Verse 53 There was a bitter theological controversy between the Jews and the Samaritans, on the question whether Jerusalem, or a mountain in Samaria, was the proper place for the national worship. (For other allusions to this controversy, see John 4:9,19.) Such contention and hatred, for such a cause, seem to us, at this day, sufficiently absurd. We have, however, an abundance of controversies of our own, of the same character;--disputes destroying the spirit of Christianity, in a merciless war about the forms in which it should be imbodied.