o read, and is now entirely
out of date.

Now the Samaritans had not only refused to accept the new and improved
form of letters--they had rejected as well all the fresh light and
inspiration which God was continually giving to His people through the
Holy prophets. According to the Samaritans, Moses was the only true
prophet. Thus they cut themselves adrift from further light, and
little by little the nations had dwindled away.

Yet because so many of the Samaritans in the time of Christ were
faithful to the measure of light they had, and kept alive in their
hearts the hope of a coming Messiah, God made for them a wonderful way
of escape.

Every Bible reader knows and loves that beautiful scene by the well of
Sychar, in Samaria, where the Saviour began by asking a woman for water
to drink, and ended by explaining to her some of the deepest truths of
God's Kingdom.

We understand now why the woman was so surprised that a Jew should
condescend to speak to her, and why the Jews would have '_no dealings
with the Samaritans_.' As we have seen, a great barrier divided her
from all ordinary Jewish teachers--she had been taught to believe in an
altered Bible.

Not merely a different translation, remember, for the Bible should be
the same in every language, but a Book of the Law in which some of the
words had been changed and the original meaning destroyed.

So the woman said to our Lord, '_Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to
worship._' (John iv. 20.)

The Saviour had not said so, but she felt sure that He, as a Jew, would
certainly contradict the old traditions of his countrymen.

But the Lord Jesus Christ had come to show the world that it was no
longer a question of this mountain or that. Such matters had been but
a shadow of the good things to come. '_God is a Spirit: and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth._' (John iv. 24.)

With these words Jesus, the Messiah, for whom both Jews and Samaritans
were waiting, threw down the barrier of ages, and united the two
nations in a spiritual worship.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BIBLE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS CHRIST

[Illustration: (drop cap S) Reading from a Roll--old Roman Painting]

Slowly but surely, as time went on, God was adding to His Book, until
about four hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ the Old
Testament Scriptures, in their present shape, were completed.