11,12. THEN the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others 13 said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people. Howbeit, no man spake openly of him, for fear of the Jews. 14, 15 Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? 16, 17 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I 18 speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. 19 Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye 20 about to kill me? The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about 21 to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all 22 marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, (not because it is of Moses, but 23 of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath-day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye 24 angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

25,26. Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? But lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that 27 this is the very Christ? Howbeit, we know this man, whence he is: but when Christ 28 cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. Then cried Jesus in the temple, as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, 29 but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know him; for I am from him, and he hath sent me. 30 Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was 31 not yet come. And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ com- 32 eth, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him: and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him. 33 Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him 34 that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye 35 cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the 36 Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?

IN God’s spiritual universe there are no favorites of heaven who can attain knowledge and spiritual wisdom apart from obedience. There are none who can surrender self, and in all things submit to God, and yet fail of spiritual convictions. It is not therefore a rare, partial condescension of God, arbitrary and causeless, which gives knowledge of the truth to some, and shuts it out from others; but a vast, universal, glorious law. The light lighteth every man that cometh into the world. “If any man will do his will, he shall know.” F. W. R.

The knowledge of the great and profound truths of religion is one that men are not so much to study, as to live themselves into; a knowledge that passes into the head through the heart. If God’s grace be sought and given, knowledge will not stay behind, since it is the same spirit and principle that purifies the heart and clarifies the understanding. And where a long course of piety and close communion with God has purged the heart and rectified the will, knowledge will break in upon such a soul, like the sun shining in his full might. R. S.

THE seventh month, Tisri, part of our September and October—“the month of the full streams” and the autumnal equinox—had now come. Nisan, “the flower month,” known of old as Abib, “the earing month,” had seen the Passover pass without the presence of Jesus. Ijjar, “the beautiful month,” with its blossoming trees; Siwan, “the bright;” Tammuz; Ab, “the fruit month;” and Elul, “the month of wine,” had gone by in the journey to Tyre and Sidon, and to Cesarea Philippi. G.

11. The feast of Tabernacles, or the feast of Ingathering, was intended to commemorate the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was celebrated with such universal joy, that both Josephus and Philo call it “the holiest and greatest feast,” and it was known among the Jews as “the Feast” preëminently. It was kept for seven consecutive days, from the 15th to the 21st of Tisri, and the eighth day was celebrated by a holy convocation. During the seven days the Jews, to recall their desert wanderings, lived in booths made of the thickly-foliaged boughs of olive, and palm, and pine, and myrtle. During the week of festivities all the courses of priests were employed in turn; seventy bullocks were offered in sacrifice for the seventy nations of the world; the law was daily read, and on each day the temple trumpets sounded twenty-one times an inspiring and triumphant blast. The joy of the occasion was deepened by the fact that the feast followed but four days after the ceremonies of the great day of Atonement, in which a solemn expiation was made for the sins of all the people. F.

Sought him, and said, Where is he? Whatever topic had been engrossing the thoughts of the community would be sure to be the subject of general conversation in the capital the next time that the tribes assembled in Jerusalem. Remembering how fickle public feeling is, we may be certain that it was a subject which had taken a very strong hold of the public mind, that for a year and a half, during five successive festivals, came up ever fresh upon the lips of the congregated thousands. Yet it was so as to the appearance among them of Jesus Christ. Eighteen months had passed since he had been seen in Jerusalem, yet at this great annual gathering, after so long an absence, he is instantly the object of search, and the subject of conversation. H.—11-13. The Jews—the people—the Jews. For a clear apprehension of this and the following sections, observe the distinction made by John between the ruling party (of the Sanhedrim), called the Jews, and the people. J. G. B.

14. Suddenly, in the midst of all these murmurs and discussions, in the middle of the feast, Jesus, unaccompanied apparently by his followers, appeared suddenly in the temple, and taught. F.

—Taught. The word denotes formal and continuous teaching, as distinguished from mere casual sayings. This was probably the first time that he did so thus openly in Jerusalem. He had kept back till the feast was half through, to let the stir about him subside, and entering the city unexpectedly, had begun his “teaching” at the temple, and created a certain awe, before the wrath of the rulers had time to break it. B.—It is highly probable that this discourse was mainly an exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures, especially of the prophecies concerning the Messiah like that in the synagogue at Nazareth. For the time had then come for such a discourse in the temple, and this supposition well accounts for their expressed surprise at his knowledge of their books. H. C.

15. The originality of Christ is uneducated. That he draws nothing from the stores of learning can be seen at a glance. The impression we have in reading his instructions justifies, to the letter, the language of his contemporaries, when they say, “This man hath never learned.” There is nothing in any of his allusions or forms of speech that indicates learning. Indeed, there is nothing in him that belongs to his age or country—no one opinion, or taste, or prejudice. H. B.

16-19. “My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me; not invented by me as a man, but revealed by God. But for your lack of the right will, you might be convinced of this. Whoever in heart desires to do the will of God, will, by means of that disposition, be able to decide whether my teaching is divine or human. Such a one may see that no human self-will is mixed up with my labors, but that in them all I seek only to glorify Him that sent me. But (verse 19) that ye lack the spirit essential to this, is shown by your deeds; pretending to zeal for the Mosaic law, and using that pretence to persecute one who seeks only to honor God, you care not, in reality, to keep that law.” N.

17. A principle, showing, on the one hand, that singleness of desire to please God is the grand inlet to light on all questions vitally affecting one’s eternal interests; and, on the other, that the want of this, whether perceived or not, is the chief cause of infidelity amidst the light of revealed religion. B.—If any man’s will be, to do His will, he shall know. Not that the bare performance of God’s outward commands will give acquaintance with Christian doctrine. What our Lord asserts is, that if the will be set in his ways, if a man be really anxious to do the will of God, and thus to fulfil the first great commandment of the law, this singleness of purpose and subjection to the will of God will lead him on to faith in the promised and then apparent Messiah, and to a just discrimination of the divine character of his teachings. A.—A well-disposed will is sure to engage the mind in a severe search into the great truths of religion; and it will accompany that search with two dispositions directly tending to the discoveries of truth, diligence, and impartiality. . . . Experience must give knowledge in the Christian profession, as well as in all others. The obedient, and the men of practice, are those sons of light that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, and triumph over their present imperfections, till persuasion pass into knowledge, and knowledge advance into assurance, and all come at length to be completed in the beatific vision. R. S.

The doctrine of all the prophets who went before and who followed Christ, has its end in Christ, to whom they point; but Christ, as a prophet, is himself the doctrine, his person the one centre of that doctrine, “I am the truth;” so, as high-priest, he is himself the sacrifice, and as king he is himself the head of his body. That Christ’s teaching is the teaching of God is the experience of every soul which gives itself up to God’s drawing. If the Jews had “willed” to do the will of God which was testified to them in the law, they would have discovered that they could not do it; and as penitent souls hungering after grace would have known that this doctrine, the doctrine of salvation in Christ, is no man’s doctrine, but that it is of God. Knowledge is a daughter of the will. The Lord will certainly lead to the knowledge of the truth all willing hearts which do not love darkness rather than light. All, in fact, depends upon true-heartedness. Be true-hearted with what thou hast received, and what thou hast not got will be given thee. “He that is of God heareth God’s word,” and he that is of the truth heareth the voice of him who himself is truth. R. B.—And still the saying of our Lord holds good, that in the search of truth, in the preserving us from error, in the guiding of us to right judgments about himself and his doctrine, the heart has more to do with the matter than the head—the willingness to do telling upon the capacity to know and to believe. H.—When Jesus Christ, dying in love for sinners, and radiant with gospel grace, is full before the soul, so as to appear somewhat as he is, an almighty and infinitely willing Redeemer, true to his word, then the sinner believes, receives him, has power to be a child of God; though, at the moment, nothing is further from his thoughts than any analysis of this believing. After all, nothing but experience can fully explain what faith is. Believe and know. J. W. A.—It is the virtue of the Christian life to rivet and seal Christian faith in the depth of the soul. Truth becomes clearer and dearer the more sacrifices we make to it. What we do for it unites it more and more closely to our soul. A. V.—Understanding shall grow with growing earnestness of purpose. And he that tries heartily to do Christ’s will shall know of the doctrine; know it more and more; know it deeper and deeper; know all that he needs. To selfish, earth-bound hearts no secrets are revealed. No tokens of personal remembrance, no signs of secret favor, come from the Master. True redemption is our deliverance from that restless selfishness, and our return to union with God. No mastery among men, no conquests of self-promotion, no prosperous economy, no career of politic success, contains a joy so exquisite, and so full, as that pledge of friendship from the love and power and wisdom that fill the throne of eternity. F. D. H.

19. From the first they hated him, and from the time, now eighteen months ago, that he had cured the paralytic, breaking, as they thought, the Sabbath, and said that God was his father, making himself equal with God, they had resolved to kill him. This was the way—by cherishing hatred and the secret intent to murder—that they were dealing with the law. Rolling their adverse judgment of him back upon themselves, and dragging out to light the purpose that in the mean time they would have kept concealed, Jesus said, “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?” H.

22-24. Jesus, who ever loved to teach the lesson that love and not literalism is the fulfilling of the law, showed them, even on their own purely ritual and Levitical principle, that his word of healing had in no respect violated the Sabbath at all. For instance, Moses had established, or rather re-established, the ordinance of circumcision on the eighth day, and if that eighth day happened to be a Sabbath, they without scruple sacrificed the one ordinance to the other, and, in spite of the labor which it involved, performed the rite of circumcision on the Sabbath-day. If the law of circumcision superseded that of the Sabbath, did not the law of mercy? If that, which was at the best but a sign of deliverance, could not even on account of the Sabbath be postponed for a single day, why was it criminal not to have postponed for the sake of the Sabbath a deliverance actual and entire? And then he summed his self-defence in the one calm word, “Do not be ever judging by the mere appearance, but judge a righteous judgment.” F.

25-29. It astonished the people to find that Jesus could testify thus openly against his opponents, and yet no hand be laid upon him; and they asked, “Can it be possible that the members of the Sanhedrim know this man to be the Messiah?” (verse 26). But they continued, still held in the prejudice and bondage of sense, “How can it be so, when we know him to be the son of the Nazarene carpenter? while the Messiah is to reveal himself suddenly in all his glory, so that all must acknowledge him” (verse 27). To expose the vanity of these expressions, Christ said, “It is true, ye both know me, and ye know whence I am; and yet ye know not; for ye know not the heavenly Father who hath sent me, and therefore ye cannot know me.” Thus does he ever return to the principle that only those who know God, and belong to him in heart (i. e., who really endeavor to do his will), can be in a condition to recognize the Son of God in his self-manifestation, and to acknowledge that he is from heaven. N.—While he refers everything to God, Jesus Christ seeks not to define or explain him; he affirms him and demonstrates him; God is the first cause, the point from which all things sprung; faith in God is the paramount source of virtue and of power, of hope and resignation. F. G.

30. This restraint on our Lord’s enemies can only be accounted for by direct divine interposition. They could do nothing against him until God, in his wisdom, was pleased to let it be done. We are all immortal till our work is done. To realize that nothing happens in this world except by the eternal counsels and according to the plans of our Father, is one grand secret of living a calm, peaceful, and contented life. J. C. R.

32. The Sanhedrim, seated in frequent session in their stone hall of meeting within the immediate precincts of the temple, were, by means of their emissaries, kept informed of all that he did and said, and, without seeming to do so, watched his every movement with malignant and jealous eyes. These whispered arguments in his favor, this deepened awe of him and belief in him, which, despite their authority, was growing up under their very eyes, seemed to them at once humiliating and dangerous. They determined on a bolder course of action. They sent out emissaries to seize him suddenly and stealthily, at the first opportunity which should occur. F.

36. So ended our Lord’s first day of teaching in the temple, a day revealing on his part a wisdom, a courage, a serene, sublime trust which took his adversaries by surprise, and held all their deadly purposes against him in suspense, and on the part of the multitude the strangest mixture of conflicting opinions and sentiments, with which our Lord so dealt as to win exemption from like interruptions afterward, and to secure for himself an unbroken audience on the day when his last and greatest words were spoken. II.

Section 85.—The Invitation on the Great Feast-Day. Officers Return.

The Temple.

37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man 38 thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture 39 hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) 40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is 41 the Prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of 42 Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and 43 out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among the 44 people because of him. And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him. 45 Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, 46 Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this 47, 48 man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the 49 rulers, or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the 50 law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to Jesus by night, being one 51 of them), Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and know what he doeth? 52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for 53 out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house.

He had in Galilee invited all the weary and heavy-laden of the human family to come under his wing and they should find rest. He had in the synagogue of Capernaum announced himself, in every variety of form, as “the Bread of Life,” and as both able and authorized to appease the “hunger,” and quench the “thirst,” of all that apply to him. There is, and there can be, nothing beyond that here. But what was on all those occasions uttered in private, or addressed to a provincial audience, is here sounded forth in the streets of the great religious metropolis, and in language of surpassing majesty, simplicity, and grace. It is Jehovah’s ancient proclamation now sounding forth through human flesh, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money!” B.

Are there no desires, longings, aspirations in these souls of ours that nothing earthly can meet and satisfy? Not money, not honor, not power, not pleasure, not anything nor everything this world holds out—they do not, cannot fill our hearts—they do not, cannot quench that thirst that burns within. Can any one tell us where we may carry this great thirst and get it fully quenched? From the lips of the man Christ Jesus the answer comes. He speaks to the crowds in the temple at Jerusalem, but his words are not for them alone; they have been given to the broad heavens, to be borne wide over the earth, and down through all its generations: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink! H.

37. It was the great Jewish harvest-home; for this feast was celebrated in autumn, after all the fruits of the earth had been gathered in. It was within the temple that its joyous or thanksgiving character especially developed itself. Morning and evening, day by day, during sacrifices more crowded than those of any other of the great festivals, the air was rent with the praises of the rejoicing multitudes. At the time of the libation of water, the voice of their glad thanksgiving swelled up into its fullest, most jubilant expression. Each morning a vast procession formed around the little fountain of Siloam down in the valley of the Kedron. Out of its flowing waters the priests filled a large golden pitcher. Bearing it aloft, they climbed the steep ascent of Moriah, passed through the water-gate, up the broad stairs, and into the court of the temple, in whose centre the altar stood. Before this altar two silver basins were planted, with holes beneath to let the liquid poured into them flow down into the subterranean reservoir beneath the temple, to run out thence into the Kedron, and down into the Dead Sea. One priest stood and poured the water he had brought up from Siloam into one of these basins. Another poured the contents of a like pitcher filled with wine into the other. As they did so, the vast assemblage broke out into the most exulting exclamations of joy. The trumpets of the temple sounded. In voice and upon instrument, the trained choristers put forth all their skill and power. Led by them, many thousand voices chanted the great Hallel, the Psalms from the 113th to the 118th. H.—And when, for the last time, the water from the well of Siloam was poured out by the altar, none would easily refrain from joining in the song of praise: “God is my song, He also is become my salvation! Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” (See Illus., Sec. 188.)

In the midst of this magnificent festal rejoicing, Jesus cried aloud: If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. It is the cry which resounds throughout the whole of Scripture, and which had already been laid upon the kindly lips of prophets. Jehovah’s invitation, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” Jesus here distinctly appropriates to himself. In this cry the Lord Jesus delights to reveal his readiness to save all souls needing salvation, from the time of his pronouncing those blessed who thirst, in M. 5 : 6, on to the word in Rev. 20 : 17: “Let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely!” R. B.

38. By the “water” which is to be communicated by the Redeemer, and which is to become in man a fountain of life, Christ meant nothing else than the quickening energies of the Spirit of God. A. T.—Rivers of living water. These words are expressly declared by John to refer “to the Spirit, that they who believe in Jesus were to receive.” The rivers of living water which are to flow out of the hearts of believers in Christ must mean spiritual gifts. Hare.—They signify the abundance and freeness of grace. That which is ever active he calls living; for the grace of the Spirit, when it has entered the understanding and taken up its abode there, gushes out more freely than any fountain, incessantly, unfailingly; and to show its inexhaustible plenty and great energy, it is called rivers—not one, but innumerable rivers. Chrys.—A strong metaphor when rivers are said to flow out of the heart of believers: nevertheless, the sense is not doubtful, namely, that no spiritual blessing shall ever be wanting to them that believe. Here is promised to us the perpetuity of the gifts of the Spirit, as well as their abundance. Calvin.

39. Believe . . . receive. If any man has faith he has the Spirit. If any man has not the Spirit, he has no saving faith in Christ. The effectual work of the second and third persons in the Trinity is never divided. J. C. R.—The Holy Ghost was not yet. The peculiar work and office of the Holy Ghost, to manifest and glorify Christ, did not yet exist. The preaching of forgiveness of sins, of comfort and joy in Christ, was at that time unheard. That salvation, righteousness, and life were to be given by the man Christ was not known. Luther.—Jesus was not yet glorified. Not until Jesus had been crucified, raised again, and exalted by the right hand of God, and thus made Lord and Christ, not until he, through his resurrection, had entered into his glory, and began to reveal himself as glorified to his people: not till then was it that the Spirit came to dwell forever on them and in them, in order from them to flow forth into the world. R. B.

44. Some would have taken him. They were strangely dead to the sweetness and glory of these words of life, and repelled by purity and goodness. But they were too few to carry their measures against the greater number who admired and sustained—so that no man laid hands on him. It is plain that in a fair field before the people, Jesus had the hearts of too many to permit the resort to violence. Hence the necessity of treachery and betrayal in order to arrest him in the absence of the multitude. H. C.

46. Spake like this man. How exquisitely and freshly simple is the actual language of Christ compared with all other teaching that has ever gained the ear of the world There is no science in it, no art, no wisdom of the schools. Straight as an arrow to the mark his precepts pierce to the very depths of the soul and spirit. All is short, clear, precise, full of holiness, full of the common images of daily life. There is scarcely a scene or object familiar to the Galilee of that day, which Jesus did not use as a moral illustration of some glorious promise or moral law. And we, who can compare Christ’s teaching with all that the world has of best and greatest in philosophy and eloquence and song, must not we too add, with yet deeper emphasis, that teaching as one having authority, he spake as never man spake? F.—One of the most melancholy contrasts is between the words of the wisest of men and the exemplification which he himself gave of wisdom. How different when we come to Christ! Our deepest moral nature sets the seal of approval on his words, and our emotional nature is drawn to himself with the strongest love and reverence. We can take his words and himself and set them side by side, and interweave them, like music, with thought in perfect harmony. Ker.—He opened his lips, we are told, wherever he came, and taught the people. They wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. Way-sides and hills and common dwellings were the simple apparatus and open halls of his lessons. He unveiled the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Men wanted to know their parentage, and he taught them of the Father; their duties to each other, and he told them by parables and precepts; their destiny, and he uncovered the retributions and joys of their immortality. He laid bare the profound and vital meaning of all man’s feeling, suffering, longing; of regeneration, and prayer, and charity; of spiritual unity, and worship, and the resurrection; of the relation of the spirit to the letter, of the new to the old; of the Father, and the Son, and the Comforter to each other. Men saw, and knew, and felt that the greatest of prophets was risen up among them. F. D. H.

49. Knoweth not the law are cursed.** Besides the mere learning by heart the five books of Moses, the almost endless comments of the rabbis must be mastered by years of slavish labor, before one was recognized as a really educated man. Hence the nation was divided into two great classes of learned and unlearned, between whom there lay a wide gulf. Puffed up with boundless pride at their attainments, the former frankly denounced their less scholarly countrymen as “cursed countrymen” or boors. G.—51. Nicodemus wisely appealed to law. It is difficult to see what more could have been said in the present temper of the Pharisees. The words show Nicodemus to have become a real, though slow-growing disciple of Christ. It required great courage to do even the little that he did here. J. C. R.

52. “Shall the Christ come out of Galilee?” asked the wondering people. “Search and look!” said the rabbis to Nicodemus, “for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” It would not have needed very deep searching or looking to find that these words were ignorant or false; for not to speak of Barak the deliverer, and Elon the judge, and Anna the prophetess, three, if not four, of the prophets—and those prophets of the highest eminence, Jonah, Elijah, Hosea, and Nahum—had been born, or had exercised much of their ministry, in the precincts of Galilee. F.—Bigotry strong and fierce as theirs was doubly blind; for God did raise up prophets from Galilee, and Jesus was not born in Galilee, but in Bethlehem-Judah—as they should have known. H. C.—We can readily imagine that, on the part of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, there was a feeling of superiority to Galilee and the Galileans. But that such a feeling ever amounted to contempt, there is not the slightest evidence in Josephus, the New Testament, or the Talmud. In the climate of Galilee, its fertile soil, and its charming scenery; in the abundance of its waters and the beauty of its lakes; in its numerous and often elegant cities and villages; in its hardy, industrious, and intelligent population; in the interest of its people in the law, the temple services, and the great national feasts; in its wealth and material prosperity, and its various thriving industries; and in the unexampled patriotism and bravery of its sons—what ground is there why the people of Jerusalem should regard Galilee or the Galileans with contempt? S. M.

53. The “Galilean” had proved for the time stronger than the Sanhedrim. Once more, as after the miracle of Bethesda, they had been foiled and publicly defeated. J. C. R.

RETURNING to contemplate the words in verses 37, 38, as part of the human history of the man of Nazareth, let us think of their bearing upon a question we often ask, Did Jesus place himself before the thousands of his countrymen as truly their promised Messiah? The records of his public life speak of him mostly as being in remote Galilee, traversing cities and villages, healing the sick; casting out devils; teaching his disciples; occasionally, yet rarely, drawing about him and after him large crowds of people—but not often in Jerusalem, and only on few occasions becoming conspicuous at the great annual festivals of the nation. But in this chapter we see him in the temple on the great day of their most joyous festival; the thousands of Israel are gathered there; and his time has fully come to announce himself as their Redeemer and Messiah. “He stood and cried;” taking his stand conspicuously in the presence of the multitude, he lifted up his voice as one who had an important message to proclaim, and a right to be heard; and then and there, in words chosen from their well-known prophetic Scriptures, he declared: “I come to fulfil in myself those munificent promises. I come to give the waters of salvation to every thirsty and believing soul. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. The waters I give shall be an unfailing fountain in his soul; a well of water springing up unto everlasting life; ‘rivers of living water,’ flowing out in blessings to others if so they will—never to fail.” What better words could he have spoken to place himself before the people as their own Messiah? What one feature in the scene could be changed, or what new feature added, to make the whole more impressive, more majestic, more tender, and yet more sublime? H. C.

Section 86.—The Woman and her Accusers. The Light of the World.

The Temple.