Then lastly I put in my plea, as I sought to do when we were considering the matter of secret prayer, for such a secret study of the Word of God as shall be _unprofessional, unclerical, and simply Christian_. Resolve to "read, mark, and inwardly digest" so that not now the flock but the shepherd, that is to say you, "may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life." It will be all the better for the flock. Forget sometimes, in the name of Jesus Christ, the pulpit, the mission-room, the Bible-class; open the Bible as simply as if you were on Crusoe's island, and were destined to live and die there, alone with God. You will be all the fresher, all the more sympathetic and to the point, when you do come to speak to the listening people about the Book. The discoveries which we make in it for our own souls are just the things which we cannot help reporting so as to interest and attract our brethren; as least, that is the sure tendency of things. BRIDGES AND WITSIUS ON BIBLE STUDY. Let me write out a slightly abbreviated extract from a golden book, unhappily no longer in print, _The Christian Ministry_, by that diligent student, loving and laborious Pastor, and heavenly-minded man, the remembrance of whom shines on me like a ray reflected from the Chief Shepherd's face, the late Rev. Charles Bridges.[2] [2] He died at Hinton Martell, in Dorset, 1869. "The maxim, _Bonus textuarius est bonus theologus_, marks a grand ministerial qualification--'mighty in the Scriptures.' The importance of this is beautifully expressed by Witsius: 'Let the theologian ascend from the lower school of natural study to the higher department of Scripture, and sitting at the feet of God as his teacher, learn from His mouth the hidden mysteries of salvation, _which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, which none of the princes of this world knew_; which the most accurate reason cannot search out; which the heavenly chorus of angels, though always beholding the face of God, _desire to look into_. In the hidden book of Scripture, and nowhere else, are opened the secrets of the most sacred wisdom. Let the theologian delight in these sacred Oracles; let him exercise himself in them day and night; let him meditate in them; let him live in them; let him draw all his wisdom from them; let him compare all his thoughts with them; let him embrace nothing in religion which he does not find there. The attentive study of the Scriptures has a sort of constraining power. It fills the mind with the most splendid form of heavenly truth. It soothes the mind with an inexpressible sweetness; it satisfies the sacred hunger and thirst for knowledge; ... it imprints its own testimony so firmly on the mind, that the believing soul rests on it with the same security as if it had been carried up into the third heaven and heard it from God's own mouth; it touches all the affections, and breathes the sweetest fragrance of holiness upon the pious reader, even though he may not perhaps