Bengel's Secret of Sanctity

There is a lovely story told of the saintly scholar Bengel, who lived in the eighteenth century. His students, we are told, marvelled at the great intellectuality, humility and Christ-likeness that blended in such beauty in the old man. One night, one of them, eager to learn the secret, concealed himself in the professor’s room. There he waited hour after hour, and he thought how weary the old scholar would be after his long evening’s work in the class-room.

At length, however, he heard his step in the hall and waited breathlessly to learn the coveted secret. The old man came in, changed his shoes, and sitting down at the study table, opened his well-thumbed Bible, and began reading leisurely page by page. For half an hour he read, three quarters of an hour, an hour and more, and then, leaning his head upon his hands for a few minutes in silence, he said in the simplest and most familiar way, “Well, Lord Jesus, we’re on the same terms.

Good night.”