Systematic Reading of the Bible.
THE Bible holds the first place among the means of implanting and promoting divine life in the soul; and the Christian who fails to keep in some way the great truths of the Bible steadily before his mind, will find the vigor of his graces departing. No other reading will serve as a substitute for reading the Bible. No other study or meditation will answer the purpose of the word of Christ, dwelling in us richly in all wisdom. If we look for religion to be revived, our expectation will be realized, only by the mind of the Church being brought in steadier contact with the lively oracles. When the Christian mind awakes from its comparative coldness to a higher state of vitality and devotedness, the word of God invariably does the work of an instrument of the quickening. And when conviction of sin, and those struggles of mind which are wont to precede conversion, are experienced by the impenitent, it is the contents of the Bible which have introduced them; and that religious experience which holds the Bible at a distance, or that does not stand immediately connected with some fact or principle of the divine word, is spurious. The habitual reading of the Bible, joined with prayerful meditations, becomes then a duty of the first importance. Other ways of bringing the contents of the Bible to bear upon the mind, have each their suitableness and proportionate value, but none of them can supersede the habitual reading of the word of God. And hence it becomes an important question how we shall engage our minds, so as to secure the advantages of this steady draught from the fountains of divine truth; and not be robbed of it by the rush of worldly cares, and the multiplied calls upon us for secular employment. To this end, we need to seize the advantage of system and habit; and for the sake of a system which shall hold the mind19to the engagement, it is well to take up the purpose of reading the Bible through, once a year. If this purpose be adopted and pursued, it will insure to us an amount of Bible-reading which we should not probably attain without it; and this circumstance alone might be the means of giving a new impulse to our growth in grace. By holding the mind upon the word of God, as we should by that means, we soon create another power to help us on in our course; we mean the power of habit. After we become for a course of years accustomed to such an amount of application of the mind to the Bible, it will not only become easy and pleasant to find the time to devote to it, but it will have become in a measure necessary. We shall be uneasy and dissatisfied without it. The great secret of thrift in sanctification lies very much in a regulation of the power of habit. We do with ease, and rarely forget to do, that which we have been accustomed to do, and in no particular is the force of habit better applied, than when applied to bind upon our minds the principles of the truth. It is very true, that one may read the Bible through in course and often repeat such courses, with little spiritual profit. But if the Christian takes up the resolution to carry out this system of Bible-reading, with a view to this spiritual thrift, and if with this end in view he follows it up from year to year, he can hardly fail to derive rich advantage from it.—Christian Press.