The disciples returning from the city, coming within sight of Jesus, “marveled that He was speaking with a woman.”  The people then and there had a mistaken idea that to do so was very improper.  The disciples were the more astonished because she was a Samaritan.  But they had such a sense of His goodness, that they did not dare to ask, “Why talkest Thou with her?”

She was interrupted in her conversation with Jesus, by the coming of the disciples.  She left her water-pot at the well.  Too full of wonder and gratitude to stop to fill it, or to be hindered in carrying it, she hastened to the city with the good news of what she had seen and heard.  So had Andrew and John each carried the good news to his brother saying, “We have found the Messiah.”  She believed she had found Him.  But the good news seemed almost too good to be true, and she wanted the men of the city to learn for themselves.  So she put her new belief in the form of a question, “Is not this the Christ?” A great number obeyed her call, and believed with her that Jesus was the Messiah.

[Illustration:  THE HILL OF SAMARIA Old Engraving Page 84]

Meanwhile the disciples asked Him to eat of the food they had brought.  But His deep interest in the woman, and joy in the great change in her, was so great that for the moment He felt no want of food.  So He said to them, “I have meat to eat that ye know not.” ...  “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.”  Never again did the disciples marvel that their Master talked with a woman, or with a sinner of any kind.  We seem to see John, weary and hungry as his Master, but unmindful of bodily discomforts, because of his intense interest in what is passing.  His record does not give his own experiences, but we can imagine some of them.  His watchful eye detects every movement and expression of his companions,—­the calm, earnest, loving, pitying look of Jesus; and the excited, scornful, surprised, joyful, constantly changing looks of the woman.  He first marks her pertness of manner; then the respectful “Sir”; then the reverence for a prophet; and at last the belief and joy in the Messiah.

Whether or not John was witness to all that passed at the well, or whether Jesus gave him the minute details, or whether the Samaritaness, during the two days that Jesus and His disciples remained in Sychar, told Him all, his story is one of the most lifelike in the Gospels, teaching the greatest of truths.

If that noon hour at Jacob’s well was a memorable one for the woman, it was also for John.  For him Christ was the Well of Truth.  Of it he was to drink during blessed years.  Standing nearest to it of any mortal, receiving more than any other, he was to give of it to multitudes thirsting for the water of life.

CHAPTER XIV

The Chosen One of the Chosen Three of the Chosen Twelve