counsels and prayers was
delivered from many snares.

One lesson, yet to be learned, was that the one fountain of all wisdom
and strength is the Holy Scriptures. Many disciples practically prefer
religious books to the Book of God. He had indeed found much of the
reading with which too many professed believers occupy their minds to be
but worthless chaff--such as French and German novels; but as yet he had
not formed the habit of reading the word of God daily and systematically
as in later life, almost to the exclusion of other books. In his
ninety-second year, he said to the writer, that for every page of any
other reading he was sure he read ten of the Bible. But, up to that
November day in 1825 when he first met a praying band of disciples, he
had never to his recollection read one chapter in the Book of books; and
for the first four years of his new life he gave to the works of
uninspired men practical preference over the Living Oracles.

After a true relish for the Scriptures had been created, he could not
understand how he could ever have treated God's Book with such neglect.
It seemed obvious that _God's having condescended to become an Author,_
inspiring holy men to write the Scriptures, He would in them impart the
most vital truths; His message would cover all matters which concern
man's welfare, and therefore, under the double impulse of duty and
delight, we should instinctively and habitually turn to the Bible.
Moreover, as he read and studied this Book of God, he felt himself
admitted to more and more _intimate acquaintance with the Author._
During the last twenty years of his life he read it carefully through,
four or five times annually, with a growing sense of his own rapid
increase in the knowledge of God thereby.

Such motives for Bible study it is strange that any true believer should
overlook. Ruskin, in writing "Of the King's Treasuries," refers to the
universal ambition for 'advancement in life,' which means 'getting into
good society.' How many obstacles one finds in securing an introduction
to the great and good of this world, and even then in getting access to
them, in securing an audience with the kings and queens of human
society! Yet there is open to us a society of people of the very first
rank who will meet us and converse with us so long as we like, whatever
our ignorance, poverty, or low estate--namely, the society of authors;
and the key that unlocks their private audience-chamber is th