that is not to be got out of books, even the best.

I remember many years ago, when I was much younger, asking one of our
leading water-colour artists,[3] how he would recommend me to study
landscape painting, and he said: "Practise continually from Nature, and
you will learn more than any one can teach you; that is how I have
learnt, myself." On the subject, then in question, he said just what
Jesus did: "Here I am as a practical example of what I tell you." And
another thing is, that the more you think principles out for yourself
and try to observe them in practice, the clearer the meaning of your
book will become to you. I have a few excellent books on painting, but I
had no idea how excellent they were when I first got them; practical
experience has taught me to find much more in them than I did at first,
for now I understand better what they are talking about. Well, that is
the way to read the Bible, neither despising it as worthless tradition,
nor treating the mere letter of it with superstitious veneration; both
extremes are to be equally avoided. In fact the Bible tells us so
itself: "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. iii, 6);
this, of course, does not mean that the letter can be tampered with, any
more than a judge can alter the wording of a document put in evidence;
it must be interpreted in the general sense of the document as a whole;
and when the letter is thus vivified by the Spirit, it will be found
fully to express it. But we require to enter into the Spirit of it
first.

Now it appears to me, that taken in this way, the Bible is an
exceedingly practical book, and that is why I want the reader to get at
some general principles which he will find, _mutatis mutandis_, equally
applicable all round, whether to electricity, or to life, and whatever
may be the subject-matter, it will always be found to resolve itself
into a question of the relation between Law and Personality. If now we
read the Bible Promises in the light of the general principles we have
considered in the earlier pages, we shall find that they are all
Promises according to Law. They are statements of the results to be
obtained by a truer realization of the principles of Law and Personality
than we have hitherto apprehended.

We must always bear in mind that the Law is set in motion by the Word.
The Word does not _make_ the Law, but gives it something to work upon,
so that without the Word there could be no manifestati