truth."

But this did not satisfy her. It was all so new and strange, so
different from what she and her people believed, that she was not
prepared to accept it from an unknown stranger, though he seemed to be a
prophet. She thought of One greater than she thought He could be, One
who was wiser than any prophet then living, or who ever had lived, One
who she believed was to come. So, with a sigh of disappointment, her
only reply was, "I know that Messiah cometh; ... when He is come, He
will declare unto us all things."

How the quickened ear of John must have made his heart thrill at the
name Messiah. Until a few weeks before, he too had talked of His
coming, but already had heard Him declare many things which no mere
prophet had spoken. Is he not prompted to break the silence of a mere
listener? Is not his finger already pointed toward Jesus? Are not the
words already on his tongue?--"O woman, _this is He_," when Jesus makes
the great confession he made before Pilate, saying to the Samaritaness,
"I that speak unto Thee, am He."

So it was that He whose coming the angels in their glory announced to
the shepherds in Bethlehem, He whom the Baptist proclaimed to multitudes
on the Jordan, He whose glory was manifested to the company in Cana,
made Himself known to this low, ignorant, sinful, doubting, perplexed
stranger, in words "to which all future ages would listen, as it were
with hushed breath and on their knees."

These words of Jesus to the woman, "I am He," closed their conversation,
so unexpected to her when she came with her water-pot, in which she had
lost all interest. Her mind and heart had been filled instead. She had