and such; but I was mistaken. It is _the_ method of all for all.
It underlies all methods of getting a grasp of this wonderful Book, and so
coming to as full and rounded an understanding of God as is possible to
men down here.

By wide reading is meant a _rapid reading through_ regardless of verse,
chapter, or book divisions. Reading it as _a narrative_, a story. As you
would read any book, "The Siege of Pekin," "The Story of an Untold Love,"
to find out the story told, and be able to tell to another. There will be
a reverence of spirit with this book that no other inspires, but with the
same intellectual method of running through to see what is here. No book
is so fascinating as the Bible when read this way. The revised version is
greatly to be preferred here simply because it is a _paragraph_ version.
It is printed more like other books. Some day its printed form will be yet
more modernized, and so made easier to read.

To illustrate, begin at the first of Genesis, and read rapidly through _by
the page_. Do not try to understand all. You will not. Never mind that
now. Just push on. Do not try to remember all. Do not think about that.
Let stick to you what will. You will be surprised to find how much will.
You may read ten or twelve pages in your first half hour. Next time start
in where you left off. You may get through Genesis in three or four times,
or less or more, depending on your mood, and how fast your habit of
reading may be. You will find a whole Bible in Genesis. A wonderfully
fascinating book this Genesis. For love stories, plotting, swift action,
beautiful language it more than matches the popular novel.

But do not stop at the close of Genesis. Push on into Exodus. The
connection is immediate. It is the same book. And so on into Leviticus.
Now do not try to understand Leviticus the first time. You will not the
hundredth time perhaps. But you can easily group its contents: these
chapters tell of the offerings: these of the law of offerings: here is an
incident put in: here sanitary regulations: get the drift of the book. And
in it all be getting the picture of God--_that is the one point_. And so
on through.

A second stage of this wide reading is fitting together the parts. You
know the arrangement of our Bible is not chronological wholly, but
topical. The Western mind is almost a slave to chronological order. But
the Oriental was not so disturbed. For example, open your Bible to the
close of Esther,