THE Secretary of the Scripture Gift Mission recently wrote a letter to His Majesty asking for confirmation of a report with respect to his reading the Bible. The following interesting reply was received:—“WINDSOR CASTLE, 18th November, 1912.—DEAR SIR,—I have had the honour of submitting your letter of the 15th instant to the King, and I am directed to inform you in reply, it is quite true that he promised Queen Alexandra as long ago as 1881 that he would read a chapter of the Bible daily, and that he has ever since adhered to this promise.—Yours very truly, (signed) KNOLLYS.”
We are convinced that many of our readers will feel deeply gratified to have the assurance that the King is a daily reader of the Bible. The decided knowledge that this is so, will stimulate those who have the spirit of grace and supplication to pray all the more earnestly for the spiritual welfare of His Majesty, and to desire that his reign may be made a real blessing to the country. It may not be without profit to refresh the memories of our readers with a quotation from the Apostle Paul, the inspired messenger of Christ, who exhorts us to pray for kings and all in authority, not only with a view to the efficient discharge of their office, but to their personal salvation. It is written in the first Epistle to Timothy, second chapter—”I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” At the very time the Apostle wrote these words the kings and those in authority were, for the most part, Gentiles who knew not God—some of them monsters of iniquity.
Let us observe, in conclusion, that even a formal reading of the Bible is not to be despised. Where did the Word of God find at first those who came to know its saving power? In formalism or in worse—not among the living, but among the dead—dead in trespasses and sins. The Lord blesses the reading and the preaching of the Word for His own name’s sake, and not for any merit or goodness in the creature, and so we cannot tell when and where such exercises may be savingly blessed according to His eternal purpose. There is a secret legalism that oftentimes enters into the thoughts of those who believe in salvation by free and sovereign grace. They conclude that unless a sinner brings life with him to the reading or hearing of the Word, the Lord will not bless the exercise to his soul’s good. The blessing is thus made dependent on something in the sinner, and not upon the regard the Lord has for His own name, purpose, and ordinances. We must go to the means of grace, in order that we may receive life and every heavenly blessing from the Spirit of God, through these channels. God’s people received these blessings at first when they were totally dead in sin, and they afterwards frequently receive them when they are exceedingly dead in feeling. Let the spiritually dead therefore employ the means in which God bestows life eternal.