with came thereout blood and water.' And the word pronounced was Rehoboth-enmity slain, law magnified, justice satisfied, sin atoned for, conscience appeased. A place for three to meet in : God and the sinner reconciled over the body of the slain Christ. There is a moment in a sinner's life with which no stranger hand can intermeddle. If darkness covered for three hours our Redeemer's agony, so is it in silence and stillness that the cry goes up— 'I thirst, Thou wounded Lamb of God, And never need we go forth from the shadow of that Cross. Surely again to contend or strive with any fellow - being were impossible! The brotherhood, the family, claim kinship here. Did our minds dwell on the sufferings of the Crucified, and what sin meant to Him, our present lives would be inconceivable. Satan and our wicked hearts strive hard to keep us distant from that cross where we see sin in its true character and right dimensions. As it was here we found cleans ing at first, so it is here we come to get our daily thirst appeased as we journey through the desert. He said 'I thirst' that we might say 'I drink,' and so we sing: 'Beneath that cross clear waters burst, A fountain sparkling free; And there I quench my desert thirst; 'A stranger here, I pitch my tent CHAPTER XIII. Healing at the Well. 'Beneath Moriah's rocky side 'The thirsty Arab stoops to drink 'Siloam is the fountain's name, It means "One sent from God;" 'Oh grant that I, like this sweet well, And spend my life, my all, to tell How full His mercies are.' WO summers ago some boys were playing at TWO this well. One of them amused himself by wading up a channel cut in the rock which leads into the pool, slipped, and fell into the water. On coming to the surface he saw what looked like letters on the rocky wall of the channel. He told the German architect, Mr. Schick, who at once went to the spot. The following February one of the Palestine explorers, Mr. Sayce, by the dim light of a candle, in a cramped position from the narrow space, the channel swarming with mosquitoes, carefully studied the Phoenician letters. Captain Conder, in a letter, tells how he was obliged, whilst studying this inscription, to stand for an hour and a half knee-deep in water. Although there is still division of opinion as to the date of it, and further investigation may lead to fresh discovery, there is for us a special interest in the coming to light of these long-buried letters, as we picture to ourselves the two gangs of Jewish workmen, thousands of years ago, who had started from opposite ends of the cutting, meeting at last, and the waters flowing towards the pool. This is the history of the tunnel. While the excavators lifted the pick, each toward his neighbour, and while they were three cubits to the mouth, the excavators came together.' So it has been translated. Whilst we cannot take the long journey to look on these characters, we are deeply thankful to those noble Palestine explorers for putting within our reach such hard-won knowledge. We seem to have found a new verse of the Bible as we read the inscription. Nehemiah gives us a glimpse of another workman busy at this same fountain, as we see Shallum, the ruler of Mizpah, building the wall of the pool of Siloam. Isaiah speaks of its waters going softly above the strong under-current. John tells us of healing coming out of these same waters. There were willing feet finding their way to this well that day. The man was blind, his eyes more firmly sealed than ever with the clay which covered them. Could we have a more graphic picture? He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing.' How different the return journey from that well. One wonders whether his eyes were fullest of the beauties all around, or his heart of gratitude to Him who had worked for him this miracle. He had no intervening stage of seeing men as trees walking. His quick faith had quick result. Listen to his autobiography, 'The man that is |