It was deep, dug out of a firm rock, and held many feet of water, and was never dry. How impressive a type of him who gave men "that living water of which when men drank they thirsted no more"!

It was the site of Joseph's sepulcher. He died in a royal palace, at the age of one hundred and ten years. But he loved Sychar and the rural home of his fathers. Its green vales and its fertile mountains floated before his eye as he sat beneath the crimson canopy in the palace in Egypt. He loved it to the last. “God will appear to you in good time,” said the dying ruler. "He will bring you out of this land; and when you depart, ye shall carry up my bones from hence," and he took an oath of his brethren. One hundred and forty-four years after, God redeemed the seed of Jacob with a mighty arm from the bondage of Egypt. The bones of Joseph were not forgotten. Moses took them sacredly into his own care. He carried them through the Red Sea. He bore them carefully on during the long march of years in the desert, and gave them in charge to Joshua, when the lawgiver went up on Nebo to die. Joshua bore them to the promised land. And when the enemy had been conquered, so that the dead should not be disturbed, two hundred and eight years after Joseph's death, his bones were religiously sepulchered in the valley of Sychar.

On either side of Sychar stand Gerizim and Ebal. On these mountains Israel ratified the law that God gave them, and took the oath of obedience as the blessings and the curses of the law were read in their hearing.

Gerizim is the holy mountain of the Samaritans. Near Samaria it rises fertile and commanding. It is separated from Ebal by the narrow valley, and the strong voice of a man can be heard from one mountain to the other. The mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, with the valley that divides them, was the scene of that magnificent national spectacle when the law was publicly accepted by the tribes of Israel. Joshua moved on to Sychar with the people he had led through the waters of Jordan. The ark of the covenant, with all the symbols of Divine presence, attended by the priest, the elders, the officers of Israel, with banners and with music, assembled in the valley of Sychar, near Jacob's well, and near the sepulchers of those holy men whom the people so revered. Six of the tribes went up on Mount Gerizim, six on Mount Ebal. The blessings of the law from Sinai were read from Gerazim, and all the people shouted, "Amen." The curses of the law were read from Mount Ebal, and to them also the people responded. Thus the law was publicly ratified by the nation.

At the base of Gerizim, Israel assembled to make Jeroboam a king. Ten tribes revolted from the house of Solomon. They broke the covenant they made on Gerizim, and broke it within sight of the spot that witnessed their vows of allegiance. They abandoned the union which God gave them, which had been a wall of fire to them, trampled down the national banner under which they had marched to victory, and went out to found a confederacy of their own, and to better their condition. Their end is enveloped in an oblivion as profound as that which

hides from mortal eyes the tomb of Moses. The guilt was made the more damning in that they accepted the law, and bound themselves to obedience.

On Gerizim, Manasseh reared his temple when the nation became twain, and blended the worship of idols with that of the true God. The Samaritans contended that Isaac was offered on their mountain, and not on Moriah, and that, as the blessings of the law were all pronounced on Gerizim, the fathers worshiped in that mountain.

Bigotry and exclusiveness have a rebuke at the well of Jacob. A Jew asks water at the hand of a Samaritan. No idle quarrels or sectarian disputes could engage the attention of him who came to save the souls of men. It was immaterial to him where the fathers worshiped, if men have in them that well of water springing up into everlasting life. Men need not rely on mountain or altar, if destitute of living faith. Neither in Gerizim nor at Jerusalem could men miss of acceptance, if they worshiped God in spirit and in truth. To this great truth let the Churches bow, and honor and walk with all who are united to the great Head of the Church.

XLIV.—THE RIVER-SIDE PRAYER-MEETING.

"God of the pure in heart,

Here by the river
Gladness to us impart,

Thou the kind Giver.

Under no lofty tower

Bow we to thee;

Hear from our leafy bower,

Thou Holy Three."

ST. PAUL was on his way to Europe to preach the Gospel in the British Isles. A vision called him to Macedonia. He sailed to "Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and abode in the city certain days." He heard of a river-side prayermeeting held on the Sabbath, and resolved to attend it. The story of that meeting is touchingly told by the Apostle himself. "On the Sabbath day we went out of the city by the river-side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down and spake to the women which resorted thither." Those few holy women held the germ of a noble Church. Seldom was a sermon preached to a more unpromising audience; seldom one with greater results. A woman of wealth was among the company at the river-side. God opened her heart, and she opened her house to St. Paul, and made him welcome under her roof.

A significant introduction had the Gospel into Philippi. Its success aroused the enmity of bad men. St. Paul and his companion were arrested, beaten

with many stripes, cast into prison, their feet made fast in the stocks, and the jailer charged to "keep them safely." But God was with his servants in the dark, inner prison-cell. Joy welled up in their hearts, songs of praise enlivened their captive hours, and the unwonted sound of prayer and song within that abode of guilt and woe rang through the corridors, and the "prisoners heard them sing." But, more than all, God came for their release. Earthquakes shook the "foundation of the prison;" "all the doors" were flung wide open; "every one's bonds were loosed," and all could go where they pleased. "The keeper of the prison, awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison-doors open," "supposing that the prisoners had fled," would have killed himself. But he was saved. He believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He took from the jail those servants of Jesus, washed their stripes, and would have borne them himself, if he could. set meat before them, was baptized that same hour of the night, and "rejoiced, believing in God with all his house."

He

From a few women at a river-side prayer-meeting a vigorous Church arose- -one not ashamed of the Gospel, one not ashamed of St. Paul, a prisoner, a felon in a cell, in woe, want, and sorrow. How dear that little company of devoted women were to the heart of the Apostle, his letter to them, written from his prison at Rome, bears witness. He knew that his days were numbered. He went to Rome to lay down his life for Jesus as a sacrifice on the altar. But the blessed Church at Philippi did not forget him in his cell. Oft they had refreshed him, and