t will satisfy. I can impart that which will
meet every single need and every single longing of your soul." What a
claim is this! How marvelous, how amazing! And yet this tired young
man, sitting here by the well, makes this high claim, and through the
centuries He has made it good.

"I can give you," says He, "a well that will satisfy you now. I can
touch the hot fever of your life into restfulness now. I can satisfy
the intensest hunger of your starved soul even now. And not only can I
do this for the present, but I can satisfy for all eternity. I can
give you a fountain that will never run dry. I can bless your life
with a springtime where the trees will never shed their leaves and the
petals of the rose will never shatter upon the grass."

"If you will allow me, I will give you that which will enrich and
satisfy your life to-day and to-morrow and through all the eternal
to-morrow." In all world feasts there comes a time when we have to
say, "There is no wine." There comes a time when the zest is gone,
when the wreaths are withered. There comes a time when joy lies
coffined and we have left to us only the dust and ashes of burnt out
hopes. But Christ satisfies now and ever more. And this He does in
spite of all circumstances and in the presence of all difficulties.
For His is not an external fountain to which we have to journey again
and again and from which we may be cut off by the forces of the enemy.
His is a fountain within. It is that which makes us independent of our
foes and even, when need be, of our friends. Dr. Jowett tells how he
visited an old, ruined castle in England and found far in the inner
precincts of that castle a gurgling and living spring.

What a treasure it was to the man who lived in that castle! His
enemies might besiege him and shut him in, but they could never cut off
his water supply. No foes however great were able to overcome him by
starvation for water because he had a fountain within. There was
within the castle a well of water springing up, and he was independent
of all outside sources.

Now, when Jesus had told this woman of the wonderful gift that He had
the power of imparting it is not at all strange that she answered,
"Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come all the way
here to draw." And that is just what Jesus desires above all else to
do for her. But there is one something in the way. Before Christ can
impart His saving and satisfying