Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/325

 in identifying it with the village of 'Askar, which stands within sight of the well, about half a mile distant, on the slope of Ebal. Yet the Crusaders confounded Sychar with Shechem, misleading everybody who came after; the error lasting to our own time, and reappearing even in carefully-written books.

The question arises, why Jesus on this occasion must needs go through Samaria? It has been customary to reply that it was because Samaria lay right across his path in going from Judea to Galilee. But this does not satisfy us when we know that it was a frequent thing to cross the Jordan and travel by the eastern route, because the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. I was one day reading the Gospel of St John very carefully in order to compare notes with a friend, and I was struck with the meaning implied in Christ's expression, "One soweth and another reapeth." Jesus says to his disciples, "Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh the harvest." We judge that he is pointing to the rich corn-field, where the valley opens out into the Plain of Mukhnah; he remarks that the corn is not ripe yet, and the harvest is not due. Yet he says, "Behold! Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal." He is now referring to the spiritual harvest: the people are flocking out of the town to listen to his teaching, they are favourably disposed and ready to be converted. Now, why should they be so ready to listen, seeing that the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans? Christ himself supplies the answer when he says, "Herein is the saying true, 'One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured; others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labour.'" He cannot mean that he is sowing seed now, by his preaching, for his