[Sidenote: The Author's Plan]
Let me now speak of what I, personally, began to do after the suggestion of the layman, for the results which, in the providence of God, have grown out of it seem to warrant dwelling upon it even at the risk of prolixity on the one hand or the suspicion of egotism on the other. At first, supposing it more desirable to read the books in the original than the vernacular, I began to memorise some of the smaller epistles in Greek, but the Lord showed me "a more excellent way" in view of the purpose which the event proved Him to have had in mind in the matter. Accordingly, ignoring the Bible tongues for the time, I read Genesis through in the English at a single reading, and then repeated the process again and again until the book in its great outlines had practically become mine. Then I took up Exodus in the same way, Leviticus, Numbers, and practically all the other books of the Old and New Testaments to Revelation, with the exception of Proverbs, the Psalms and one or two others which do not lend themselves readily to that plan of reading, and indeed do not require it to their understanding and mastery. I am careful to emphasise the fact that I did not read the Bible "in course," as it is commonly understood. One might read it in that way a great many times and not master it in the sense indicated above. The plan was to read and re-read each book by itself and in its order, as though there were no other in existence, until it had become a part of the very being.
[Sidenote: Joy and Power]
Was the task tedious and long? No more than was Jacob's when he served Laban for his daughter Rachel. There were compensations all along the way and ever-increasing delight. No romance ever held sway over the thought and imagination in comparison with this Book of books. A better investment of time were never made by any minister; and, shut me up to-day to a choice between all the ministerial lore I ever learned elsewhere and what was learned in this synthetic reading of the Bible, and it would not take me many minutes to decide in favour of the latter. Nor did I know until lately how closely my feeling in this respect harmonised with that of a great educator and theologian of an earlier day. [Sidenote: Dean Burgon and Dr. Routh] Dean Burgon tells of an interview he had in 1846 with the learned president of Magdalen College, Oxford, Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, then aged ninety-one. He had called upon him for advice as to the best way of pursuing his theological studies.
"I think, sir," said Dr. Routh, "were I you, sir—that I would—first of all—read the—the Gospel according to St. Matthew." Here he paused. "And after I had read the Gospel according to St. Matthew—I would—were I you, sir—go on to read—the Gospel according to St.—Mark."
"I looked at him," says Dean Burgon, "anxiously, to see whether he was serious. One glance was enough. He was giving me, but at a very slow rate, the outline of my future course."
"Here was a theologian of ninety-one," says the narrator of this incident, "who, after surveying the entire field of sacred science, had come back to the starting point, and had nothing better to advise me to read than—the Gospel!" And thus he kept on until he had mentioned all the books of the New Testament. Sad, however, that the story should have been spoiled by his not beginning at Genesis!
[Sidenote: Lightening Labour]
Words fail me to express the blessing that reading has been to me—strengthening my conviction as to the integrity and plenary inspiration of the whole Book, enlarging my mental vision as to the divine plan along the line of dispensational truth, purifying my life and lightening my labours in the ministry until that which before had often been a burden and weariness to the flesh, became a continual joy and delight.
To speak of this last-named matter a little further. The claims on a city pastor in these days are enough to break down the strongest men, especially when their pulpit preparation involves the production of two orations or finished theses each week for which they must "read up in systematic treatises, philosophic disquisitions, works of literature, magazine articles and what not, drawing upon their ingenuity of invention and fertility of imagination all the time in order to be original, striking, elegant and fresh." But when they come to know their Bible, and get imbued with its lore and anointed by the Spirit through whom it speaks, "sermonising" will give place to preaching—the preaching that God bids us to preach, the exposition of His own Word, which is not only much easier to do, but correspondingly more fruitful in spiritual results. And, indeed, it is the kind of preaching that people want to hear—all kinds of people, the converted and the unconverted, the rich and the poor. A wide experience convinces me of this. Here is the minister's field, his specialty, his throne. He may not be a master in other things; he may and should be a master in this. The really great preachers to-day, the MacLarens, the Torreys, the Campbell Morgans, are Bible expounders. George Whitefield, in Boston, had a congregation of two thousand people at six o'clock in the morning to hear him "expound the Bible." The people trod on Jesus to hear the Word of God, and if pastors only knew it, it is the way to get and to hold the people still.