fight back. They perceive that if the Bible is true there is no hope for them, and so they labor to prove it false. In no way, perhaps, could they be more inconsistent, but utter inconsistency is a freak of human nature. Good men do not rail against the Bible, and bad men, when they become good, love the old Book as ardently as they ever professed to hate it.

"If we had no Bible," strikingly suggests one, "and it were credibly announced that six months hence God would give us a book with his own thoughts and words, what a wonder and a joy it would be to the world! But having the book all our lives we fail to appreciate it as we ought. It lies on our tables, or on our library shelves, unopened and unread. To get profit from the Bible it must be studied. Its precious ores must be dug up and smelted in the furnace of study, comparison, and reflection.

"Who has not been struck with the few solid thoughts, the few suggestive ideas, which survive the perusal of the most brilliant of human books. Few of them can stand three readings, and of the memorabilia which you had marked in your first reading, on reverting to them you find that many of them were not so striking, or weighty, or original as you thought. But the Word of God is solid; it will stand a thousand readings, and the man who has gone over it the most frequently and carefully is the surest of finding new wonders there."

To enjoy the Bible, first of all, get a copy that is well-printed, nicely bound, and of convenient size. Large Bibles are unwieldy, and miniature Bibles have too fine print.

In the next place recognize the fact that there is a human element in the Bible. The translation is human, the division into chapter and verse is human, the arrangement of the separate books into their present order is human. The style of each writer is his own, and possibly the phraseology is sometimes left to his own choice. "Each writes," says Rev. Jesse S. Gilbert, "in his own peculiar style, yet all 'spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;' and from first to last it is God's book, containing God's truth and free from all error or mistake. Yet, as matter of fact and history, there are recorded the utterances of men-even of bad men, of bad spirits, and, in one case at least, of the devil himself. We must not

confound the bad logic of Job's friends, the rash expression of the rich fool, or the words of the Scribes and Pharisees, with the thoughts and teachings of the Holy Ghost. These are recorded simply as a matter of history."

Remember that some portions of the Bible were written to serve a special purpose in a given age of the world. Such was the cere monial and ritual law of the Jews, directions for constructing the temple, and so forth. Not that these records have no value, but that they have served their specific purpose, and are not of the same importance to us as the spiritual precepts of Jesus. Give your attention to the Bible as a whole. Think what a wonderful collection of wise and good books it is. Remember that these books were composed by many different persons, at intervals during a period of fifteen hundred years, at places far apart, under circumstances as widely different as the wealth of royalty and the poverty of subjection and imprisonment, and all this without one writer having as his guide the productions of previous writers. How could such a work be accomplished with the accuracy, literary ability, and general harmony which characterize the Bible, without the superintending presence and activity of the Holy Spirit?

Study your Bible, with all the helps at command, but if you have not a dictionary or a commentary, yet study it thoroughly. This is said to be the golden age of Bible instruction, but is it the golden age of Bible study, of deep searching after God's truth? Christ commands us to "Search the Scriptures," not merely to read them, or to be crammed by them. It seems almost unaccountable that one who loves the Lord Jesus should need such a command from him to read that which he has left on record concerning himself. "See that wife: her husband died among strangers, in a foreign land; his trunk is brought home. With what eagerness does she search for papers; and how untiringly does she pour over every line from his pen. At length, she finds a letter directed to herself, written just before he expired, expressive of all the affection of his soul, and giving much advice in reference to her future life. Think you she needs a command to read that letter often? No, verily— she would commit every sentence to memory-she would bathe it with tears, and press it to her heart-yes, she would value it above

silver or gold. How strange, then, that those who really love the Lord Jesus should need a command from him to read that which he has spoken for their comfort!—the sweet promises: 'Let not your heart be troubled;' Fear not little flock;' 'Nothing shall hurt you;' 'Ye shall still abide in my love;' 'I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you;' 'In my father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am ye may be also.' Methinks that every one of the dear little flock would clasp this precious volume, filled with the promises, sayings, and doings of Jesus, to his heart-keep it near his side, and pour over it night and day with untold delight. And especially when it is said, 'Let this same mind be in you which was also in Christ.' It might be supposed he would study most carefully the character of Christ, as exhibited in the Bible, to learn just what that mind is— yes, study it on his knees, praying continually that light from heaven might be shed down upon its sacred page. An opposer of religion once said, 'My wife has got so religious that she can't read her Bible without getting on her knees.' I knew that before he told me: her temper and spirit revealed the fact that the 'Comforter' was her Teacher."

Wesley did not make great attainments in the divine life till he became a man of one book, as he styled himself. He has given us a picture of himself in the attitude of a Bible student: "Here, then, I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone; only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his Book: for this end-to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate?— I lift up my heart to the Father of Light: 'Lord, is it not thy Word? If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, If any be willing to do thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do; let me know thy will.' I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. I meditate thereon with all the earnestness and attention of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God, and then the writings, whereby, being dead, they yet speak."

*

Louisa, the model queen of Prussia, when compelled by the victories of Napoleon to suffer humiliation and loss, said to a visitor, the Archbishop Borowsky, "I am reading that beautiful, and to me most precious psalm, the one hundred and twenty-sixth, which we spoke of together, and which I have now deeply reflected upon, and the more I study it, the more I am attracted by its beauty and sublimity. * * It is an elegy and a hymn. I look at this psalm as one looks at a lovely flower, on which the clear dew-drops of morning are glistening with the sun's bright rays." Happy are they who, like this noble queen, "through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, have obtained hope." Happy is he who has learned to say, with the monarch of Israel: "Thy testimonies are my delight and my counselors."

Martin Luther, whose own words "shook the world," drew his inspiration from the Word of God. He literally fed upon divine truth. He so appropriated the Bible to himself that he called it his own, as if it were his exclusive property. It was

the man of his counsel, the staff on which he leaned, the source of his strength and consolation. In the preface to his commentary on the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm, he says:

"I have returned to my estate, and taken before me my dear psalm, the beautiful one hundred and eighteenth, and have now put my thoughts upon it on paper, because I am sitting here in solitude, and must sometimes relieve my head and intermit the toil of translating the Hebrew prophets, which, nevertheless, I hope to have completed very soon. This I say is my psalm, for I love it for although the whole psalter and all the Holy Bible is dear to me, and is, indeed, my only comfort and life, yet I am especially indebted to this psalm; so that it must be called mine, and be mine, for it has often done me very great service, and has helped me out of many and great difficulties, so as no emperor, king, sage, saint, or prudent man could help me, and it is dearer to me than all the honor, wealth and power of pope, Turk, emperor and all the world, so that I would not exchange this one psalm for them all. If any one thinks it strange that I should boast of this psalm as my psalm, when it belongs to all the world, let such an one know that when I make this psalm

mine, I do not take it away from anybody else. Christ is mine, and yet the same Christ belongs to all the saints besides. I will not be stingy with my psalm; I will be very generous. Would God that all the world might lay claim to this psalm as well as I; that would be a glorious, lovely litigation, such as no harmony or peace were worthy to be compared with it."

At the time the Diet was in session at Augsburg, when the cause of the Reformation was passing through one of its most fiery trials, Luther, for safe-keeping, was guarded in the castle of Coburg. An idea of his habits and feelings at this time may be formed from a letter written to Melanchthon by Veit Dietrich, a young theological student acting as Luther's personal attendant while confined in the castle. "I can never sufficiently admire," says Dietrich in his letter, "Luther's exceeding steadfastness, joy, faith, and hope, in these distressing times. This feeling he augments every day by a diligent use of the Word of God. Not a day passes in which he does not spend at least three hours, and those the best for study, in prayer. I sometimes have the good fortune to overhear his prayers. My God! what a spirit, what faith there is in his words; he prays so devotionally, as one who is speaking with God, and yet with such confidence and faith as one who is talking with his father. I know,' said he, in his prayer, 'that thou art our dear God and Father, and that therefore thou wilt bring our persecutors to naught. If thou doest it not, the danger is thine as well as ours; the whole cause is thine; what we have done we were obliged to do; and therefore, dear Father, thou wilt protect thine own cause.' When I heard him in the distance praying in such words, with his clear sonorous voice, my heart burnt in my body for joy, because I heard him speaking so devotionally and so lovingly with God; but especially because he urged so hard the promises in the Psalms, as if he were certain that what he asked for must be granted. Therefore I doubt not that his prayers will be a great help to us in this (to human appearance) desperate cause, which is now in discussion before the Diet." Carvosso, Taylor, and other eminent saints, had similar habits of Scripture investigation. If we would be spiritual, we must search after spiritual truth and apply it to our hearts. There must be