[Sidenote: A Vitiated Taste] There must be even more than an example. In connection with a Bible conference in a city of the Middle West, a private gathering of pastors was held, at which one of them arose and with deep emotion said: "Brethren, I have a confession to make. I know not whether it will fit in with the experience of any others, but I have been guilty of cultivating in my people _a vitiated taste_ for preaching, and henceforth, by God's help, I intend to give them His own Word." To search the Scriptures on their own account, the people of our churches must acquire a taste for their contents. They must be constantly fed with the bread of life to have an appetite for it. They will "desire the sincere milk of the word," if so be "they have tasted that the Lord is gracious." But to what extent do they "taste" it in the ordinary pulpit ministrations of the day? [Sidenote: Secretary Shaw] The Honourable Leslie M. Shaw, Secretary of the Treasury, gave an address recently in Washington, on the occasion of a Sunday school jubilee, which interested the writer deeply. He was pleading for the Sunday school on the ground that it was the only place at present in which the Bible was taught. "It is not now taught in the public schools," said he, "nor am I here to say that it ought to be taught there. In our busy life it is not taught in our homes. The head of the family ought to be a priest, but the Bible is seldom read, much less taught, in the home. _It is seldom taught in the pulpit._ Not that I am criticising the ministry. But take up a paper and see what the sermons are to be about. You will learn about the plan of salvation if you listen to the sermons, but you will not know much about the Bible if you depend on getting your knowledge of it from the pulpit." He then went on to say that "the only place on this earth where the Bible is taught is in the Sunday school." When, however, we consider the character of the average Sunday school, the scraps and bits of the Bible there taught, the brief period of time devoted to the teaching, the lack of discipline in the classes, and the inadequate training and preparation of the average teacher, we begin to inquire, Where is the Bible taught? and wonder whether we have fallen on the times of the prophet: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.--Amos 8:11, 12. [Sidenote: Professor Mathews on the Sunday School]