JACOB’S WELL.
This was near to Shechem, one of the most ancient cities of Canaan, which was the capital of the kingdom of Israel in the time of Jeroboam, and was associated with some of the most interesting events of patriarchal times, as well as with the discourse of Christ to the woman of Samaria, which resulted in the conversion of several of the Samaritans to the true faith. “I found this well,” says a late traveler, “in the midst of the ruins of a magnificent building that once covered and adorned it. Hewn stones, blocks of marble, and fragments of granite columns, were to be seen amid the general wreck. The narrow mouth of the well was stopped up with large loose stones, at which we all tugged until I nearly broke my back; but one of them defied our utmost endeavors. I kneeled down and peeped into the arched chamber, from the floor of which the well proper is sunk into the living rock some hundred feet or more. A little, gray-headed old Arab held my horse; the younger men stood around and looked on, while I sat down at the indubitable well of the patriarch, and read: ‘Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples had gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? (for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from whence, then, hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’ Here I closed the book, and with a gush of unutterable joy, exclaimed,
‘Spring up, O well, I ever cry, spring up within MY soul!’”