There is no human heart but yearns to know of spiritual good. The plea of the woman of Samaria, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw," has been heard down the centuries. Mankind had come often, and a long way, to draw at the well, but there had been no quenching of the thirst to know; for material sense has no real quality whereby spiritual good is discerned. At length the plea found its full measure of divine content in the clear depths of spiritual truth, presented to this age in the discovery of Christian Science.
The story of the well—a symbol of knowledge—is of exceeding interest in Bible narrative. Its recurrence in the journeyings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob unquestionably presents it as states of thought, through which each individual passes as he seeks to know more about God, and strives to reflect what he understands. The regeneration of human thought is a process during which each must dig his own wells; and, if the strife of evil beliefs for conquest of these wells permits no resting beside them until the journey's end, we, having the faithfulness of Abraham as our example, will sometime know the peace of that understanding which brought to him abundant room and fruitfulness in the land.
Evidence of our knowledge of good best appears when charity and justice give freely of the waters of life, even to those who seek to destroy our wells. So, to have reached Beersheba in our mental journey is to understand the spirit of fellowship, and the well of brotherly love beside which Abraham and Abimelech entered into a mutual agreement for fair dealing that was designed to bless their descendants also. It was an eternal compact of love for all mankind. "Seven ewe lambs" typified the first fruits of the Spirit, and represented a perfect expression of Mind, a full offering of unselfed love by which the covenant was sealed. Thereafter, Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines "many days."
