Alexander MacLaren has written, “I remember a rough parable of [Martin] Luther’s grafted on an older legend, which runs somewhat in this fashion: A man’s heart is like a foul stable. Wheelbarows and shovels are of little use, except to remove some of the surface filth, and to litter all the passages in the process. What is to be done with it? ‘Turn the river Elbe into it,’ says he. The flood will sweep away all the pollution.”

Today in the Word, September, 1989, p. 12