In considering the question of reading and study in preparation for the pulpit, we naturally turn first to the two-fold branches of Scripture and Dogma as that which will help chiefly to give substance and backbone to our sermons. It is astonishing how little use many preachers make of the inspired Word of God, containing as it does in itself not only the essence of all religious history and dogma, but so many of the words of Christ Himself. Limiting our observations to the Gospels alone, it is an extraordinary grace we have received in having such full records of His words and acts at least during His public life. This in itself enables us to have a real personal knowledge and love of our Redeemer. We should expect our sermons to be full of His words and sayings, His parables, His illustrations, the example of His works; and that all our moral lessons should be illustrated and driven home by His words. Yet in practice we hear sermon after sermon with no more than a few texts from Scripture scattered through them, and these often isolated and without their context; and when we find a preacher really familiar with our Lord's life and words, we comment on it as quite remarkable. It is probable that this is largely due to our habit of quoting isolated texts in support of dogmatic truths, and our very reverence for them as the inspired Word has led us to rest on the actual words and to lose sight of their general context. Very probably also Cardinal Manning's remark may be true, that since the sixteenth century there has been a tendency to over-strictness against the popular use of the Scriptures as a sort of recoil or reaction against Protestantism. At the present day, however, there is happily a reaction against this in all countries, and a movement in favour of circulating at least the New Testament more freely in the vernacular. With us we can date it from the issue of the sixpenny New Testament by Burns and Gates, and the Penny Gospels of the Catholic Truth Society; but the cheap Gospel texts in the vernacular which have appeared in some other countries--notably those issued by St. Luke's Society in Rome itself--have outdone anything we have in England.