Lessons. Difficulties to be anticipated. STORY OF ELIJAH. 1 Kings, 2 Chronicles. STORY OF HEZEKIAH. Kings, Chronicles, and Isaiah. and 1 Chronicles. Genesis CATALOGUE OF the Kings of ISRAEL. Kings and Chronicles. CATALOGUE OF the Kings of JUDAH. Kings and Chronicles. PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The above subjects vary very much in the degree of intellectual effort necessary for their examination, and in almost every one of them the reader will often be involved in difficulties which he can not easily remove. If we merely read the Bible, chapter after chapter, in a sluggish and formal manner, we see little to interest us and little to perplex; but in the more thorough and scrutinizing mode of study which I here suggest, both by this mode and the others which I have been describing, we shall find beauties and difficulties coming up together. Let every one who undertakes such a collation of different accounts, expect difficulty. Do not be surprised at apparent contradictions in the narrative; you will find many. Do not be surprised when you find various circumstances in the different accounts which you find it impossible to bring together into one view; you must expect such difficulties. Look at them calmly and patiently; seek solutions from commentaries and from older Christians, and The Apostle Peter. Jerusalem. what you can not by these means understand, quietly leave. A book which, under divine guidance, employed the pens of from fifty to a hundred writers-scattered through a period of fifteen hundred years; whose scenes extend over a region of immense extent, and whose narratives are involved with the most minute history of all the great nations of antiquity -Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome-such a book you must not expect to understand fully in a day. 5. Studying by subjects. Select some subject, such that the information which the Scriptures contain in respect to it is scattered through various portions of the sacred volume, and make it your study to collect this information, and bring it together in one general view. Take for instance the life of the Apostle Peter. Suppose you make it your business on one Sabbath, with the help of a brother, or sister, or any other friend who will unite with you in the work, to obtain all the information which the Bible gives in regard to him. By the help of the Concordance you will find all the places in which he is mentioned; you compare the various accounts contained in the four gospels; and observe in what they agree and in what they differ. After following down his history as far as the Evangelists bring it, you take up the book of the Acts, and go through that narrative, searching for information in regard to this Apostle, and omitting those parts which relate to other subjects. In this way you become fully acquainted with his character and history; you understand it as a whole. Jerusalem is another good subject, and the examination would afford scope for the exercise of the faculties of the highest minds for many Sabbaths. Find when the city is first named, and from the manner in which it is mentioned, and the circumstances connected with the earliest accounts of it, ascertain what sort of city it was at that time. Then follow its history down; notice the changes as they The Sabbath. List of topics. occur; understand every revolution, examine the circumstances of every battle and siege of which it is the scene, and thus become acquainted with its whole history down to the time when the sacred narration leaves it. To do this well, will require patient and careful investigation. You can not do it as you can read a single chapter-carelessly and with an unconcerned and uninterested mind; you must, if you would succeed in such an investigation, engage in it in earnest. And that is the very advantage of such a method of study; it breaks up effectually that habit of listless, dull, inattentive reading of the Bible which so extensively prevails. You may in the same manner take the subject of the Sabbath; examine the circumstances of its first appointment, and then follow its history down, so far as it is given in the Bible, to the last Sabbath alluded to in the sacred pages. The variety of topics which might profitably be studied in this way is vastly greater than would at first be supposed. There is a great number of biographical and geographical topics, and a great number which relate to manners, and customs, and sacred instructions. In fact, the whole Bible may be analyzed in this way, and its various contents brought before the mind in new aspects, and with a freshness and vividness which, in the mere repeated reading of the Scriptures in regular course can never be seen. It may assist the reader who is disposed to make the experiment, if I present a small list; it might be extended easily to any length. There are various other methods which might be mentioned and described; but enough has been said to enable any one who is disposed, to engage at once, for a short time each Sabbath, in a truly intellectual study of the Bible. Parents can try the experiments which I have above described, in their families; and Sabbath-school teachers can try them in their classes. Sabbath Schools would be astonishingly improved at once, if the teachers would put their ingenuity into requisition to devise and execute new plans, so as to give variety to the exercises. There should be a spirit and interest exhibited, both by the teacher and pupil, which the mere servile reading of printed questions, and listening to answers mechanically committed, never can produce. There is far too little of this intellectual study of the Bible, even among the most devoted Christians. Its literature, its history, its biography, the connection of its partsall are very little understood. It is indeed true, that the Object of the historic form. final aim of the Bible is to teach us personal religious duty. It comes to the conscience-not to the literary taste of men; it is designed to guide their devotions, not to gratify their curiosity, or their love of historic truth. But why is it that God has chosen the historic form, as a means of communicating his truths? Why is it that his communications with mankind were for so many years so completely involved with the political history of a powerful nation, that that whole history must be given? Why is our Savior's mission so connected with the affairs of the Roman government, and all this connection so fully detailed, that no inconsiderable portion of the geography, and customs, and laws of that mighty empire, is contained in the Gospels and the Acts? The moral lessons which our Savior taught might have been presented in their simple didactic form. The whole plan of salvation through the sufferings of a Redeemer, might have been given us in one single statement; instead of this, we are left to gather it piece by piece from multitudes of narratives, and addresses, and letters. Why is it then, that instead of one simple proclamation from the Majesty on high, we have sixty or seventy different books, introducing us to the public history of twenty nations, and to the minutest incidents in the biographies of a thousand men ? It is that we may be excited by the interest of incident and story; that religion and impiety may be respectively presented to us in living and acting reality; and that the principles of God's government, and his dealing with men, may come to us in all the vividness of actual fact. If then we neglect to understand this history as history, and to enter into all the incidents which are detailed, we lose the very benefit which the Spirit had in view in making the Bible such a volume as it is. Without such an occasional effort to make the Scriptures a study, examining them intellectually, comparing one part with another, and endeavoring to bring vividly to view the scenes |