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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

. . and yet perhaps it would be better not. The insight of
women upon matters of this sort was deeper and more unerring than that of
men. It was a woman and not a man who had been filled most completely
with the whole fulness of the Deity. But why had they not treasured up
the water after it was used? It ought never, never to have been thrown
away, but it had been. Perhaps, however, this was for the best too--they
might have been tempted to set too much store by it, and it might have
become a source of spiritual danger to them--perhaps even of spiritual
pride, the very sin of all others which she most abhorred. As for the
channel through which the Jordan had flowed to Battersby, that mattered
not more than the earth through which the river ran in Palestine itself.
Dr Jones was certainly worldly--very worldly; so, she regretted to feel,
had been her father-in-law, though in a less degree; spiritual, at heart,
doubtless, and becoming more and more spiritual continually as he grew
older, still he was tainted with the world, till a very few hours,
probably, before his death, whereas she and Theobald had given up all for
Christ's sake. _They_ were not worldly.


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