is to be an abode of the blessed, in which there shall be nothing that can annoy or hurt, then men must be changed to enter and enjoy it.

The new birth is a change of heart by the Spirit of God. By this agency men believe right, feel right, and act right; the sacred doctrines of the cross are accepted; the affections are turned to God, and the life is pure, prayerful, and holy; haters of God become pious, the impure are cleansed, and the service of God becomes a delight. Men may have a form of godliness; keep the Sabbath and attend worship as men take medicine; walk in the commands of God as pilgrims take to the scourge; do as little as possible, and escape as soon as they can. But to the soul on which God's spirit has operated, the worship is a delight; and wisdom's ways, though straight and narrow, are ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. A new creation is wrought, and to the redeemed soul all things become new.

The children of the kingdom know that the work is of God. Like Saul, they resisted. In a degree, they were mad against the Church, detested the truth, and desired none of its promises. Brought to the light that convicts, and to the Saviour that pardons, each cries out in wonder:

"Why was I made to hear thy voice, and enter while there's room, When thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come ?"

How we, each of us, resisted the Spirit's call, and plunged into folly, and sometimes into sin, to drive away the gentle agency that was wooing us to heaven!

Still the Spirit hovered over us. He gently forced us along. We saw a pleading Saviour. Calvary and its sacrifices were too much. The heart broke, and the gentle arms of Jesus took us at the fall. We could only say:

"Lord, thou hast won; at length I yield;

My heart, by mighty grace compelled,
Surrenders all to thee.

Against thy terror long I strove;

But who can stand against thy love?
Love conquers even me."

The operations of the Spirit are diversified, but the results are the same. All are not called in the same way. One call Mary heard, and accepted; another, Andrew; and quite another, Nicodemus. Some fly to Jesus in terror, as Sinai's smoke terrifies and the thunder sounds in their ears. Some hear the tender call from Calvary, and run to its grassy sides. Some, like John, in his Hebron home, seem consecrated from their birth. Others, like Obadiah, are servants of God from their youth.

Two forces are at work among us. The one to draw men to heaven, the other to hell. All that calls us to God, that convinces us that we are sinners, that creates within us new desires, that fastens the mind on some great truth, that makes us know that we have a soul to save, that would bid us fly to Jesus and have life, come from the Spirit. How sad it is that so many resist and quench the Holy One, till he depart from the soul! How full of peril the condition of many who have had their summer-day, who have felt their guilt, and been not far from the

kingdom! They have passed through revivals and judgments; been afflicted, their idols taken from them, and their hopes dashed to the ground. But in vain! They resist the Holy Spirit till past feeling, and pass on to the judgment.

It was not thus with Nicodemus. A silent, a secret searcher for truth; honestly avowing the difficulties in the way of accepting the great truths of the kingdom; confessing fully all he believed of Jesus in the interview he sought; we find him, at the last, a hearty and bold disciple, who had obtained the great gift of God, and become a child of the kingdom. In the council of his nation that adjudged our Lord to the cross, he was not consenting to his death. He bore the taunt of his associates, as being a disciple of the "Deceiver," because he demanded, "Doth our law judge any man before it hear him and know what he doeth?" And when, at the last, that the holy Prophets might be true, and Jesus laid "with the rich in his death," Joseph, that just and honorable councilor, who had waited for the kingdom of God, "went boldly to Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." At the cross he was joined with Nicodemus, who in this hour of shame openly avowed the Lord, and jointly they "took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes, with the spices, and placed it in a new sepulcher, wherein was man never yet laid."

XLIII.—THE WELL OF SYCHAR; OR, SECTARIANISM REBUKED.

"See, from Zion's sacred mountain,
Streams of living water flow;
God has opened there a fountain,
That supplies the world below.

They are blessed

Who its sovereign virtues know.

"Through ten thousand channels flowing,

Streams of mercy find their way;
Life and health and joy bestowing,
Waking beauty from decay.
O ye nations!

Hail the long-expected day."

BETWEEN the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim lies the valley of Sychar. It was that parcel of ground which Jacob added to the inheritance of Joseph; "I have given thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorites with my sword and bow." The valley is located a short distance from the city of Samaria, about forty miles north from Jerusalem. Sychar was fertile, sheltered, and well watered. Here the shepherds led their flocks into fertile fields. This valley suggested the beautiful figures introduced into the twenty-third psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters." The custom of

the shepherds to go before and lead their flocks induced the Great Shepherd to say, that the "shepherd, when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice, and a stranger they will not follow."

The whole region around Sychar is one of matchless beauty. Above the valley rises Mount Gerizim, the sacred mountain of the Samaritans. Here Abraham halted under the oaks of Moriah; Simeon and Levi completed their terrible revenge; the twelve sons of Jacob were buried; and Jacob dug the well of which he drank and his cattle, on the side of which Jacob's nobler son rested from the noonday fatigue. It was in this valley that Joseph sought his brethren, to ask for their welfare; and from Sychar he was carried into Egypt as a bond-child. Few spots have changed as little. The valley is fertile, and sheltered, as in the olden time. On all the hills around men tend their flocks, in garb and manners not unlike the sons of the patriarch. Jacob's well still remains. Women come from the city to draw water for the noontide meal. The Ishmaelite merchants pass along, ready to buy another Joseph. And to-day, men going from Judea to Galilee "must needs go through Samaria."

Great truths come to us from Sychar. Jacob's well was there. It was a gift of great value to men whose wealth consisted in flocks and herds. Men relied on cisterns to keep their cattle alive in the time of drought. But often these were broken, and the flock perished. But a well of water was a great boon, and it was especially so of the well at Sychar.