CHAPTER X.

One Book at a Time--Chapter Study--The Gospel of John.

I KNOW some men who never sit down to read a book until they have time to read the whole of it. When they come to Leviticus or Numbers, or any of the other books, they read it right through at one sitting. They get the whole sweep, and then they begin to study it chapter by chapter. Dean Stanley used to read a book through three separate times: first for the story, second for the thought, and third for the literary style. It is a good thing to take one whole book at a time.

How could you expect to understand a story or a scientific text-book if you read one chapter here and another there?

Dr. A. T. Pierson says: Let the introduction cover five P's; place where written; person by whom written; people to whom written; purpose for which written; period at which written.

Here it is well to grasp the leading points in the chapters. The method is illustrated by the following plan by which I tried to interest the students at Mt. Hermon school and the Northfield Seminary. It provides a way of committing Scripture to memory, so that one can call up a passage to meet the demand whenever it arises. I said to the students one morning at worship: "To-morrow morning when I come I will not read a portion of Scripture, but we will take the first chapter of the Gospel of John and you shall tell me from memory what you find in that chapter and each learn the verse in it that is most precious to you." We went through the Whole book that way and committed a verse or two to memory-out of each one.

I will give the main headings we found in the chapters.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, BY CHAPTERS.