December 23

With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. — ISAIAH xii. 3.

If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. — JOHN iv. 10.

IF the puzzled woman had but known that the mysterious stranger then talking with her was no mere Jew, but the divine Creator of all the floods of waters, and the divine Friend and Redeemer of the soul that is at the same time sin-smitten and athirst for heavenly blessings, she would have become a suppliant herself and would have sued for that "gift of God" which Christ, the gracious and omnipotent Jehovah, had it in his power to bestow upon her. Nor would he have denied her request, but would have conferred upon her that true inward "fountain of living water" so faintly symbolized by the freshly bubbling fountain-heads and leaping streams of this earth.

"Eternal Life." He who, as some think, pointed to the rising sun when he exclaimed, "I am the light of the world," stood amid the pillared galleries of Herod's temple when the golden flagon was brought from the pool of Siloam on the last day of the feast and poured on the altar, and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."

A. C. Alexander.

We taste thee, O thou living Bread, And long to feast upon thee still; We drink of thee, the Fountain-head, And thirst our souls from thee to fill.

BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (translated by Ray Palmer).