il to
read the Bible through in a year? Because you have read it three times in
course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think
you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you?

"Well, be a law keeper if you must, but keep the whole law, and keep it
perfectly, in spirit and in letter, or you will fail! And if you fail in
one single instance, in spirit or in letter, you fail in all, and must
bear the curse. You must continue in _all things_ written in the law to
do them. Are you ready to try that? Christ could do it, and he did do it,
but can you? And, if not, what? You must choose between keeping the law
and trusting in Christ who has kept it for you. You cannot serve two
masters: the Law and Christ. Now, I know I cannot keep the law and so I
have given up; all I can do is to trust in Christ to save me, in Christ
who is able to obey all God's law for me, and so I trust him and love
him, and obey him with the strength he gives me. If we love him, we will
keep his commandments, he says. 'I can do all things through Christ
strengthening me'--even keep his commandments, which are not grievous. If
you must be a law keeper in your own strength, give up Christ and cling
to the law to save you, or else give up keeping the law for your
salvation and cling to Christ. Keep his commandments because you love
him, and not keep the old law to save your soul by your own obedience.
Read the Bible because you love it, every word. Read till you are full of
some message he gives you, and then shut it up; don't keep on, because
you must read so many chapters a day.

"My plan is--and I tell you because it has been blessed to me--to ask him
to feed me with his truth, feed me _full_, and then I open the Book and
read. One day I was filled full with one clause: '_Because they
fainted_.' I closed it, I could read no more. At another time I read a
whole Epistle before I had all I was hungry for. One evening I read a
part of Romans and was so excited that I could not sleep for some time
that night. Don't you like that better than reading on and on because
you have set yourself to do it, and ending with a feeling of relief
because it is _done_, at last? These human hearts are naughty things and
need more grace continually. Just try my way--not my way but God's way
for me,--and see how full you will be fed with your daily reading.

"I just bethought myself of a page in an old journal; I'll copy it for
you. It has