[9] To touch on a very small point I write here "the Book of Genesis," not "the Book Genesis." English literature, if I do not mistake, is as unfamiliar with the latter phrase as it is with "the city London."
Then, practise what I would call the _plough-husbandry_ of the Book. "Make long furrows." Investigate what the Scriptures have to say by topics, by doctrines, by leading words, over great breadths of their surface; keeping _that_ subject, _that_ word, all along in view. Bring all your mind to work that way, in the light of the Presence sought by prayer. An occasional special form of such study may be illustrated by that admirable book, written long ago, but full of life still, the late Professor Blunt's _Undesigned Coincidences_. I was thankful in my first days of ministry to be led to put in practice its examples and suggestions by ploughing in the field of the New Testament for the coincidences between the Gospel narrative and the allusions to our blessed Lord's life scattered over the Epistles.
Then, practise also a diligent _spade-husbandry_ in your Bible study. Dig as well as plough. In each narrow plot of the great field there are treasures hid. Dig a verse sometimes, using perhaps the spade of parallel references. Dig a paragraph at other times; a chapter; a short book. You are quite sure, under the blessing of the Master of the Field, to bring up rich results, more or less.
I will close my talk upon the Bible by offering a specimen of such spade-husbandry. A few years ago, at the Church Congress at Wakefield, I 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.
"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.