deny the Father, who has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth, and has appointed them their times, and the bounds of their habitation; if haply they may feel after him, and find him:  though he be not far from any of us; for in him we live and move and have our being, and are the offspring of God.  For hundreds of years those poor ignorant Samaritans had felt after him; in that foreign land to which the cruel Assyrian conqueror had banished them:  but it was God who had appointed them their habitation there, and their time also; and, in due time, they found God:  for he came to them, and found them, and spoke with them face to face.