INTRODUCTION. S we have had mornings by the Streams, and evenings on the Hillside, so in this little book we invite you to rest at noon beside Wells of Water. If the readers of these short portions have but half the that the writer has had in will be richly rewarded. pleasure in reading penning them, she The study of these Wells has been one of such unmixed enjoyment that she is loath to part with it. Let us hope that it will only serve as a point of fresh departure to further study and deeper draughts, as we drink joyfully from the Wells of Salvation. If, like Uzziah, we 'love husbandry,' it is pretty certain that we shall be found building many 'towers in the desert,' and 'digging many wells.' Like Gideon, rising up early to pitch beside the well, we may have to use the morning light to get the stones rolled away from the well's mouth. Any way, our visits will be rewarded with lasting gain. The children also might ask visitors and friends about 'wells,' and so get before us, who feel that golden hours of promise have been lost. They may get an answer like this, which we got the other day from a man of genius, poet and preacher: 'The first sermon I remember was about a well, now thirty years ago.' This will help them, as they lift a large Bible to find verses about 'wells,' to fill perhaps a page in their Sunday album. We are living in remarkable days of progress, when from many quarters fresh light is coming in upon the Bible, and our own soldiers have been fighting in the field of Zoan. At the Azores we watched the servants go eagerly round and close the shutters to keep the rooms cool, as the sun, their enemy, crept round from window to window. Shall we not do the reverse, and go round and open all our windows on the Bible page, 'And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In the October number of the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund there is a most interesting account of the Princes' visit to the Holy Land. On the 4th of last April they went from Solomon's Pools to Hebron, to find, instead of the obstacles and difficulties which met their father twenty years before, the present Pacha doing all he could to facilitate in every way their visit to the Mosque. With their own hands they measured with a steel tape Joseph's tomb. Their special interest was also directed to springs, in searching for 'the most fertile fountain' mentioned by Josephus, which is awanting to make sure the supposed site of Capernaum. In this search they saw a 'water-tower south of the Plain of Gennesaret,' where there were marks of its still being held sacred, as blue beads and strings of shells were attached to the wall, 'emblems in ancient mythology of female deities who presided over water.' It is six centuries, Captain Conder says, since a European prince crossed the Jordan and spent a week in Gilead. We have to thank the friends who have so kindly given the photographs from which the |