Clerical Library John 4:20-29 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.… Dr. Guthrie tells of a poor woman who dwelt in one of the darkest and most wretched quarters of Edinburgh. Away from her native home, and without one earthly friend, she had floated there, a stranger in a strange land, to sink into the most abject poverty; her condition but one degree better than our Saviour's — in common with the fox, she had a hole to lay her head in. Yet, although poor and outwardly wretched, she was a child of God, one of the jewels which, if sought for, we should sometimes find in dust-heaps. With a bashfulness not unnatural, she had shrunk from exposing her poverty to the stare of well-robed congregations, resorting on Sabbath-days to the well — appropiate place — where a pious man was wont to preach to ragged outcasts, crying in the name of Jesus, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." In ignorance of this, and supposing that she was living, like the mass around her, in careless neglect of her soul, Dr. Guthrie begun to warn her; but she interrupted him, and, drawing herself up with an air of humble dignity, and half offended, said, "Sir, I worship at the well, and am sure that if we are true believers in Jesus, and love him, and try to follow Him, we shall never be asked at the Judgment-day, 'Where did you worship?'" (Clerical Library.) Parallel Verses KJV: Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. |
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