How shall we thus rightly read the Bible, for ethical and spiritual upbuilding? Let me offer some plain and practical suggestions to this end.
(1.) Read it daily.
Your soul needs its daily bread. Do not starve your soul. Do not try to fatten it on chaff. Get the best soul-food, the long tried manna that forms upon these pages day by day, for him who will be at pains to gather it. He must be busy, indeed, who cannot find time to keep himself alive.
(2.) Read it in the choicest moments of the day.
The best picture should have the best setting. Our fathers' symbol of the opening of a new day was the opening of the Bible. Their symbol of the closing of another day's duties was the closing of the Bible. Can we improve upon their ritual? John Quincy Adams noted in his journal his custom of reading in the Bible each morning, of which he well observed:
It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day.
Pitch the day aright with this tuning-fork, and hush the babel-voices of the world to its tones of peace at night.
(3.) Read the Bible whenever you need some special influence of strength or cheer, amid the temptations and trials of the day.
It holds the unfailing corrective for the manifold disorders of our busy lives. To think its thoughts and breathe its desires, even for a few moments, is to have the horizon of the senses open, the heavy atmosphere of earth clear, the illusions of the world evanish, the fever of business cool and calm, the tempting appetites and passions slink down shamed into their kennels. It is to have the dark look of life lighten, the sting of disappointment lose its venom, the weariness of sickness forget itself, and the sorrow of the stricken heart sob itself asleep within the everlasting arms of One who, like a mother, comforteth his children, and who with his own hand wipes away the tears from our eyes.
A few days after one of the battles before Richmond a Southern soldier was found unburied. His right hand still clasped a Bible, and his stiff fingers pressed upon the words of the Twenty-third Psalm: