10 JULY 1941, Page 4

I Was given this week some statistics that seem to

me striking. My informant wanted, for special reasons, to discover how far the Bible is read by ordinary people in this country. He is a man who, when he wants to make enquiries, makes them thoroughly. The conclusion he reached was that 90 pet cent. of the people of England had not opened a Bible for ten years. Of course this means a generalisation from facts based on a limited field of enquiry; it could hardly be otherwise. The examples of special enquiries were instructive. Of a group of ten or a dozen business men, one was found to have read the Bible last the same morning, all the others not for fifteen years. But one of them, it is fair to say, claimed that he knew much of the New Testament by heart. jANUS.