order to obey it. To read the Bible thinking to
please God by the mere reading of it, is to think like a heathen."

"And aren't we to say our prayers, father?"

"We are to ask God for what we want. If we don't want a thing, we are
only acting like pagans to speak as if we did, and call it prayer, and
think we are pleasing him."

I was silent. My father resumed.

"I fancy the old man we are going to see found out the tune of _his_
life long ago."

"Is he a very wise man then, father?"

"That depends on what you mean by _wise_. _I_ should call him a wise
man, for to find out that tune is the truest wisdom. But he's not a
learned man at all. I doubt if he ever read a book but the Bible,
except perhaps the Pilgrim's Progress. I believe he has always been
very fond of that. _You_ like that--don't you, Ranald?"

"I've read it a good many times, father. But I was a little tired of
it before I got through it last time."

"But you did read it through--did you--the last time, I mean?"

"Oh yes, father. I never like to leave the loose end of a thing
hanging about."

"That's right, my boy; that's right. Well, I think you'd better not
open the book again for a long time--say twenty years at least. It's a
great deal too good a book to let yourself get tired of. By that time
I trust you will be able to understand it a great deal better than you
can at present."

I felt a little sorry that I was not to look at the Pilgrim's Progress
for twenty years; but I am very glad of it now.

"We must not spoil good books by reading them too much," my father
added. "It is often better to think about them than to read them; and
it is best never to do either when we are tired of them. We should get
tired of the sunlight itself, beautiful as it is, if God did not send
it away every night. We're not even fit to have moonlight always. The
moon is buried in the darkness every month. And because we can bear
nothing for any length of time together, we are sent to sleep every
night, that we may begin fresh again in the morning."

"I see, father, I see," I answered.

We talked on until we came in sight of John Jamieson's cottage.

What a poor little place it was to look at--built of clay, which had
hardened in the sun till it was just one brick! But it was a better
place to live in than it looked, for no wind could come through the
walls, although there was plenty of wind about. Three little windows
looked eastward to the rising sun, and