en by the evening lamp, the Bible marked with
signs of diligent search. With all my heart I mean to press that
thought. It will be best to reserve for another Chapter certain
suggestions on methods of Bible study. But I may, and I will at once,
offer a few words on the subject in general. It is a subject which lies
near my heart, and of the urgent importance of which I am very sure.

THE ORDINATION CHARGE.

Above all then I would entreat you to be a Bible student _at whatever
cost of other religious reading_. It is a very common thing to
substitute, practically, for the Bible a little library of _livres de
piete_, as the French would call them, small "good books." Not very long
ago, in the course of an ordination examination, I came across an
instructive instance. In answer to a question in a "Pastoral Paper" for
candidates for Priest's Orders, a thoughtful young Clergyman stated
incidentally that he used every day with great profit certain devotional
books, and that about twice a week he took for definite meditation and
prayer a passage from the Gospels. It struck me that here was a strange
and sad inversion of the right order of proportion; devotional books
daily, and the New Testament (in any sense of earnest meditative study)
about twice a week! Very different, I thought, is the view and teaching
of the Church of England in this matter of the spiritual reading of her
Ministers. What does the Church say, through the Bishop, when the Deacon
is ordained Presbyter? "Seeing that you cannot by any other means
compass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation of
man, but with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures,
and with a life agreeable to the same; consider how studious ye ought to
be in reading and learning the Scriptures.... We have good hope that you
will continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only
Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost;
that, by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riper
and stronger in your Ministry."

And I need not go about to prove that the Church does not mean such
daily "reading and weighing" to wait till the young man is actually
ordained Priest. We should scarcely have had the First Homily of the
First Book written, if such had been her mind. Have you ever read over
that "Voice of the Church"?

M. HENRI LASSERRE ON DEVOTIONAL READING.

A remarkable confirmation of my present cont