to it. Down on your knees like Gideon's men; it is safest there; that is
the only attitude in which a man can drink of this fountain. Down on
your knees and put your lips to it--your very own lips--and drink for
your own soul's salvation. Christ died for the world. Yes; but the world
for which Christ died is made up of individuals who were in His heart.
It is Paul's words that I would beseech you to make your own: 'The Son
of God, who loved _me_ and gave Himself for _me_.' Every one of you is
entitled to say that, if you will. You remember that verse filled with
adoring contemplation that we sometimes sing, one word in which seems to
me to be coloured by the too sombre doctrine of the epoch from which it
came:--

'My soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear,
When hanging on the accursed tree,
And _knows_ her guilt was there.'

'He also is my strength and my song. He is become my salvation;
therefore, in joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'

Now, I have left myself no time to do more than say one word about that
last point, the gladness of the water-drawers. It is a pretty picture in
our text, full of the atmosphere and spirit of Eastern life: the cheery
talk and the ringing laughter round the village well, where the
shepherds with their flocks linger all day long, and the maidens from
their tents come--a kind of rude Exchange in the antique world; and,
says our prophet, 'As the dwellers in the land at their village springs,
so ye, the weary travellers at "the eye of the desert," will draw with
gladness.' So we have this joy.