Alcedon's Fountain

By St Michael’s church at Alecdon in Cumbria is a drinking fountain. Having walked up from the village to that church on the hill, many a worshipper must have felt grateful for such provision at their journey’s end. Upon is written are words based upon Revelation 7:17:

He shall lead them unto living fountains of waters

When I investigated the water, however, I was disinclined to quaff therefrom. It was a blustery January afternoon, and I was watered already. Yet it was not a beverage I would have sought had it been a balmy afternoon in June. The water’s cleanness and purity were open to question and the receptacle in which it sat looked dirty. The verse, of course, is describing the spiritual water of Christ’s grace rather than the physical molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, here stagnating on a Cumbrian hillside. This water is but a picture of Christ's, though a rather unappealing one. On earth, we are Christ’s ambassadors, His workers, His servants, His spokesmen. How well do we advertise our Master’s excellence? Or how great a contrast do we provide between the scriptural promise and the earthly equivalent?