resolutely
consistent lessons which so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make
every word of them familiar to my ear in habitual music,--yet in that
familiarity reverenced, as transcending all thought, and ordaining all
conduct.

This she effected, not by her own sayings or personal authority; but
simply by compelling me to read the book thoroughly, for myself. As soon
as I was able to read with fluency, she began a course of Bible work
with me, which never ceased till I went to Oxford. She read alternate
verses with me, watching, at first, every intonation of my voice, and
correcting the false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if
within my reach, rightly, and energetically. It might be beyond me
altogether; that she did not care about; but she made sure that as soon
as I got hold of it at all, I should get hold of it by the right end.

In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, and went straight
through, to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers,
Levitical law, and all; and began again at Genesis the next day. If a
name was hard, the better the exercise in pronunciation,--if the chapter
was tiresome, the better lesson in patience,--if loathsome, the better
lesson in faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken. After
our chapters, (from two to three a day, according to their length, the
first thing after breakfast, and no interruption from servants
allowed,--none from visitors, who either joined in the reading or had to
stay upstairs,--and none from any visitings or excursions, except real
travelling), I had to learn a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make
sure I had not lost, something of what was already known; and, with the
chapters thus gradually possessed from the first word to the last, I had
to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, which are
good, melodious, and forceful verse; and to which, together with the
Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear in sound.

It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus
taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was, to my
child's mind, chiefly repulsive--the 119th Psalm--has now become of all
the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love
for the Law of God, in opposition to the abuse of it by modern preachers
of what they imagine to be His gospel.

But it is only by deliberate effort that I recall the long morning hours
of to