Our blessed Lord, having provoked by His preaching and by His miracles the enmity of the Pharisees, they began to plot His destruction. To escape their persecutions, His hour having not yet come, He departed for Galilee, between which territory and Judea lay the province of Samaria, through which, accordingly, as the holy writer expresses it, He must needs go. The first place at which he stopped was Sychar, one of the cities of Samaria. In its vicinity was a well, called Jacob's well, in all probability because the patriarch Jacob had caused it to be dug. Arriving there about the sixth hour, or noon, fatigued with the toils of the day, He seated Himself, while His disciples went into the city to purchase food. He could easily have relieved His wants by a miracle, but His miracles He employed only for the relief of others. While thus resting and alone, there cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Our Lord at once resolved to benefit her. He was one who sowed by all waters, and with Him one hearer was enough to justify the finest sermon. He introduced Himself to her by asking a favor, the best way that could have been selected. It must be spoken to the credit of our poor humanity that a request for a favor is always regarded as allowable. There are men and women whom you would not dare speak to on the street, without expecting to be reproachfully treated, but whom you may with perfect confidence ask a small favor of, such as the time of day, a drink of water, or the like. Jesus saith to her: "Give me to drink." The woman is astonished, for she saw, by His features and His dress, that He was a Jew. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto Him: "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?" It was a very natural question. The Jews regarded contact with a Samaritan disreputable. Their touch was pollution; to spend the night at the house of one of them was to reproach a family for generations. A Jew would not speak to a Samaritan, much less ask a favor of one. But the mind of Jesus knew nothing of this narrow bigotry, this odious illiberality. His object was to benefit all, and He, therefore, freely conversed with all. His answer was: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." The Savior, as you will have noted from your Bible reading, often seizes upon incidents and objects before the eyes of His hearers to shadow forth spiritual truths. Thus, when He had fed the multitude with bread, He spoke of Himself as "the bread which cometh from heaven and giveth eternal life." Being at Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people in crowds drew water from the pool of Siloam, He cried with a loud voice: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." So here He takes occasion to elevate this woman's thoughts from the earthly water to the heavenly. Still supposing, however, that