The scripture lesson will indeed miss its opportunity if it does not,
in the later stages of a boy's career, set him thinking on these
subjects, and help him to a wise appreciation of the holiness of
beauty as well as of the beauty of holiness. To accomplish this task
the language of the Bible itself gives noble help. All the qualities
of great literature shine forth from it and it should put to shame and
flight the tawdry and the melodramatic. It is an ill service not to
make all familiar with the actual words of Holy Writ. Commentaries and
Bible histories may be at times convenient tools, but they are only
tools, and accurate knowledge of what they teach is no compensation
for a want of respectful familiarity with the text itself.

Hardly less important for good and evil are the chapel services. They
are much attacked. It has been argued that public worship is
distasteful in later life because of the compulsory chapels of
boyhood. If this were really so, evidence should be forthcoming that
those who come from schools where there is no compulsory attendance at
chapel, because there is no chapel to attend, are more eager to avail
themselves of the opportunities offered by college chapels than are
their more chapel ridden contemporaries. No one, however, can be quite
satisfied that chapel services are as helpful as they might be. The
difficulty is how to improve them. The suggestion that they should all
be voluntary is at first sight attractive but there are two
insuperable difficulties. The one is the power of fashion, for it
might well become fashionable in a certain house not to attend chapel.
Those who know anything of the inside of schools know how such a
fashion would deter many of the best boys from going, and martyrdom
ought not to be part of the training of school life. The other
difficulty is more subtle, but none the less real it originates in the
boys' quite healthy fear of claiming merit. Those in authority, if