r cometh, and now is, when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:
for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and
they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The
woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called
Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith
unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. . . . So when the Samaritans
were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them:
and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his
own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of
thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is
indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'

Oh, my friends, despise no man; for Christ despises none. He is no
respecter of persons: but in every nation, he that feareth God and
worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Despise no man; for by
so doing you deny the Father, who has made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on the earth, and has appointed them their times,
and the bounds of their habitation; if haply they may feel after
him, and find him: though he be not far from any of us; for in him
we live and move and have our being, and are the offspring of God.
For hundreds of years those poor ignorant Samaritans had felt after
him; in that foreign land to which the cruel Assyrian conqueror had
banished them: but it was God who had appointed them their
habitation there, and their time also; and, in due time, they found
God: for he came to them, and found them, and spoke with them face
to face.

Better to have been one of those ignorant Samaritans, than to have
been King Ahab, or King Hoshea, in all their glory, with all their
proud Jewish blood. Better to have been one of those ignorant
Samaritans than one of those conceited Pharisees at Jerusalem, who,
while they were priding themselves on being Abraham's children, and
keeping Moses' law, ended by crucifying him who made Abraham, and
Moses, and his law, and them themselves. Better to be the poorest
negro slave, if, in the midst of his ignorance and misery and shame,
he believes in Christ, and works righteousness, than the cleverest
and proudest and freest Englishman, if, in the midst of his great
light, he works the works of darkness, and, while he calls himself a
child of God, lives the sinful life, on which God's curse lies for
ever.

So you who have