A Memorable day opened that morning Jesus stopped at Jacob's well. The well is there today, at the foot of the mountain by the roadside, halfway between Jerusalem and Nazareth. Many who read these lines have looked into its depths; for it is deep, fifty feet to the water. Jesus had been teaching in and about the holy city. He was now on his way northward to his native Galilee, weary, for the moment, because the journey had been tedious and his reception in the South none too cordial.
As he sat by the well resting, a woman of Samaria came to draw water. Soon their conversation precipitated the usual argument between Jew and Samaritan as to whom or what men should worship; and how and where. "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain," she started out; "and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." "Woman," countered Jesus, "believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.... God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
What a pronouncement! God everywhere, and everywhere to be adored! No confines to His presence, no lack of opportunity to commune with Him. He is in the home, the shop, the field, the mine, the air, on the sea, at the battle front. Wherever one of His people is, there is He, and there is He available. The primitive notion, entertained by the Samaritan woman, that God is patriarchal or manlike or corporeal, restricted to a particular locale, is brushed aside by the renowned Teacher. The ecclesiastical theory that He can be approached only in the temple, and there only by petition and expiation, is exploded. Communion with Deity, then, can be anywhere, at any time, by anybody, to any extent. One can pray without ceasing, as Scripture enjoins, in the silent hours of night or in the busy hours of day, for spiritual thinking is perpetual motion.
