Pith in Exposition [pp. 619-636]

PITH IN EXPOSITION.
astray. If a brief and partly erroneous assertion arouses a
person's mind, it may lead him to think out for himself its
proper limits; while, if the truth is first brought to him with
its limitations all attached, it may thereby be so weakened that
it will fail to arouse him, and thus he will grasp neither the
truth nor its limitations.
Those who prepare helps often find it difficult to make the
information they give sufficiently full without making it too
voluminous. A change of method would frequently lessen this
difficulty. When their information is derived from sources
which are generally inaccessible, or in which it is ill-digested,
the only feasible plan may be to work it over and condense it.
But a better course is possible where the sources are accessible,
and are tolerably well elaborated. In such cases, instead of a
fresh condensation, which must, in the nature of the case, be
quite unsatisfactory, let us rather have such an outline as shall
serve as an index of the more extensive information given in the
more volumnious sources. This will be beyond measure less
laborious and more valuable to all parties concerned.
An off-hand style is attractive, but not the wrong kind of an
off-hand style. Discourteous rudeness is worse than excessive
elaboration. So is crude, rough, coarse workmanship. Much
expounding bears marks of having been done somewhat as
follows: The expounder had something to say, and tried to
say it without first fully working it out. Of course he partly
failed. Then he tried again, with a like result, and thus kept
trying until he finally got the whole said. Then, instead of
looking back, and finding out what it was that he had been
trying to say, and putting the result into a brief, sharp statemllent, he preferred to retain his work as it was, either because
of indolence, or through fear lest he should spoil it by undue
elaboration. If he did this deliberately, he made a deliberate
mistake.
Slovenliness is a very great fault in exposition. Even those
illiterate teachings that are acceptable are usually sharply cut,
and in certain regards very neatly put. Where rudeness of
idiom or awkwardness in sentence-making shows lack of culture,
it is unfortunate. But this is not half so bad as where a person has culture, but is too lazy to use it. Such a course is disrespectful to the Divine word, and it is worse in printed books
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[Oct.