A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister by Harvey Newcomb
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page 24 of 290 (08%)
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the leaven begins to work, it increases without ceasing, till the whole
is leavened. Again; Christ says, "the water that I shall give him shall be _in him_ a well of water, _springing up into everlasting life_." When these words were uttered, our Lord was sitting upon a deep well, in conversation with the woman of Samaria. As his custom was, he drew instruction from the objects around him. He directed her attention away from the water which can only quench animal thirst, to that living water which refreshes the soul. But she, not understanding him, wished to know how he could obtain _living water_ from a deep well, without anything to draw with. In order to show the superiority of the water of life, he told her that those who drank it should have it _in them_, constantly springing up of itself, as if the waters of the well should rise up and overflow, without being drawn. The very idea of a _living spring_ seems to cut off the hope of backsliders. You remember the cold spring that used to flow from the rock, before our father's door. The severest drought never affected it, and in the coldest season of a northern winter it was never frozen. Oft, as I rose in the morning, when the chilling blasts whistled around our dwelling, and everything seemed sealed up with perpetual frost, the ice and snow would be smoking around the spring. Thus, like a steady stream, let your graces flow, unaffected by the drought or barrenness of others, melting the icy hearts around you. This "_living water_," in the soul, is intended to represent the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In the new birth, there is formed a holy union between the Spirit of God and the faculties of the soul, so that every correct feeling, with every good act, is produced by the Holy Spirit acting in unison with those faculties. Hence, our bodies are |
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