Encouragement of Bible Study.
CERTAIN prominent Canada papers have undertaken to popularize Bible study. Churches, Sunday-schools, and such other means as are ordinarily employed, will be supplemented by a method which not only covers in general the entire field, but also deals largely in detail. The particular kind of Bible study insisted upon is represented as being most profitable, and, with the incentive offered, most entertaining. The plan proposed furnishes employment of a high character for the long winter evenings, for both old and young. The profit to be gained from the study, under this plan, will be pecuniary as well as intellectual. Gold and silver watches, chains, lockets, rings, etc., are presented to the students of this school. An idea of the scope of the work may be obtained from the announcements made. In the work mapped out by one journal the student is expected to ascertain (1) how many times the word Lord occurs in the Bible? (2) how many times the word Jehovah is found in the Bible? (3) whether there are two chapters in the Bible exactly alike, and if so, where they are? Another journal instructs its students to ascertain (1) how many letters there are in the Bible? (2) how many words? (3) what verse in the Bible contains all the letters of the alphabet, counting I and J as one? It would be no easy task to reckon the results, in respect either to amount or character, of Biblical knowledge acquired by these methods. To know that there are 3,586,483 letters in the Bible, 773,693 words, 31,373 verses, and 1,189 chapters; or to have learned that the words "Jehovah" and "Lord" occur a certain number of times—how valuable such knowledge must be. And in addition to the knowledge thus attained, sight must not be lost of "a pair of beautiful heavily-plated gold bracelets," or "a solid gold gem ring," which falls to the lot of that arithmetical individual who succeeds first in making himself master of this practical information. How strange that respectable journals will lend themselves to such folly, or allow their pages to be used in advertising such nonsense. Yet the announcement informs us that this is done to encourage Bible study (!). We trust that entertainment of a more profitable character, and Biblical study of a different type, may be provided for both the children and the adults of Canada. Let us have Bible study; let us encourage it; but let us be sure that it is Bible study.—Old Testament Student.