And there is an advantage in this independent reading from the teacher's point of view, too, as well as that of the learner. How many pastors through the country have spoken of the success the synthetic method has been to them in attracting their people to the house of God and awakening in them a real interest in Bible study! That is, what a success it has been up to a certain point, when they got "swamped," to use the very expressive word of more than one of them! Swamped? How? Investigation has always revealed the one cause, and brought the one confession--a failure to diligently and faithfully pursue the method in consequence of the temptation to investigate minutiae and multiply details. There is lying before me at this moment the _debris_ of a collapse of this kind. A devoted pastor sends me the printed syllabus of his work with his congregation covering the Hexateuch. They were so delighted and so helped by it until now, when there has come a "hitch." He fears he is getting away from the plan, and giving and expecting too much. And his work reveals the ground of his fears. Such work belongs to the pastor in his study, but not on the platform before a popular audience in Bible teaching. And if it will "swamp" the trained and cultivated teacher, how much more the inexperienced learner! A faithful reading of the various books on an independent basis will secure a working outline, and this should be carried with one in his mind, and on his notebook, as he proceeds from book to book, until the work is done. Then he can successively begin his finer work, and analyse his outline, and study helps, and gather light, and accumulate material, without confusion of thought, without a false perspective, and with an ever-increasing sense of joy and power. [Sidenote: Read It Prayerfully] The most important rule is the last. Read it prayerfully. Let not the triteness of the observation belittle it, or all is lost. The point is insisted on because, since the Bible is a supernatural book, it can be studied or mastered only by supernatural aid. In the words of William Luff, "It is the Spirit's Bible! Copyright every word! Only His thoughts are uttered, only His voice is heard!"