or the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the
Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the
same fold.

These Samaritans were not only degraded and despised socially, but
they were also superstitious in their religious beliefs, and
semi-heathen in their forms of worship. It would take generations to
bring them up to a level with the Jewish Christians. They could not
comprehend much of the intelligent preaching that Christ addressed to
the Jews. Why not appoint a special missionary for them, and then
quietly exclude them from the ordinary gatherings? This course would
avoid criticism; it would not violate the established ideas of social
and religious propriety. Nothing need be said about it. It would not
be best to put it on parchment; just let it be quietly whispered about
that the disciples thought it was better for the Samaritan Christians
not to meet with the others. The disciples were surrounded by
prejudiced people, to be sure, but these prejudices were very old;
time would correct all these social and race inequalities. The
disciples thought it better to ignore them, and just organize and
carry on their work with no reference to these degraded and
superstitious Samaritans. Such seems to have been somewhat the
reasoning of these timid disciples. It was not our Lord's reasoning;
the doors of his blessed kingdom opened to all. It required no magic
sesame of race respectability to throw back these gates of pardon and
hope. Sin must be left outside, but the sinner of every race and tribe
was welcomed to all the privileges of this kingdom. We now see the
wisdom and the divinity of our Lord's course.

Had these marveling disciples had their way, the sect of the
Christians would have been added to the sects of the Herodians and the
Sadducees, and been buried in the same grave centuries ago. The voice
that talked with this Samaritan woman is heard round the globe now,
and every century only adds greater authority to its divine utterance;
and it is heard because it spoke with this despised Samaritan woman.
Our Lord did not ignore this race prejudice; he rebuked it. And so
these timid disciples, realizing only the temporary danger that
threatened, marveled that he talked with this woman. God pity them!
But how human they were. So to-day, in India, the missionaries of the
cross, true to their Lord's great example, talk with pariah and
Brahmin, and welcome them both to equal privileges in the kingdom of
his