the day of the crucifixion, at the sixth hour, (John xix. 14,) it was six o'clock in the morning. And finally, they saw thit when Jesus, in the passage before us, sat wearied on flie well a' the sixth hour, it means six o'clock in t!ie evening. Moreover, they plead in support of their view, that it is inhn't ly more likely that a woman would come to a well to draw water at S'x o'clock in the evening than at twelve o'clock ia the day. In Gen sis it is dis inctly said that the "evening" is the " time that women go out to draw water." (Gen. xxiv. 11.)
These arguments are undoubtedly weighty and ingenious, and the matter is one that admits of doubt. Nevertheless, for several reasons, I am disposed to think that the common view of the question is the correct one, and that the sixth hour in this place means twelve o'clock in the day. I purposely omit the con- sideration of the other places where St. John mentions hours in his Gospel. None of them seem to me to present any difficulty, except the " sixth hour," in St. John's account of the crucifixion'. That difficulty I shall be prepared to examine in its proper place. I think then that the " sixth hour " in the text before us, means twelve o'clock, for the following reasons :
(a.) It seems exceedingly improbable that St. John would reckon time in a manner different to the other three Gospel- writers.
(J.) It is by no means clear that the Romans did reckon time in our way, and not in the Jewish way. When the Roman poet Horace describes himself as lying late in bed in a morning, he says, " I lie till the fourth hour." He must surely mean ten o'clock, and not four in the afternoon. — When the Roman poet Martial describes the Roman day, he says, " The first and second hours are employed by clients in attending levees, and the third hour exercises the advocates in the law-courts." — He surely can- not mean that Roman law-courts did not open till two o'clock in the afternoon. About the custom of the Asiatics I offer no opinion. It is a doubtful point.
(c.) It is entirely a gratuitous assumption to say that no woman ever came to draw water except in the evening. There must surely be exceptions to every rule. The fact of the woman coming alone, seems of itself to indicate that she came at an unusual hour, and not in the evening.
{d.) Last, but not least, it seems far more probable that our Lord would hold a conversation alone with such a person as the Samaritan woman at twelve o'clock in the day, than at six o'clock in the evening. The conversation was not a very short one. Ihere is little or no twilight in Eastern countries. The night soon comes on. And yet, on the theory I oppose, our Lord ])egins a conversation about six o'clock, and carries it on