November 28: Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. Isa. 12:3

The Word of God is living and powerful. We are to be cleansed "by the washing of water by the Word;" but that water must be living water. No stagnant pool of human tradition, no turbid current of doctrinal controversy, can refresh and cleanse the souls that thirst and pant for the living streams which flow from the throne. Those who would have living water must learn the way to the living fountain—the Word of God itself. A writer tells of two wells of the Doge of Venice: the water of one of them is brought in barges from a distance, and few care to taste the insipid draught; the other is a delicious natural well, cool and refreshing, and the people strive to obtain water from this fountain. Ministers of the gospel, who long to be of use in this world, must not content themselves with being mere sponges to absorb and then give out the thoughts and ideas of others; they must, on the contrary, draw water for themselves out of the wells of salvation, and know the virtue of those streams that make glad the city of our God. R565