J.C. Ryle on Private Reading of Scripture

"Let us read our Bibles in private more, and with more pains and diligence.  Ignorance of Scripture is the root of all error, and makes a man helpless in the hand of the devil.  There is less private Bible reading, I suspect, than there was fifty years ago.  I never can believe that so many English men and women would have been 'tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine,' some falling into skepticism, some rushing into the wildest and narrowest fanaticism, and some going over to Rome, if there had not grown up a habit of lazy, superficial, careless, [hasty] reading of God's Word.  'You do err not knowing the Scriptures' (Matt. 22:29).  The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).