Just then His disciples came, and they wondered that He talked to a Samaritan woman. She left her water-pot, and went to tell her friends, and to ask them to come and see Jesus. The disciples said to Our Lord, "Master, eat;" they had brought food; but Jesus cared more to do God's work than to eat, though He was hungry.
The woman brought many of the people of the town to Our Lord, and they believed that He was the Christ, and begged that He would stay with them and teach them; and He did stay there for two days. How good our Lord was to stay and teach these poor men, to whom the proud Jews would not even speak. Then Jesus went to Cana again where He had made the water into wine; and a rich man who had a young son very ill came to Him and begged Him to make his child well.
JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
Our Lord wanted to try the man's faith, so He did not say, "Yes, I will," at once. He said, "If you do not see signs and wonders you will not believe." But the man said again, "Sir, do come down or my son will be dead." Our Lord pitied him and said, "Go thy way, thy son liveth."
JESUS AND THE RICH MAN.
Jesus could cure the sick boy without seeing him. The rich man had faith; he believed Our Lord's words and went his way, but before he reached his house his servants met him, and said, "Your son is getting well." "When did he begin to get better?" asked the father. "Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him," they said. Then the father knew that it was at the very same hour that Our Lord spoke that his son was made well. And now Our Lord came to Nazareth where He had been brought up, and He went into the synagogue—that is the Jews' chapel—on the seventh day and He stood up to read. The priest gave Him the book. It was that part of the Bible where God told men what Christ would do when He came, how He would teach men, and comfort sad people, and make blind men see. And when Our Lord had read it He gave the book back to the priest, and said, "All this has come true to-day." And He told them that He was the Christ. At first they liked to hear Him preach, for His words and voice were sweet; but when He told them that He was Christ they grew very angry, and said, "Is not this the carpenter's son? He is not Christ;" and they got up and dragged Our Lord out of the town to the edge of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong and kill Him. But it was not the time Jesus meant to die, so He made them not able to see Him, and He walked through the midst of them and went away.
