Brightness of our scriptures

In our scripture reading this morning, I noticed something interesting. We were reading in Alma 37 where Alma was speaking to his son, Helaman, talking about the Brass plates.

5. " And now behold, if they are kept they must retain their brightness; yea, and they will retain their brightness; yea, and also shall all the plates which do contain that which is holy writ."

I thought that brass, by its nature, tends to lose its color and shinyness when it is left alone. It is by constant touching that it stays bright. Have you ever seen statues or door knobs that are brass, that the parts that get touched a lot are the shiniest parts. So, the "holy writ," or scritpures, that are touched daily are those that stay bright. This is a way of telling us to touch, or read our scriptures daily, to keep them bright.

Then the next verse adds an important point. We tend to think that reading scriptures daily is no big deal - not high on our priorities, because it is so basic and simple.

6. "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple means are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."