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Mr. Scott refers this rule ‘to the study of the Scriptures, or of any other books which could add to his fund of profitable knowledge.’ His earlier notions on these subjects (he candidly confesses) ‘were too contracted.’ Mature consideration, however, formed his studious life upon more enlarged principles, which he never failed strongly to inculcate; marking at the same time, the importance of a due subordination to the main end. ‘The object of all your studies,’ (he writes in one of his letters) ‘should not be celebrity, advantage, or knowledge for its own sake, but furnishings to enable you to serve God in your generation.’ Life, pp. 102, 103, 330. A Minister of the present day said to a friend, who found him reading Gibbon’s History—that ‘he read everything with a particular view to his Ministry, that he collected some materials for the pulpit from books of almost every description, and that he made all his readings contribute something towards what was necessary for Sunday.’ Christian Observer, October, 1828, p. 608. Indeed, to restrict our reading to matters of immediate connection with our grand subject, would exclude us from much valuable collateral knowledge, and expose us to prejudice and misconception.