So Mrs. Barnes put on her glasses and opened her old Bible and read,
"As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may
grow thereby."

"I find here," she said, "that the Bible is to be our food, and that
it is intended to make us grow. Now one can't grow without the right
kind of food. The verse makes me think of my dear little grandson
Neddie. His mother was taken away, and he was left a wee baby for us
to bring up. We had such a hard time to find anything to agree with
him. We tried milk and water, and arrowroot, and cracker-water, but
he didn't thrive, he was nothing but skin and bone; finally he got
sick and we called the doctor, and he said, 'Why this child is
starving to death! What do you feed him? Don't give him any more such
stuff,' he said. 'Try another cow, and give him pure milk.' So we got
a new milch cow and fed him fresh milk, and I can't begin to tell you
what a wonderful change it made in that child in less than three
weeks' time; the dear little fellow got just as plump, his hands were
like cushions, and he was well and happy as a robin. Maybe that's the
reason there are so many weakly Christians. I shouldn't wonder if
souls need the right sort of food as well as bodies in order to be
healthy. I have some neighbours that my heart just aches for; all
their reading is yellow-covered books, such as 'The Pirate's Bride,'
and 'The Fatal Secret.' Such food is worse than cracker-water, and
arrowroot, for they are starving souls instead of bodies, and the
Word can't find any place to take root, much less to grow, when the
mind is filled up with such trash."

"Joseph Cook thinks," said Mrs. Lewis, "that even Bunyan, Jeremy
Taylor, Pascal, and Thomas a'Kempis himself, work mischief, if these
books shut out the Bible from daily and almost hourly use.'