THE CASE FOR OUTSIDE READING
We are people of the Bible, and rightly jealous of that tradition. " Of the making of books there is no end," we may say to ourselves, " and much study is a weariness of the flesh,"31 and there is sometimes a tendency to disparage other reading than that of the Bible on both these grounds- that the Bible is sufficient, and (usually unspoken) that much study is wearisome. Now there is much wisdom in the former reason, and it is possible for us to fritter away much of our valuable time by an undue appetite for the opinions of other men. The Book should certainly have the cream of our powers, and no human gloss can be allowed to interfere with this. Yet the reason given in the last paragraph is a sufficient one for some larger reading. Unless we are very fresh of mind an unaided reading will quickly limit us to a very small range of thoughts about the Bible, and in our very loyalty we shall stagnate. That there are some noteworthy exceptions to this among us, only serves to prove the point for the rest of us, for we gain our enlargement by commerce with them, which is nearly the same thing as reading other works.

The authors of " the works of the Truth " must have believed this, or they could not have expected their works to be read, and we know that they permitted themselves a recourse to such other reading as Gibbon, Mosheim, and Elliott in the case of bro. Thomas. There is certain information which simply cannot be obtained without outside reading, and though we may preach effectively within a limited range without it, we shall have much more freedom and power with it in our hands.