right to worship in the temple at Jerusalem with the Jews, or in that on Mount Gerizim with the Samaritans?

The reply was one stretching far beyond the controversy. Soon neither Moriah nor Gerizim would have any temple at all, but the worship of the Church Catholic, the incense and pure offering spread throughout the world, would be offered. God is a Spirit, found everywhere, and in spirit and truth must He be worshipped. But still He rebuked the schism of Samaria, and their vague belief, showing that "they worshipped they knew not what," a god of their own fancy, not the God who had revealed Himself to Israel on Mount Sinai, since they rejected His distinct teaching, both of doctrine and practice.

The woman said she knew that the Messiah would explain all, and our Lord must have seen true power of faith within her heart, since He revealed Himself to her as the Christ.

They were interrupted by the return of the disciples, and the woman hurried away to call her friends, while the disciples already understood so much of His purpose that none dared to express any wonder at His conversing with a Samaritan, though they were amazed at finding Him recovered from the exhaustion in which they had left Him; and then He showed them that love which made the dealing with a heart that opened to His word a refreshment more than bodily food.

Nay, He already saw the plenteous fruit of souls that would be borne by poor despised Samaria. He pointed to the fields of that rich portion of Ephraim, already promising their crops, and told the disciples that those who sow and those who reap would receive abundant blessing. "One soweth and another reapeth." It is the old heathen proverb, “sic vos non vobis" (so you [work] not for yourselves); but our Lord adds that sower and reaper will rejoice together, even though the sower is not the one to gather in his fruit on the earth. Peter and John understood the force of the saying, when four years later they were called to Samaria to confirm the numerous disciples whom Philip the deacon had baptized, and some of whom had doubtless had the first seeds sown in their hearts during the sojourn which our Lord made at Sychar, on the entreaty of the men who were called forth by the woman, and who accepted Him as Christ.

Oh! blessed harvest of souls, where He who seems barely to begin and then to fall by the way, hath in truth sown the seed, and shall rejoice as truly as he who wins full success :—

He that now goeth on his way weeping

And beareth forth good seed,

Shall doubtless come again with joy,

And bring his sheaves with him.

LESSON XX.

THE NOBLEMAN'S SON.

A.D. 28.-JOHN iv. 43-54.

Now after two days he departed thence, and went into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.

Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galilæans received him, having seen all the things that he did at Jerusalem at the feast for they also went unto the feast.

So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Caper

naum.

When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son : for he was at the point of death.

Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.

The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.

Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.

And they

So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth and himself believed, and his whole house.

This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.

COMMENT. "A prophet hath no honour in his own country," our Lord had said, and the sensation He produced in Galilee was not such as had been made either in Judæa or Samaria, where He

came a stranger; and the recollection of Him working at Joseph's trade did not stand in the way of those who saw with worldly eyes. Only the assurance of the Galileans who had been at the feast at Jerusalem convinced the neighbourhood that He had been greatly thought of there.

This Galilee, the district where the greater part of our blessed Lord's life had been spent, was the eastern part of the district of the tribes of Zebulon and Naphtali, bordering on the lake called Chinneroth, but now Gennesareth, or the Sea of Galilee. It was mountainous, the spurs of Hermon stretching down into it, and when Solomon had offered it to Hiram of Tyre as a reward for his aid in building the temple, that king had despised its twenty villages as poor and mean, called it Cabul, or "the unpleasing," and this word becoming confused with Galool, "a boundary," seems to have led to its name of Galilee. The inhabitants were a small proportion of Israelites among many strangers, wherefore it was called Galilee of the Gentiles; but recently it had become flourishing and populous, numbering 240 cities and villages, where every corner of land was cultivated, and a bold and somewhat fierce race of people dwelt. Many of them clustered on the western shore of the lovely lake, where the Jordan spread among the skirts of the mountains, and of these the chief was Tiberias, a new city lately founded by the tetrarch Herod Antipas, and named after the emperor, Tiberius Cæsar. Herod kept his court there in a fashion far more like the Greco-Syrian kings than like a Jew; but he was at this time absent, making war on the Arabian king Aretas, whose daughter, his lawful wife, he had deserted for his brother Philip's wife Herodias.

One of his courtiers, whose home was at Capernaum, had a son sick of a fever at the point of death, and hearing from the pilgrim Galileans of the miracles of JESUS at Jerusalem, went in quest of Him to Cana, the home of Nathanael, a whole day's journey off, among the hills.

Our Lord's first answer was a reproof, not so much to the nobleman as to the Galilean temper, which refused to believe in Him on the evidence of His sinless life and conversation, but required some wonder to convince it. It was also for the purpose of drawing out faith and prayer, which He, except in special instances, always

required of those for whom a miracle was to be wrought, and it had the effect. The father was so anxious that he could not hold an argument, he only renewed his entreaty that our Lord would come in time. When he was told "Thy son liveth," he was satisfied. He showed by his immediate, departure he believed that JESUS possessed almighty power to bid a disease depart, without even coming near the sick person, and this was enough. Half-way home he met the tidings that his son had begun to recover from the seventh hour (4 P.M.), the very time at which he had received the assurance from our Lord.

He and his family became believers; and we find among the holy women who followed our Lord, and provided for the support of Him and His disciples, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward; also among the men of the early Church, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch. Could these have been some of the household of the nobleman ?

Should not the example of this father show us that the true way to aid our friends and relations when they lie sick and helpless, is that those who are not actually needed to watch over them should carry their intercessions to the Saviour in His Church. It is an act of faith, which will as surely be blessed as that of the father who spent two days away from the bed of his seemingly dying child, that he might obtain for him the mercy of Christ.

LESSON XXI.

THE PROCLAMATION OF THE TRUE JUBILEE.

A.D. 28.-LUKE iv. 16―30.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up

for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.

And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son ? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;

But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.

And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,

And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

But he passing through the midst of them went his way.

COMMENT.-The custom in the synagogues was that, when a known Rabbi or teacher came to one, the roll of the Scriptures were given to him, from which to read one of the regular lessons for the day, one of which was from the Law, and the other from the Prophets, and he was then to sit down and expound it. The teachings and the doings of JESUS at Jerusalem and Capernaum had excited a certain curiosity at Nazareth, nay, a jealousy, that He had not first revealed Himself in His home. Therefore He was invited to read the lesson, and He made it the means of His great proclamation of His opening kingdom. The lesson from the 61st of Isaiah was founded upon the great institution of the Year of Jubilee, the Sabbath year of Sabbath years, of which it had been written in Leviticus xxv. :

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth