iv. THE THIRST OF GOD. 63 



who sat there weary and thirsty beside the well was the 

 Author of every good and perfect gift, He whose dis- 

 tinctive name is the Giver. And yet we find Him a 

 suppliant at the feet of His own creature, begging for a 

 portion of His own gift from her. Does it not show in 

 a striking manner how in giving Himself to save a 

 perishing world, Jesus made Himself a complete sacri- 

 fice, emptied Himself of everything, and became poor 

 as the very poorest ? 



In the thirsty East a request for water is everywhere 

 answered with the utmost readiness and courtesy. The 

 sense of a common need, and the inestimable value of 

 the element that supplies it, make even the rudest 

 peasant at once sympathetic and anxious to give relief. 

 But religious hatred had dried up this fellow-feeling in 

 the heart of the Samaritan ; and instead of at once offer- 

 ing the pitcher full of water which she had drawn up 

 from the well to the lips of the thirsty Jew before her, 

 she expressed her astonishment that such a request 

 should have been made to her at all. It is possible that 

 having thus given expression to the hostility of race and 

 creed that separated her nation from His, she might 

 have speedily repented of her churlishness, and granted 

 Jesus the simple favour which He had asked. But no 

 opportunity was given to her. Absorbed in the interest 

 of the conversation that ensued, she forgot all about her 

 own errand and the necessities of the mysterious 

 Stranger before her, and laid the pitcher down beside 

 the well that she might listen more attentively ; while 

 Jesus Himself was so engrossed with His exposition of 



