read a paper on Bible-reading. It mainly took the line of recommending
earnestly the use of the Biblical student's "spade," and then it
illustrated the recommendation by the following "spade-study" of the
Epistle of St Paul to the Philippians; given here just as it was read.

* * * * *

A CHURCH CONGRESS PAPER ON BIBLE STUDY.

"It has been laid on me to say a few words on the devotional study of
the Holy Scriptures, taking some one Book of Scripture, and in some
sort exemplifying such study from it. I accept the theme, with a deep
sense both of its opportuneness in our busy period, so full of
temptations to the Christian Minister to postpone his Bible-study to
other things, and of its sacred, paramount, vital importance. May our
divine and sovereign Master be pleased to use my simple suggestions to
call once more the attention especially of His ordained servants to the
urgency of our need to be personal Bible-students before Him, and to the
strength and joy that lies in such study, really pursued. He, in the
days of His flesh, was the supreme Believer in the Bible, the supreme
Lover, Student, Expositor, and Employer of the Bible. With the letter of
the Bible He sustained Himself and quelled the Enemy in the Temptation,
and the quotations He then selected suggest the minuteness of His study.
Upon the written Word He spent the whole Easter afternoon. Accepted
Sacrifice for Sin, Conqueror of Death, Lord and Head of Life, He had
come that morning from the grave; and He came as it were holding the
Scriptures in His hands.

"He found around Him in those earthly days a mass of religious popular
opinions, and He spoke His holy mind freely against the false among
them. But there was one opinion which He noticed only to sanction, to
sanctify, to glorify. It was the opinion that the Scriptures were
divine, were charged with the authority of God.

"I pray to Him, and trust Him, my Master and Lord, to hold me now humbly
firm to the end, after many a struggle, in His opinion of the Holy
Scriptures. I would enter into, as He abode in, their rest; therefore I
accept, as He accepted, their yoke. I would feel what He felt, that
living incitement to their study which is indissolubly bound up, if I
mistake not, with the firm persuasion of their supernatural character
and authority. I would read them, as He read them, above all things to
act upon them in the life which we, His followers, have in Him; that