Why? She was a sinful woman. But these disciples must even thus early in Christ's ministry have learned that he had come to call sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. She was a Samaritan! That was a larger reason for their marvel. They could rise above their hatred for sin more easily than their race prejudice; so can we. The Samaritans were an inferior people. Degraded they were. They had been degraded for centuries. The Jews shunned them. Socially our Lord was making a great blunder, perhaps a fatal blunder, in talking to this Samaritan woman. His cause was in its infancy. The hand of social prejudice would surely throttle it. Why antagonize the existing order of society? How much better to utilize it for the establishment and enlargement of the great and glorious kingdom of our Lord! This cause needed the influence of Jewish leaders. Why risk this potent influence for the sake of one miserable Samaritan woman, or, for that matter, for a whole race of Samaritans? It seemed very poor management of a cause, new in that country. "Far be such unwisdom from thee, Lord," we can hear the impassioned and worldly-wise Peter exclaim. But our Lord chose to sacrifice the temporary success of his kingdom that he might be true to the eternal principles of that kingdom; and so he talked with this sinful woman of this despised race just as considerately as with Nicodemus. He invited her to his discipleship just as cordially, and to the same discipleship. There is not a hint that the Good Shepherd built another fold for the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the same fold.