Volume 2

Jesus in Sichar
193
Himself was to go the next day but one.
Jesus now returned with Dina and the other Samaritans
to Sichar, a city not very large, but with broad streets
and open squares. The Samaritan house of prayer was a
finer looking building, more ornamented than the synagogues
of small Jewish places. The women of Sichar
were not so reserved as the Jewish women; they communicated
more freely with the men. As soon as Jesus entered
Sichar, He was surrounded by a crowd. He did not
go into their synagogue, but taught walking around here
and there on the streets, and in one of the squares where
there was an orator's chair. Everywhere was the concourse
of people very great, and they were full of joy at
the Messiah's having come to them.
Dina, though very much moved and very recollected,
was of all the women the one that approached nearest to
Jesus. Her neighbors now looked upon her with special
regard, as she had been the first to find Jesus. She sent
the man with whom she was living to Jesus, who spoke to
him a few words of exhortation. He stood before Jesus
quite embarrassed, and ashamed of his sins. Jesus did not
tarry long in Sichar, but went out by the opposite gate
and taught here and there among the houses and gardens
that extended for some distance along the valley. He put
up at an inn distant from Sichar a good half-hour, promising,
however, to return to the city on the following day
and give them an instruction.
When Jesus went again to Sichar, He taught the whole
day, dividing the time between the orator's chair in the
city and the hills outside, and in the evening He taught
again in the inn. From the whole country around came
crowds to hear Him, and they followed Him from place
to place. The cry was: "Now He is teaching here! Now
He is teaching there!" The young man of Samaria also
listened to the instructions, but he did not speak with
Jesus.