At every turn, under all circumstances of testimony, how does the humiliation of the Lord unto death stand prominently forward. In the case before us, the eunuch was reading Esaias when Philip was bidden to go and join himself to the chariot. In considering the last quotation we saw how the murderous spirit, which issued in the betrayal and murder of the Lord was the permanent trait in Israel's character, and if so of human nature. Here, on the contrary, the universal applicability of that death as a cure begins to open upon us. In itself the ground of Israel's rejection in nature, it was yet, through grace, the open door for the Lord to deal in grace with Israel. But grace was beyond promise, higher up, as it were, nearer the fountain-head, and as open to Gentiles in itself as to the Jews. The promises and covenants, they were Israel's; but grace, which alone secured them through the death of Jesus, knew no such restraints; and in this very context we get it, as it were, traveling in the gladdened heart of the eunuch into the far country of the Ethiopians, so bringing before us the first thoughts of that wider range, apart from. Jerusalem, which grace was about to take. In the record of the preaching to the Samaritans, the fact of the preaching is merely stated, none of the particulars of it; but both here and in the next citation, where the circle of testimony is widening, the humiliation of the Lord unto death is distinctly mentioned. I think this observable: for the mercy to the Samaritans was in their being noticed at all by the Spirit; and as we see, from our. Lord's conduct with the woman of Samaria, they were not reckoned as being altogether and entirely upon different ground to that on which Israel in His day stood but to the Gentiles, as such, He had nothing to say until rejected unto death by Israel, whereby He gained in resurrection the place of blessing whom He would.