JACOB'S WELL. Other sacred scenes rose in sight before the day was over. About noon we came out upon a hill-top which commanded a view for many miles up the great plain of Mukhna, where Jacob fed his flocks, with Mount Gerizim in the distance. Pursuing our way in the afternoon, we came to Sychar, "where was a well" which was dug by father Jacob himself, and where more than seventeen hundred years later Jesus sat and talked to the woman of Samaria. 84 Here we dismounted, and sat down by the well, which had such sacred memories. There was at first a feeling of disappointment to find it a neglected spot. Its desolate appearance makes some almost regret to have seen it, while others keep away lest the sight should be even painful, as it dispelled their hallowed associations. In the conversation with Mr. Spurgeon, to which I have referred, he said with a good deal of vehemence that "nothing could induce him to visit the Holy Land," in support of which he related the experience of a friend (I think an American clergyman) on this very spot, to which he had come as a holy place, thinking how he would "sit on the well," as his Master did, and taking out his Bible, read again the beautiful story of Christ's conversation with the woman of Samaria, musing on the wonderful scene with tender emotion. But, said Mr. Spurgeon, when he came to the spot, he found it neglected and desolate, and his devout meditations interrupted by a crowd of importunate beggars, clamoring for backsheesh! This was a dismal prospect to set before a traveller just starting for the East, "going bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem." But our experience was more fortunate. We had no annoyance. To be sure, the place is neglected. But that mattered little; it would not have helped the impression if we had come upon a spring abundant as that of Elisha at Jericho, JOSEPH'S TOMB. 85 bubbling up in a marble fountain. Here was nothing but an old well-old indeed, for it was dug by our father Jacob more than three thousand years ago. This is one of the few spots in Palestine whose identity is almost certain, and which is therefore truly venerable. It is not the well of Herod, or of any of the Roman conquerors, but of one whose very name gave it a sacredness even before the time of Christ, and to which he came as a hallowed spot. Here the patriarch lived with all his sons around him, save one whom he supposed to be dead, but who had been sold into captivity and carried down to Egypt, and there risen to power, to be in time the savior of his father's house. To that longlost son, in memory of his filial devotion, Jacob gave this very plot of ground on which we are now standing, and in which, two hundred years after his death, his body was laid. There are few more touching illustrations of a love strong in death-the love of one's early home, such as to make him desire to be buried near the spot where he was born-than the last command of Joseph. He was about to die-to die in Egypt, amid all the splendor of the court of Pharaoh. But at that moment his thoughts were not on the banks of the Nile; they wandered back to the scenes of his childhood, to the time when he had been a shepherd's boy and kept his father's flock; and calling his brethren around him, he said "I die; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." But there he was not to remain. When came the time of the Exodus of the Israelites, his bones were taken with pious care, and carried with them in all their JACOB'S WELL. marches, till finally laid to rest in this very piece of ground, which his father Jacob bought for a portion for him. 86 Joseph's Tomb is but a short distance from Jacob's Well, into which we are now looking down. The top has been partly arched over, covering a little space around what we should call the "curb" of the well. The dragoman gave me his strong arm, and lifting me over this upper and outer rim, let me down a few feet to a point from which I got a nearer view of the depth below. Explorers who have measured it have found it over a hundred feet deep, but a part of this has been filled up by the stones cast into it. But how came Jacob to dig such a well? is a question often asked. He was close to the Vale of Shechem, which is full of streams. What need of boring a hundred feet through the solid rock to find what a mile or two distant was running away in exhaustless abundance? The answer is that neighbors are not always friends; that the inhabitants of the towns and the shepherds of the plains had little to do with each other, and even might be in open feud. In the time of Christ "the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans," and seventeen hundred years before the progenitor of the Hebrew race may have been to them a stranger and an alien. The people of Shechem might be friendly to-day, and enemies to-morrow; and though they might have water flowing through their city, they might at any moment shut it off from him. With all his flocks and herds, he could not be dependent on such an uncertain supply. And so he dug this well, "and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle." The woman of Samaria, who came here to draw water, had probably been out on the plain tending the flocks, and at the sixth hour -noon-had no other spring to go to but Jacob's Well. BETWEEN EBAL AND GERIZIM. 87 But the chief interest of this spot is that One greater than Jacob or Joseph has been here. On this very ground, sitting where we now sit, our Saviour sat, and talked with the woman of Samaria, revealing to her astonished eyes that in the worship of God the place matters little; that "neither in this mountain," looking up to Gerizim which rose above them, "nor yet at Jerusalem," shall men ship the Father": for that "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” wor With such thoughts of the Great Master, whose presence has touched all these heights and valleys with a glory like that of the setting sun, which now gilds the tops of Ebal and Gerizim, we mounted our horses and rode through the narrow valley which separates them, and passing round the town, camped under some old olive trees at its western end, at the foot of Mount Gerizim. We were now in Nablous, the ancient Shechem. As our visit here was somewhat full of incident, it is worthy of a fuller description. CHAPTER VIII. NABLOUS-A DAY THAT WAS NOT ALL SUNSHINE- In "wandering through the wilderness of this world," I have had varied experiences-days that were bright and days that were dark, and days that were both bright and dark, cloud and sunshine following each other in quick succession. But not many days have I had anywhere the experience of which was so far from previous expectation, as that we spent in the ancient city of Nablous. As we entered the valley, there was something in the very atmosphere which revived us. We were greeted with the sound of running streams (there are said to be seventy springs issuing from the hills), which rush joyously through the valley. We were entering a city of Samaria whose history goes back to the time of the Captivity, when the Ten Tribes were carried away to Assyria, and earlier still, to the days when Jacob fed his flocks on the adjacent plain. We had come up from Jacob's Well, the place where our Lord had been, and passed between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, from which it seemed as if alternate blessing and cursing rolled over our heads. And now we were camped at the foot of Gerizim, the mount of blessing, the very clouds of which ought to rain perpetual benediction. |