which fails to recognize the atoning sacrifice of the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world," but professes for Jesus of Nazareth a profound reverence as for a "teacher sent from God;" which rejects a supernatural salvation, but nevertheless pays seeming honor to Christianity. To secure at the outset of his career such an indorsement from the Supreme Court of Judaism as Nicodemus, with honest but mistaken reverence, thus offered, might well seem a vantage to Jesus's 'cause worth contending for. And Nicodemus, it is clear, spoke for others as well as for himself.

But Jesus always declined half homage, even though it came from the highest quarters. His response as distinctly defines his position. He is no mere teacher come from God. He is the Life of the world. It is not instruction, but new moral power that humanity needs. "Verily, verily, say unto thee, except a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of God."

This symbol was more significant to a Jewish Rabbi than to us. The Jews were accustomed to receive to the privileges of Judaism proselytes from heathen religions. The Jewish law provided for the public admission of such converts to the fellowship of Israel.* They were circumcised in token of their adoption, and baptized as a sign of their purification. They were then said to be born again. Old things passed away. All things became new. Old relationships were dissolved. The convert might marry his nearest kin without imputed crime, for she was of kin to him no more.† Jesus seized this familiar fact, and employed it to illustrate the truth that it is not intellectual conviction, but a fundamental change in the moral forces of the soul which is needed to initiate his disciples into the kingdom of God.

None are so deaf, it is said, as those that will not hear. None certainly are so stupid as those that will not comprehend. It is impossible to suppose that Nicodemus was hon*Exod. xii., 48; Numb. ix., 14.

Smith's Bible Dictionary, art. Proselytes.

est in his literal interpretation of this familiar symbol. "How can a man be born again?" he asked. "Can he enter his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus simply reaffirmed his declaration. At the same time, without explaining, he defined it. "Ye must be born again," said he, in substance; not merely of water; no external ceremonial can cleanse you from sin; not by re-entering the mother's womb, for that which is born of flesh is flesh; but by the indwelling Spirit of God. How, I can not tell you; for the secrets of God's operations you understand not, neither in nature nor in grace. You can not tell of the wind whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Nor would it be of use for me to give you the information; for when I tell you of earthly things, man's need of a divinelywrought change, the evidences of which you may see for yourself, you believe not. How, then, will you believe if I explain to you heavenly things-the divine methods in working out that change? But what you must do to receive this new birth I will tell you. It is the gift of God. It is received through faith in him who has come down from heaven, a witness of heavenly things. He is yet to fulfill the ancient type; and, as the serpent in the wilderness, so is he to be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him might be saved. For not to judge mankind; not to build up Jewish pride on the ruin of other races; not, like Moses, to destroy the Gentile that he may save the Jew, is the Messiah revealed. He comes to afford to all mankind this new birth, and so to administer to every creature an entrance into the kingdom of God. He is the hope, not merely of the Jewish nation, but of that outlying world which the Pharisee, indeed, despises, but which God loves, even to the giving of his own and only-begotten Son. He who rejects such a Gospel of love, borne by such a Savior, needs not to be judged. By that very rejection he sets the seal to his own condemnation. He needs, in truth, no other.

Such, in brief, is an epitome of Christ's conversation with Nicodemus-in the beginning a conversation, in the end a discourse.

It has been said that the doctrines of Christ were gradually developed. If by this is meant that little by little he unfolded the truth as men were able to bear it, it is true. If it is meant that little by little the truth unfolded itself in his own mind, nothing more than this conversation with Nicodemus is necessary to show the error; for in this conversation, at the outset of his ministry, he enunciated those sublime truths of regeneration, divine Sonship with the Father, an atoning sacrifice for sin, and a divine judgment on unbelief, to which centuries of intensest thought have added nothing save interpretation and application.

This conversation produced no immediate results. It was not lost, however. Nicodemus went away to ponder the truths which seemed so enigmatical to him, and to honor in secret the Rabbi whom he dared not openly confess. Not till after three years of germination-not till this seed had been watered by Christ's blood, did it appear above the ground in open confession

CHAPTER X.

THE WOMAN AT THE WELL.*

URING the events recorded in the preceding chapter, John the Baptist had continued faithfully his prophetic ministry. While Jesus had thrown down the gauntlet to the scribes and Pharisees in their citadel, John had continued to war against their spirit in the outskirts of Judea. He had removed his preaching-place from the ford at Bethabara to Enon, near Salim. The location of the latter place is involved in uncertainty. No less than four different sites are assigned by different prominent geographers. We accept the hypothesis of Robinson, which places it near the northeastern border of Judea, in the vicinity of Samaria. Here Jesus joined him shortly after the events recorded in the last chapter.

The feast of the Passover occurs in spring. During the summer the two cousins labored together. Their teachings were not the same, but their spirit was not inharmonious; and, if compared with the genial spirit of Jesus, the doctrines of John seem to savor of too stern a legalism, it is only as the month of March, which bridges between the old and the new dispensations in nature, retains something of the bleak* John iii., 22-36; iv., 1–46.

"John was baptizing in Enon, near to Salim."-John iii., 23. Whether we accept the theory of Van der Vede as given in Smith's Bib. Dict., article "Salim," which locates it within the borders of Samaria, and near to Galilee, or that of Robinson (Bib. Researches, iii., 333), which locates it a little southeast of Mount Gerizim, or that of Barclay (City of the Great King, p. 564), which places it five miles northeast of Jerusalem, it would be in Christ's road to Galilee, and in neither case far out of his way in journeying toward Jacob's well.

ness of the winter that is past while preparing for the summer that is to follow. The spirit of denominationalism is no modern development. We shall meet in our history the beginning of it, and shall have occasion to notice how promptly Jesus always rebuked and repressed it. This spirit began to manifest itself, not between the leaders, but among their followers. Jesus's popularity aroused the envy of some of John's disciples. Christ's disregard of forms attracted the notice and awakened the suspicions of the alert. For Jesus baptized not.

This was not the worst, however. His disciples baptized more converts than did John. Any heresy is more pardonable than success. Among themselves, and with the Pharisees, who were perhaps inclined to hold the Baptist responsible for the supposed heresies of his cousin, the disciples of John debated the question of purifying. To John they frankly told their complaints. "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him!" It is not the last time that theological controversy has been made a cover for personal envy.

Jesus had too many inevitable conflicts before him to court a needless one. In spite, therefore, of John's cordial and renewed testimony to his Messiahship, he left Judea to return again to his Galilean home. His road led through Samaria. A simple incident on the journey opened the way for his first preaching to the Gentiles.

The capital of Samaria, Sichem, called by the Jews derisively Sychar, i.e., liar or drunkard, is beautifully placed in a pass in the mountains. Mount Ebal rises on the one side, Mount Gerizim on the other. The verdure of the narrow valley which intervenes is said to be unsurpassed in beauty by any in the Holy Land. Historical reminiscences add to the attractiveness of a scene for which nature has done so much. Here the Lord first appeared to Abraham.* Here

* Gen. xii., 6.