EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
John 4:27. Marvelled.—The disciples evidently thought that Jesus would conduct Himself outwardly as did the Jewish rabbis. Those teachers said: “Do not prolong conversation with a woman; let no one converse with a woman in the street, not even his own wife” (Lightfoot).
John 4:29. Is not, etc.—Better, Can this be the Christ? or, as others, He is not however the Christ, is He? The μήτι, not however? suggests a negative reply. But the question was put to elicit, not a speculative, but a practical answer—to bring the people of Sychar to see Jesus.
John 4:30. The people “came on their way toward Him.”—She proved herself, at the first certainly, to be a greater evangelist than Nicodemus.
John 4:31-38. The disciples on their return, solicitous for His comfort, pressed Him to partake of the food they had brought. In reply He pointed them to what is far more important than material food, in view of which the want of food for the body is for the time forgotten.
John 4:34. Finish.—τελειώσω, to complete and perfect (comp. John 17:4).
John 4:39-42. The firstfruits of the spiritual harvest in Samaria were reaped at Sychar. Whilst the Jews rejected Christ, the men of Sychar received Him in simple faith as truly the Saviour of the world.
John 4:41-42. His word … thy speech (τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ … τὴν σὴν λαλιάν).—The λόγος, teaching, of Jesus was more weighty than the saying, the report, of the woman.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— John 4:27-42
John 4:27-34. Jesus’ spiritual meat.—The disciples found their Master, to their astonishment, talking with the Samaritan woman. It was a strange thing for a rabbi to engage publicly in conversation with a woman at all, but more especially with a Samaritan. They did not, however, express their astonishment openly, none saying, “What seekest Thou?”—i.e. What service dost Thou require from her? or, Art Thou indeed conversing with her as a teacher? Meanwhile, the woman, in the excitement of new thoughts and feelings, leaving her water-pot, hurried away to the city, and the disciples came forward with the food they had purchased, pressing their Master to eat, astonished that He had required to be asked to do so and at the apparent absence of weariness, and more astonished still at His answer; so that they said one to another, “Hath any man?” etc. (John 4:33). They then learned of that higher spiritual food which had cheered the Redeemer’s soul. We learn here:—
I. The true place of physical food in our life.—
1. It is essential, but is not the first essential, although too many make it so—living to eat, making their chief end the meat that perisheth in some of its varied forms. “What shall we eat? what shall we drink?” etc. Here is their chief anxiety.
2. Our Lord taught men that this lower must be subordinated to a higher, e.g. when He fasted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:4).
3. Yet the Saviour did not neglect the claims of the body. He worked marvels to supply the people with bread. The various provisions of nature for man’s satisfaction are part of the divine plan of creation (Colossians 1:16-17).
4. Jesus also, as the incarnate Son, came under human conditions in regard to physical food. As He hungered and thirsted, so He satisfied hunger and thirst as we do, and did not despise the means of refreshing and strengthening the body (Matthew 11:19).
II. There is a higher food for our life than that which is physical.—
1. Even the sustenance of intellectual life is, we are told, conducive to a vigorous existence more than is generally imagined.
2. But there is a higher interest than merely physical comfort and pleasure. The highest duty of man is not to attend to the body, it is to do the will of God; whilst the body is to be used, and therefore duly nourished, as the instrument of the soul in doing the divine will, and in finishing, perfecting, the Father’s work.
3. Jesus had, by Jacob’s well, been experiencing this satisfaction, which his soul hungered for more than for meat or drink (Luke 12:49-50; Luke 22:15). Whilst His disciples were in the city He had been enjoying a refreshment of spirit, which showed itself even in His physical frame—before wearied and fatigued, now glowing with inward spiritual energy.
III. In this also we are to follow our divine Example.—
1. This was not a trait of Christ’s divine nature merely, but of His nature as the representative man to whose image we are to conform.
2. The highest happiness and satisfaction of man’s nature is found in doing the divine will, etc. For this he was created (Psalms 84:3). The traces of it still remain in our nature, though blurred by the Fall, e.g. intellectual work and enthusiasm lead to forgetfulness of the body’s wants (instance Kepler, Spinoza, etc.). Many an earnest student has been nurtured on scanty fare.
3. The same experience may be seen in devotion to spiritual things. See, e.g., the lives of great missionaries—St. Paul, Columba, Cuthbert, Xavier, Martyn, Judson, Livingstone, etc. The meat that perisheth is almost forgotten in the absorption of spiritual work, in doing the will of God. And this to spiritual men is the greatest joy. They eat even here of the hidden manna (Revelation 2:17).
IV. Conclusion.—This should be the chief desire of all Christians, especially of all ministers of the word. Their greatest joy should be to do God’s will, and to see His work prospering. There is always a danger that when the Church becomes too absorbed in the outward and material, the spiritual life should languish.
John 4:35-38. The joy of the spiritual harvest.—There is nothing more interesting and delightful to contemplate at the beginning of our Lord’s public ministry than the manner in which those who received Him and passed from darkness to light became in turn centres of light and life for others. Andrew and John influenced their brothers. Philip brought Nathanael to the Redeemer. And no sooner had the poor erring Samaritan woman received enlightenment and quickening by Jacob’s well than she became an evangelist, a sower of heavenly truth. And this is the peculiarity in the harvest of humanity, which the natural figure fails to represent entirely. Not only does every good seed harvested and garnered contain the promise and potency of future fruitfulness; it may become in turn sower and reaper—as an instrument in the divine Sower’s hand. We consider now:—
I. The joy at the extent and ripeness of the harvest.—“Behold, the fields that they are white to the harvest already.”
1. Then the husbandman rejoices as he looks forth on the waving fields of grain, some of them “dead ripe,” as it might be said, waiting for the reaper’s toil. Many an anxious hour has passed since months agone the seed was committed to the soil. Would it come to maturity? Would the frost blight, a rainless sky wither, or some other unforeseen contingency blast the hopes of the fruitful year? But under the kindly influences of nature, ever guided by Providence, the fields of earth year by year, and with but few exceptions, offer the ripe grain to the reaper’s toil; and again and again to man is accorded the joy of harvest.
2. It was this general truth which led to these pregnant words of the Redeemer to His disciples at Jacob’s well. All around, under the genial midday sunshine, the fruitful fields of Samaria (Obadiah 1:19) lay decked with living green, promising in the course of the season an abundant harvest. Yet four months, and then those fields would ring with the joy of the reapers, and men’s hearts be glad in the bountiful gift of heaven.
3. This joy the Saviour was experiencing in marked measure. It lifted Him above the necessities of the body, and gave Him “meat to eat” that His disciples knew not of. In the Samaritans drawing near He saw the first ripe field of that spiritual harvest which His disciples would yet gather from out of every nation under heaven (Acts 2:5; Isaiah 60:3). He saw before His vision all those kingdoms of the world which He had seen on the mount of temptation (Luke 4:6-8)—those various fields, which, being slowly brought into cultivation, shall yet yield a glorious harvest. In some the good seed will grow slowly; in some, as in Samaria, ripen as in an hour.
4. And all were “white unto the harvest.” The fulness of time, the hour of realisation, had come, and the reapers were called to go forth to their labour. And this brought joy to the Saviour’s heart.
5. Since those memorable words were spoken nearly nineteen centuries have passed away. Many a spiritual harvest has been reaped; and anew the seed has been sown, and has sprung up and brought forth fruit. But much has been wasted by the folly of man. In many a field the enemy has sown tares. And in many more the harvest has remained ungathered because the reapers have been few or careless. And all the while the field has become wider, the numbers of the human race have increased, until to-day the same voice speaks to us in tones of mingled reproach and entreaty, “Lift up your eyes, and behold the fields, that they are white to the harvest already.” Those eight hundred and fifty millions of heathen, “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” etc. (Ephesians 2), are waiting for the reaper’s toil; whilst around and in our very midst are many waiting to be gathered in. Vast and ready is the harvest. Are we doing our part in reaping it for “the Lord of the harvest”?
II. The joy in our fellow-labourers.—
1. To have been sharers and helpers in any great work carried out by men of eminence is a cause of joy to every noble worker. To have stood side by side with some great explorer or discoverer on a lofty mountain peak, from which eminence new countries were seen—lofty mountains, great lakes and rivers, and vast forest reaches; to have helped some great scientific explorer to unfold the wonders of the material universe, and to have one’s name handed down with his in however humble a place; to have participated in the labours of a world-renowned social reformer and benefactor of his kind,—these, e.g., are privileges that bring a joy of the highest sort to all noble minds.
2. Such is the joy given in the highest degree to the Christian labourers. “One is the sower, and another the reaper. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have bestowed no labour; others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” They enter into and follow up the activity of a long and illustrious roll of predecessors and witnesses to the truth—prophets and righteous men, who were the salt of the earth, and whose living influence is felt among us in these later days; for they “being dead, yet speak.” They sowed the golden seed of righteousness and truth, which we in Christian lands are reaping in a harvest of precious privileges to-day. It is surely an unspeakable privilege and joy to be successors to the long line of apostles and prophets and holy men in gathering in the harvest of humanity.
3. But more than this:
“Behold a Witness nobler still, who trod affliction’s path—
Jesus, at once the Finisher and Author of our faith.”
Christ, though Himself the great Sower and Lord of the harvest, laboured while on earth as all His servants labour. And therefore we have also His example to cheer and encourage us as we go forth to do His work, and the joy of being “workers together with Him” (2 Corinthians 6:1).
4. And as we look abroad on the world now, and on those fields of the nations, “white to harvest already,” do we not discern a noble band of fellow-labourers, of various climes and races, united with us for this great work? And although it is strange that there is not that perfect union and fellowship which should attain among those working in the spiritual harvest, yet we can rejoice in each other’s success in the work, and recognise and realise that each is fulfilling in some fashion the divine purpose—that from this diversity God will in the end bring forth a higher unity.
5. And when our labours are ended, when we have “served our generation by the will of God” (Acts 13:36), others will rise and enter into our labours, carrying on the line of succession of faithful workers—the truly universal apostolic succession—until sowers and reapers rejoice together eternally.
III. The joy in the reward of the harvest.—“He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.”
1. The Lord Himself participated in this joy when He saw the crowds of Samaritans coming to Him and confessing their faith in Him. It is the joy of the soul-gatherer expressed by the apostle of the Gentiles. “What then is my reward? That, in preaching the gospel, I may make the gospel without charge.… Yea, being free from all men, yet made I myself servant of all, that I might gain the greater number” (1 Corinthians 9:18-19). It is ever a joy to men to see the fruit of their labours; and that which we shall view with most satisfaction when the end is reached will not be our gains material or even mental—not our possessions, not the pleasures life has yielded us, but the good we have been able to accomplish—the influence we have exerted in bringing men to God. This is indeed to “gather fruit unto life eternal.”
2. To save the life of another is a praiseworthy and honourable action. It brings with it, to well-constituted minds, a feeling of intense pleasure. How the physician rejoices to see the glow of health coming back to the cheeks of one whom he has guided, under Providence, back from the very gates of death! That is emphatically the true physician’s reward more than any material gain. The scientific discoverer (like Kepler, who lived on a miserable pittance whilst unveiling the laws of planetary motion) finds his joy in the demonstrated fact. And to the true follower of Christ there is no higher reward, nor greater joy, than to be the means of converting a sinner from the error of his ways, and thus saving a soul from death (James 5:20).
3. And this joy will be intensified eternally. When rescued and rescuer meet on earth their mutual joy expands. But it will do so perfectly and uninterruptedly in the eternal sphere. The Chief Sower and the reapers—those who are saved and those who were the instruments of their salvation—shall rejoice together.
Is this harvest joy ours?
1. Do we realise the honour and privilege accorded to us of being fellow-workers with Christ in His harvest? or is it a matter of indifference to us whether we do His work or not? Are we rejoicing in being called to enter on the labours of all the great and good who have gone before us? or are we content to pass through life leaving the harvest of the fields of humanity to whiten in vain so far as we are concerned? Apparent indifference and want of interest in this work may often be set down to unreflecting modesty, which shrinks from supposing itself called to or worthy of such an honour, and imagines such a work far above it. It is a fatal error. The humblest labourer is called and welcomed, and for such also the reward is sure; and if all Christians, inspired with Christlike earnestness and zeal, were to bring but one other as the result of their reaping, speedily and grandly would the kingdom of God advance.
2. Do we realise and seek to grasp the promised reward?—To have been able to place but one stone in the eternal spiritual building, founded on the sure foundation, to have brought but one sheaf from the spiritual harvest fields, will give more joy to a true man than the highest of earthly honours and rewards. And by divine grace to each of us this joy may be given. If the desire exists, then even to the humblest will the way be opened; and to them will be given here the joy of being workers together with God, and hereafter that eternal gladness when sower and reaper rejoice together.
John 4:28-30; John 4:39-42. A spiritual harvest at Sychar.—It must have been a joyful experience to our Saviour to meet with one so docile and teachable as this woman by Jacob’s well. The evil in her life, encouraged most likely by training and surroundings, had not wholly quenched the good. There had been in her heart thoughts of, perhaps longings for, a better life, a better guidance. And it was, it may be, with a sigh that the woman said, “I know that Messias cometh … when He shall come, He will tell us all things” (John 4:25). Here was a belief more simple and less material than the Jewish expectation. It was imperfect, very imperfect, but in the right direction. And therefore our Lord gave to this Samaritan a full revelation of His Messiaship, knowing that the “good seed” would not fall on barren soil. The first step, then, toward this spiritual harvest was—
I. Christ’s revelation of Himself.—
1. Jesus saw that this woman’s heart was ready for the reception of this great truth, the most blessed of all truths that had yet been proclaimed. He perceived that in her soul the grey dawn had risen. Dim and uncertain as yet were her conceptions of higher truth; but the moment need not be delayed when the full light of truth should flash in on her soul, dispelling the darkness for ever.
2. Therefore He spoke those words so full of divine consciousness and dignity: “I that speak unto thee am He.” What a moment that must have been to this Samaritan!—a moment like that which the man born blind experienced when Jesus stood before him, speaking of the Son of God, and then added, “Thou hast both seen Him, and He that talketh with thee is He”; or that which Saul of Tarsus experienced as a voice spoke to him and said, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest,” etc. So with this woman. Her highest hopes were fulfilled—the long-promised Messiah stood before her. The voice of awakened faith in her heart told her that it was He in reality.
II. The woman’s witness to Christ in Sychar.—
1. Like all who truly have come to know Christ, this woman must needs make Him known. In her joy and excitement she quite forgot her errand to the well, and leaving her water-pot hurried to the town, not bearing water from the well, but intelligence of the wonderful fountain of living water, etc. (John 4:14).
2. No doubt a very abbreviated version of her message is given. She would most likely give the chief points of her interview with Jesus; but it was His power to read heart and life that appealed to her, and which she was convinced would impress others with the truth of Christ’s claims.
3. Her confession showed humility and earnestness. It was no light thing to recall to the memory of her fellow-townsmen her past smirched and unlovely life. But it showed the Saviour’s power, and therefore must be done.
4. Her testimony was effectual. From occupation and rest the dwellers of Sychar hastened to Jesus, who saw them approaching, and pointed His disciples to them as indications of the coming spiritual harvest of humanity.
III. The harvest at Sychar reaped.—
1. The woman’s testimony awakened faith in the hearts of many (John 4:39), so that they entreated Jesus to remain with them.
2. This He did to the strengthening of their faith (John 4:42). Sychar was won, and the way was prepared for the entrance of the messengers of the cross a few years later, etc. (Acts 8:5-25).
HOMILETIC NOTES
John 4:35. Four months to the harvest.—In this conversation a note of time is given us in John 4:35, which has given rise to a considerable amount of controversy. Some eminent scholars (Tholuck, etc.) have considered the words, “Say ye not, There are four months, and then cometh harvest?” as a proverbial expression meaning the time which elapses between sowing and reaping. They would make our Lord’s reference to the spiritual harvest to coincide with the state of the fields around Sychar. But there seems to be no need for this interpretation of the words, especially when it is remembered that more than four months elapse between sowing and reaping in Palestine. The plain meaning of the phrase is, that the grain in the smiling fields of Samaria was still in a green, immature stage, and that the disciples had been remarking to one another that four months would still elapse ere the harvest would begin. This fixes the date of the incident at about the end of December or beginning of January in the first year of our Lord’s ministry, as harvest began in those regions some time about the end of April or beginning of May. Thus we gather that our Lord seems to have spent a considerable time in Jerusalem after the first passover of His public ministry, probably five or six months, before He left for the country regions of Judæa (John 3:22), whence He came to Samaria. And it is of pathetic interest to notice that whilst the Jewish leaders and rulers did not receive Christ’s testimony (John 3:32), in semi-heathen Samaria hearts were open to receive His word.
John 4:36. Sower and reaper.—To whom does our Lord refer when He speaks of sower and reaper, of others who have laboured, on whose labours the disciples had entered? It is clear, from John 4:38, “I sent you to reap that whereon ye have bestowed no labour,” etc., that our Lord in the first instance intended to designate the disciples as the reapers; and from this it follows, as Godet and others point out, that our Lord intended to refer primarily to the circumstances of the moment. Whilst the disciples were absent He had been sowing the good seed, which had taken such speedy root and sprung up so quickly that the harvest was at hand, a fact testified to by the multitudes coming to Him from Sychar with hearts prepared to receive the good seed, with promise of speedy fruitfulness. And here on earth the Saviour tasted, as He did not always do during His ministry, the joy of the reaper—“saw of the travail of His soul, and was satisfied.” Thus He was able on earth to participate in the joys of His servants in pentecostal days. But surely it is not necessary to restrict the application of our Lord’s words to this single incident? The spiritual fields of Samaria, we may be certain, did not limit His vision, which extended over the field of humanity. He was sent to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”; but in the midst of that semi-heathen community He looked forward with joy to the time when His disciples, entering into the labours of those who had gone before them, would rejoice, “bringing in the sheaves.” Thus also we must not limit the contents of the phrase “others have laboured” to our Lord Himself and John the Baptist. It is to be taken as referring (Westcott, etc.) to all God’s true labourers in Old Testament times. Our Lord is the supreme Sower, no doubt; but He was the inspirer of those Old Testament labourers. Touched by His Spirit it was His word they sowed. But few of them saw the fruits of their labours to any great extent. Slowly and imperfectly did the fruit advance toward maturity under the oftentimes unfavourable conditions, the dimmer light and chillier atmosphere of pre-advent times. But now that the “Light of men” had arisen on the world, and the quickening and vivifying influences of His baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire were beginning to shoot from heart to heart, then the seed, which had been germinating and springing up, though slowly in past ages, would come more speedily to maturity, and the disciples would begin to reap largely in joy. Here our Lord foresaw not only the harvest reaped in Samaria soon after His ascension (Acts 8:1-17), but the universal harvest to be reaped in all succeeding ages until the end of time.
John 4:37. The success of the gospel husbandmen.—And these words might be taken as not only conveying promises of success to the disciples in their labours; they were also fitted to give consolation in times of apparent failure. The disciples in pentecostal times would be both sowers and reapers. They would see and rejoice in the fruits of their labours. But not always. Sometimes it would seem as if they had laboured in vain. Yet it would not be so. As they had entered into the labours of others, so others would enter into their labours. And as the reaping progresses age after age, so will the joy increase in the heart of the supreme Sower, and among the bright inhabitants of heaven, until, when at last the harvest fields of time have been fully reaped, sowers and reapers shall rejoice together when the sheaves have been all brought in.
ILLUSTRATIONS
John 4:31-32.—Brain work and vitality.—You may kill a man with anxiety very quickly; but it is difficult to kill him with work, especially if he retains the power, which most men of intellectual occupations more or less possess, of sleeping nearly at will and without torpor. The man who has used his brain all his life, say for six hours a day, has, in fact, trained his nerve-power and placed it beyond the reach of early decay, or that kind of feebleness which makes so many apparently healthy men succumb so readily to attacks of disease. Doctors know the differences among men in this respect quite well, and many of them acknowledge that the “habit of surviving” which they find in their best patients arises from two causes—one, which used to be always pleaded, being that soundness of physical constitution which some men enjoy by hereditary right, and the other, some recondite form of brain-power, seldom exhibited, except under strong excitement, by any but those who throughout life have been compelled to think and, so to speak, use their thoughts as other men use their ligaments and muscles. If such a man is tired of life, medicine will not save him; but as a rule his will, consciously or unconsciously, compels the trained nerve-power to struggle on. Whether the brain can actually give power to the muscles is not certain, though the enormous strength sometimes developed in a last rally looks very like it; but that it can materially affect vitality is quite certain, and has been acknowledged by the experienced in all ages.—“The Speaker.”
John 4:35. Glorious harvest fields.—O glorious field of labour which presents itself to the Church of Christ to-day! “Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes,” etc. Behold, Christendom, all that extent of the vast heathen world which sighs for redemption from its miserable servitude! This is thy harvest field. Many a beautiful stretch of the field is already reaped; many weary reapers have already succumbed at their labour under sultry skies; many sheaves of ripened grain have been stored, amid songs of rejoicing throughout Christendom, in the barns of the Lord: but still the field stretches before us immeasurable; still millionfold the stalks bend to meet the reaper; still is prayer needed, and gifts, and labourers from the heart of Christendom for the wide harvest field. The harvest is great, and few are the labourers. But not alone without, over land and sea, but here in our own neighbourhood, is a harvest field for the Lord’s labourers. When we ministers of the gospel look from your fields and from your hills upon your cities, beneath whose roofs lurk so much sorrow and sin, yet also where dwell so many pious hearts, so many souls thirsting for salvation; or when here in the holy place we see gathered around us a believing congregation, then also it is as if we heard the Lord saying, “Behold your field, for it is white already to the harvest.” When among us a father and mother look on their children, then we say, “O parents, behold your harvest field!” And even although your circle of influence is limited, though it should be a narrow and a lonely chamber, though a widow’s small room should be your kingdom and your world, yet even there a rich harvest field may open before you, daily rich in resignation, in duty, and daily rich in blessing, if so be that you have but an open eye and a willing heart for the Lord’s work. “Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look!” It is necessary only to lift up the eyes and look, and each one among you will find in his or her circle opportunity, calls, powers, and gifts sufficient for the work of the Lord, for labour in truth and love. “Say not ye, There are yet four months,” etc. It is needful only to perceive the opportunity, to redeem the time, and every day will be for you a harvest day, every hour you can do some good, every evening you can bring home a sheaf of labour done in God, or at least an ear or two gathered for the heavenly garners. Let no one say, beloved: I would willingly endeavour to be useful, but I cannot do anything. I would willingly engage in good work, but I have no means, no opportunity, no field for effort. See, a true worker’s heart, a heart rich in love to the brethren, and burning with zeal for the Lord, will find ever for itself a field of labour, and will like a sunbeam find everywhere a door of entrance, an opening, a chink, through which to press in with its gracious light. The pious pastor Hiller, when he had for ever lost, through heavy sickness, his voice, formerly so beautiful and powerful, by which he had called so many souls to the Lord, and when he could no more occupy his beloved pulpit, and when it might have seemed that the voiceless pastor was now useless for the work of the Lord, sat day after day in his little room, or in his arbour, and composed to the harp, with a heart like David’s, bruised and anguished, and wrote the many hundreds of sacred songs which he gathered together in his “Jewel Box,” and through which he still preaches to-day to many thousands of hearts. Thus a true servant of God will at all times find a field of labour, and when one door is closed to him another will be opened. And what need we of further witness? Behold the Great Servant of God in our Gospel. Who prompted Him to preach a sermon at Jacob’s well? Who appointed Him to be a minister of truth to the Samaritans? Who had assigned to Him the field of Samaria, that strange and hostile land, to be His harvest field? Who had opened the gates of Sychar to Him, a Jew according to the flesh? His own heart alone—His heart burning with zeal for the Father’s honour, and glowing lovingly with desire for the salvation of His brethren. To you Christians I will not say, “Go and do likewise,” for who could do like as He, the Only Begotten, did? But from Jacob’s well the Lord calls to us also: “Lift up your eyes, and look on the field, your field of labour, which is ripe unto the harvest.” And Hiller also calls to us, and says, “Brethren, let as still do good, and in well-doing not be weary.” None need want a field of labour. Therefore
“Rise—to worldwide harvests speed!
The whitening fields stretch on and on.
Few the labourers are indeed,
But great the work that must be done.”
Translated from Karl Gerok.
John 4:36. Reaping after many days in joy.—On the eastern shore of Virginia there stands to-day one of the few beautiful old homesteads of the past. Its fences are in repair. Its beautiful lawn, shaded by magnificent trees, is in perfect order. It bears still the name given by its founder. Its broad acres remain intact in the hands of the same family to-day that held it in the past century. The neighbours are proud of its name and beauty, and they love to tell the story of its founder. They say he was a man of noted character in his day. In a certain year there was a great famine in the whole country. Corn sold at three and four dollars a bushel, and was difficult to get at that price. The great barns of this farm groaned beneath the burden of an unusually large crop from the previous year. What did the owner of these great barns and broad acres do in this crisis of the people? Did he put his men to work, dig vaults, hide his grain, and then stand at the gate with a sad smile, and swear by heaven and earth that he didn’t have a nubbin? No! He placed his men at the doors of his barns with this instruction: “If a rich man comes to buy my corn with money, do not sell him a grain, no matter what price he may offer. When a poor man comes who has no money, let him have as much as he needs at last year’s price, and take promise to pay!” Merchants offered him fabulous prices for his store that they might speculate in the necessities of their fellows. He would not sell them a peck. He sold to the poor for their promise to pay, and his children’s children are not done reaping the golden harvest. As the old inhabitant passes the gate that leads to the great clump of trees that marks this garden spot of humanity, it is no wonder that he tells you the story with moist eyes, and adds with evident satisfaction, “It’s still the handsomest place in the county.” Such places will always be garden spots. Such men have always been and ever will be the salt of the earth.—Rev. T. Dixon in the “Christian.”
John 4:38. Self-denying labour for Christ’s harvest.—About a year ago an old resident in a hospital, who had, about ten years previously, bought for himself, for a fixed sum, an asylum in a poor-house, came to a Saxon clergyman and told him that, feeling his end was near, he now wished to carry out to completion what he had for long contemplated, and of which no one knew anything. He had no near relatives, and it had long been his desire to contribute something toward the upbuilding of God’s kingdom. He had therefore lived as sparingly as possible, had curtailed his wants as much as he could, and by laying aside even the smallest coins, had gradually gathered a little sum, which he had intended to devote to the East India Mission. Finally he desired the minister to draw out his declaration formally in writing, and enter it on the last page of his savings-bank book which the minister did, the pensioner subscribing to it in his own hand. This man had been in former years a simple workman, and was known to the pastor as a pious Christian and a regular attender at divine worship. Shortly before his death he once more sent for the clergyman to visit him, and handed over to him his savings-bank book, requesting that it should be forwarded to the proper address, which was done. At the same time the pastor wrote: “It is touching to think how this one thought occupied and moved him during long years, and how he had laboured with this one aim in view until his end, as is evidently the case from an inspection of his savings-bank book.” The donation amounts to 1,760 marks. In the last will and testament of the man, who soon thereafter peacefully “fell on sleep,” which was written on the last page of the bank book, the following sentences occur: “It is a heartfelt joy to me to be able to do something for my Saviour, since He has done all things for me—redeemed me, made me a child of God, brought me to a lively hope in life and in death. I hold that the highest duty of a Christian man is to spread abroad His kingdom; for Christianity alone can bring salvation to the world.
‘Peace ne’er shall reign o’er all the world
Till Jesus’ love gain victory meet,
And, ’neath the gospel flag unfurled,
All men shall bow down at His feet.’
In my estimation far too little is done for the noblest of all works of love—for mission work. I would earnestly seek to prove that even a plain man without personal means can certainly contribute something toward the upbuilding of God’s kingdom, if only the will to do so exists. For this purpose I have laboured, laid up, saved for many years. My name is not to be made known. I seek not my own honour, but that of Christ. May He graciously accept the thankoffering which I bring to Him, and in the end deliver me from all evil, and bring me safe into His heavenly kingdom.” So far the simple but heart-touching testament of this departed brother. It is like the odour of the precious Indian nard which was poured out on Jesus’ feet and filled all the house. Who does not, on reading it, feel deeply ashamed? What say you to yourself, dear reader?—From the “Evangel. Luther. Missionsblatt.”
John 4:47-49. Men should make their requests known directly to God.—It is related that a Scottish Roman Catholic nobleman had on his estate a Protestant tenant, who, in a season of depression, was in arrears for a considerable sum. He felt himself obliged to turn for help first to one of the under-officials of the nobleman, asking him to plead with the latter for some alleviation. The official promised, but did not perform. Thereupon he went to a higher official with the same request, who also promised, but did as little as the other. Finally, the twice-deceived peasant summoned courage to approach the proprietor personally. The latter remitted the whole amount of the debt, and accompanied his tenant, as he was departing, through the great hall of the castle, on the side walls of which were hung the pictures of martyrs and saints. “Do you know,” said the nobleman, “what those paintings represent?” “No,” said the peasant. “They are pictures of the saints whom I pray to, so that they may make request for me before the Lord for the forgiveness of my sins,” was the answer. “But why do you not go to the Lord of all Himself with your requests?” said the peasant simply. “Oh,” replied the nobleman, “that would be to take too much on myself! It is far better to have mediators like the saints between God and men.” “I don’t think so,” replied the other; “and I’ll show you why. In my distress I turned first to your under-official. It was of no avail. Next I went to the higher official, who promised to do something, and did nothing. In the end I came to yon personally, and you have remitted all my debt.”
John 4:49. Earnest prayer answered.—We read of Princess Louisa Augusta Magdalene of Darmstadt, that in the year 1741, falling into a grievous illness, she herself, like all about her, was entirely doubtful as to her recovery. As she was told that she could hardly survive over the night, she called the pious minister Fresenius to her bedside, spoke with him concerning the condition of her soul, and declared she would willingly depart hence, but that she had not yet made her peace with God, and felt in her heart no assurance of His grace and the forgiveness of her sins. Therefore, and on this account only, she desired to live a little longer. And since the Lord heard Hezekiah, such a prayer must not be displeasing to Him. Fresenius was convinced of this also, and prayed with her to the Lord that her life might be spared until she had received the witness of the Spirit in her heart, of grace and pardon. In these petitions the members of Fresenius’ household and other pious friends joined together. Their prayers were graciously answered. In a few hours the physician was able to give assurance that the crisis was past; the next day the improvement was much more marked, and the patient was full of praise to God for His grace and help. Her life was spared until the following year, when she passed into the presence of the Lord, saved and assured of her reconciliation.—J. J. Weigel.