Preach Plain by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 27, 1866

Preach Plain.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

The great difficulty with popular, formal preachers is, they do not come down to the people where they can understand them. Their words and language are different from what the people hear commonly, hence they do not comprehend their meaning. Hence they feel but little or no concern in what the minister says, as they think that it does not apply to them. This, doubtless, is one reason why God has chosen the unlearned and simple to preach his gospel. They speak the language of the people. Christ used very simple and plain language in all that he said, and drew all his illustrations from the most common circumstances around him. So did his apostles. So did Luther, Whitefield, and all others who have been successful in winning souls to God. Talk so that the most unlearned can understand it, and then all will understand. Father Muller once said, "If the most illiterate persons in the congregation can comprehend the discourse, the most educated will understand it, too; but the

verse does not hold true." Use the language of the people, and you will get the attention and reach the hearts of the people. All other preaching is mostly lost, as "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called."

D. M. CANRIGHT.