and again at the close of Malachi. This from Genesis to
Esther we all know is the historical section: and this second section the
poetical and prophetical section. There is some history in the prophecy,
and some prophecy and poetry in the historical part. But in the main this
first is historical, and this second poetry and prophecy. These two parts
belong together. This first section was not written, and then this second.
The second belongs in between the leaves of the first. It was taken out
and put by itself because the arrangement of the whole Book is topical
rather than chronological.

Now the second stage of wide reading is this: fit these parts together.
Fit the poetry and the prophecy into the history. Do it on your own
account, as though it had never been done. It has been done much better
than you will do it. And you will make some mistakes. You can check those
up afterwards by some of the scholarly books. And you cannot tell where
some parts belong. But meanwhile the thing to note is this: you are
absorbing the Book. It is becoming a part of you, bone of your bone, and
flesh of your flesh, mentally, and spiritually. You are drinking in its
spirit in huge draughts. There is coming a new vision of God, which will
transform radically the reverent student. In it all seek to acquire _the
historical sense_. That is, put yourself back and see what this thing, or
this, meant to these men, as it was first spoken, under these immediate
circumstances.

And so push on into the New Testament. Do not try so much to fit the four
gospels into one connected story, dovetailing all the parts; but try
rather to get a clear grasp of Jesus' movements those few years as told by
these four men. Fit Paul's letters into the book of Acts, the best you
can. The best book to help in checking up here is Conybeare and Howson's
"Life and Letters of St. Paul." That may well be one of the books in your
collection.

You see at once that this is a method not for a month, nor for a year, but
for years. The topical and textual study grow naturally out of it. And
meanwhile you are getting an intelligent grasp of this wondrous classic,
you are absorbing the finest literature in the English tongue, and
infinitely better yet, you are breathing into your very being a new, deep,
broad, tender conception of _God_.

<u>A Mirror Held up to God's Face.</u>

It is simply fascinating too, to find what light floods these pages as
they are read back