It was about noon.  A woman of Shechem came to draw water.  Jesus asked her to let him drink, which excited great astonishment in the woman, the Jews generally forbidding all intercourse with the Samaritans.  Won by the conversation of Jesus, the woman recognized in him a prophet, and expecting some reproaches about her worship, she anticipated him:  “Sir,” said she, “our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."[1]

[Footnote 1:  John iv. 21-23.  Verse 22, at least the latter clause of it, which expresses an idea opposed to that of verses 21 and 23, appears to have been interpolated.  We must not insist too much on the historical reality of such a conversation, since Jesus, or his interlocutor, alone would have been able to relate it.  But the anecdote in chapter iv. of John, certainly represents one of the most intimate thoughts of Jesus, and the greater part of the circumstances have a striking appearance of truth.]

The day on which he uttered this saying, he was truly Son of God.  He pronounced for the first time the sentence upon which will repose the edifice of eternal religion.  He founded the pure worship, of all ages, of all lands, that which all elevated souls will practice until the end of time.  Not only was his religion on this day the best religion of humanity, it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have inhabitants gifted with reason and morality, their religion cannot be different from that which Jesus proclaimed near the well of Jacob.  Man has not been able to maintain this position:  for the ideal is realized but transitorily.  This sentence of Jesus has been a brilliant light amidst gross darkness; it has required eighteen hundred years for the eyes of mankind (what do I say! for an infinitely small portion of mankind) to become accustomed to it.  But the light will become the full day, and, after having run through all the cycles of error, mankind will return to this sentence, as the immortal expression of its faith and its hope.

CHAPTER XV.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE LEGENDS CONCERNING JESUS—­HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.

Jesus returned to Galilee, having completely lost his Jewish faith, and filled with revolutionary ardor.  His ideas are now expressed with perfect clearness.  The innocent aphorisms of the first part of his prophetic career, in part borrowed from the Jewish rabbis anterior to him, and the beautiful moral precepts of his second period, are exchanged for a decided policy.  The Law would be abolished; and it was to be abolished by him.[1] The Messiah had come, and he was the Messiah.  The kingdom of God was about to be revealed; and it was he who would reveal it.  He knew well that he would be the victim of his boldness; but the kingdom of God could not be conquered without violence; it was by crises and commotions that it was to be established.[2] The Son of man would reappear in glory, accompanied by legions of angels, and those who had rejected him would be confounded.