He was
a preacher of the Gospel, it was true; and it was his duty, a duty on
which he insisted, to be "instant in season and out of season" in
saying spiritual things to his flock; but then they were things
proper, decent, conventional, uttered with gravity at suitable times-
-such as were customary amongst all the ministers of the
denomination. It was not pleasant to be outbid in his own
department, especially by one who was not a communicant, and to be
obliged, when he went on a pastoral visit to a house in which Mrs.
Butts happened to be, to sit still and hear her, regardless of the
minister's presence, conclude a short mystical monologue with
Cowper's verse -
"Exults our rising soul,
Disburdened of her load,
And swells unutterably full
Of glory and of God."
This was NOT pleasant to our minister, nor was it pleasant to the
minister's wife. But George Butts held a responsible position in our
community, and the minister's wife held also a responsible position,
so that she taxed all her ingenuity to let her friends understand at
tea-parties what she thought of Mrs. Butts without saying anything
which could be the ground of formal remonstrance. Thus did Mrs.
Butts live among us, as an Arabian bird with its peculiar habits,
cries, and plumage might live in one of our barn-yards with the
ordinary barn-door fowls.
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