Give the Exact Credit.—It should be engraved in letters of fire on the mind of everyone who writes for publication that every quotation must have its exact credit. This does not mean that the credit must always be printed; but it should be given in the margin for purposes of verification, or of defense if the quotation is challenged. So many things are floating around purporting to be what "Sister White said," that every writer and speaker would do well to make it an inviolable rule never to quote the Spirit of prophecy without having the exact credit of book and page at hand. This carefulness with credits refers to note taking as well as note using. That telling admission from evolutionist or spiritist which you run across in your reading, becomes useless unless, when you jot it down, you preserve an exact record of where it can be found.
Avoid Inaccuracies in the Written or Spoken Word.—Equally serious with mistakes in quotations are inaccuracies in facts. Every printed or publicly uttered word has potential consequences, and someone may catch up the mistake and reject the whole message for the faulty detail.
So, however strongly tempted by imagination or the emotional stress of speech or writing, don't adorn your discourse with illustrations, stories, statistics, or comparisons of whose details you are not as careful as a bookkeeper is of his balances. No amount of art of vivid language or gesture or voice can make anything but ridiculous such descriptions of Biblical events as one in which Jonah disembarks from his submarine voyage just outside the city of Nineveh, whose people are eagerly watching from the walls (Nineveh is several hundred miles from the shore of the Mediterranean Sea) ; or where Moses at the burning bush is made to remove socks as well as shoes (sandals alone were worn in Bible times) ; or which makes Cornelius leader of a band of Italian musicians (a centurion is a captain of soldiers, not an orchestra conductor) ; or of such historical scenes as one in which Caesar is made to sit for his photograph (photography was invented less than a century ago; portrait was meant).
Exact Details Often Unnecessary.—In using a story to make an emotional appeal, exact details of date, place, and names of actors are often unnecessary; but if you use them, be sure to verify their truthfulness first. A certain devotional book features a story of the victims of a wreck. The name of the ship, the town off which it sank, the name of the school from which the rescuers came, are all given. But in reality the wreck occurred off another town, the school mentioned is at a third place, and was not even yet founded when the wreck actually happened. The story would have been just as vivid in spiritual appeal, and much more convincing, if these "exact" details, which were not exact, had been omitted.
Protest Against Carelessness and Conceit.—Not for an instant do I agree with the one who said, "If a man's grammar is bad, his theology must be bad, too;" for God can use any man, whatever his faults of language and ignorance of rhetoric, so long as he is consecrated. But it is well to protest against the spirit of stubborn conceit and carelessness that thinks lightly of the value of good language and form, and resents attempts at improvement. Jesus did not choose the Galilean fishermen because they were "unlearned and ignorant," but because they were willing to learn; and they were no longer "ignorant and unlearned" when they had gone to school to Him for three years, but commanded the unwilling and amazed respect of the best educated of their nation.
Nashville, Tenn.