October, 1942
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
370
riven by Thirst
By PAUL HUTCHENS George, Iowa
I T WAS high noon on a dreary sun- scorched day. A lone, sin-burdened divorcee, five times married and now living with a man who was not her husband, wended her way south ward from the city of Sychar, along the eastern slope of Mount Ebal, 4n Samaria. High on her head, as was the custom in her country, stood an earthenware w a t e r pitcher, with whi;:h to drary water from the one- hundred-foot well, famed the country over as Jacob’s well, whose location was designated as “ near to the parcel of ground which the patriarch Jacob had given to his favorite son, Joseph.” One heavy thought, dragging at the heart of the woman, a thousand times heavier than the jar filled with water 'Would be, was the futility of life ’itself—the dreariness of it. Tired . . . tired . . . tired. . . . If only she did not have to come again and agairi and again. If only there were some way water could be fur nished to the home without this ever lasting, repeated daily trip, along the mountain side and back up the weary trail to her home. Home . . . There was no happiness
morality. Sin had promised happiness. Sin . . . Sin . . . SIN . . . ! How at tractively it presented its wares! And. afterward- . . . afterward, like strong drink itself, “it biteth like an adder.” In the shadow of night, its glow was lovely; but in the day, in the terrible afterward, it. cut and stung and bit and lacerated her spirit, and made her hate herself with bitter hatred . . . When Messiah, God’s anointed Holy One, should come. . . . The Stranger’s Request The dreary-hearted woman stopped, abruptly at the edge of the well. Sit ting there, in the shade, resting, was a young man, a Jew evidently, clear of eye, nobility on his brow, gentle ness in his demeanor and in his voice as he requested courteously, “Give me to drink.” She started. Jews generally had no dealings with Samaritans. To accept a drink from a Samaritan woman would be sacrilege, defiling . . . “How. is it that thou, being a Jew . . . ” Listen! The Young Man with the- gracious manner and the clear eye
in a -home five times broken, no peace of conscience in a deliberate break ing of Almighty Qod’s seventh com mandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” And yet she was bound to her sin, as she was also bound by the drudg ery of toil, the semislavery of woman- hood. Some day, perhaps, Messiah would come, for whom the Jews and her own people, the Samaritans, were looking and waiting; and when He came, He would be omniscient . . . ; He would know and He would ex plain all things; He would untangle the problems of where and how to worship—and He would surely know some remedy for heartache . . . She sighed. It would be cool at the well, and she could rest a moment before beginning the toilsome trek back to the city through the dust and the heat waves, to . . . Home . . . Rest . . . There was no rest—and there ‘was no release from the bond age that enslaved' her . . . Oh, sin had held out alluring arms many years ago when in the first blush of her young w o m a n h o o d sh^ had swerved aside from the pure path of
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