Go into any audience addressed by a public speaker, and you
will perceive that his hearers' interest depends on whether he is
getting to the point. "Well, why doesn't he get to the point," is the
common expression in public assemblages. The Bible "gets to the
point."
And it has something for everybody. If you are a politician, or even a
statesman, no matter how astute you are, you can read with profit
several times a year the career of David, one of the cleverest
politicians and greatest statesmen who ever lived. If you are a
business man, the proverbs of Solomon will tone you up like
mountain-air.
A young woman should read Ruth. A man of practical life, a great man,
but purely a man of the world, once said to me: "If I could enact one
statute for all the young women of America, it would be that each of
them should read the book of Ruth once a month." But the limits and
purpose of this paper do not permit a dissertation on the Bible.
Shakespeare, of course, you cannot get along without. I shall say no
more about him here; for if anything at all is said about Shakespeare
(or the Bible), it ought to take up an entire paper at least. "Don't
read anybody's commentaries on Shakespeare--don't read mine; read
_Shakespeare_," was the final advice of Richard Grant White, one of
the ripest of the world's commentators on this universal poet.
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