To Our Correspondents.—
By Editor
We have many correspondents. Many questions are asked to be answered through the SIGNS. Many must be answered by letter. Many other letters must also be written. Besides this, the editor’s whole time may be profitably filled with other work. While we wish to help our friends and readers all that we possibly can, yet we are forced many times to neglect correspondence for what seems more important work. However, our correspondents may help us in these things. Let us ask them to: (1) Be patient at our often long delay. We will answer every letter which seems to demand an answer, and as soon as we can. (2) Be sure to give post-office directions clearly, post-office, county, and state, if a village, if the place be small; number and street, if a town or city, or, if preferred in either case, number of post-office box. If the post-office from which you write is not your permanent address, please give your permanent or future address. (3) In asking questions, let them be as brief as possible, and to the point. Do not ask an explanation, as some have, of the last eleven chapters of Ezekiel, the third chapter of Galatians, or a half dozen other Scripture texts, on which a volume might be written. Such questions must, of necessity, wait a long time, or go unanswered. (4) In asking an explanation of a text, please state the special point in your mind. Sometimes a text is very broad, and we are not mind-readers. (5) In sending a contribution to the paper, do not paste the sheets together in one continuous strip. That is the worst way possible. Do not write on close-lined or very thin paper. Some not-too-well prepared manuscript has come to us typewritten on tissue paper. Do not run the lines close together. This makes it difficult to interline corrections. Write plainly on any good paper, on one side of the sheet only, with lines not too close together, properly paged at the top, and fold them in the ordinary way, as the size of your envelope demands. (6) If you desire an answer, please inclose stamp. Is this asking too much? Also sign your name, not for publication unless you desire it. Anonymous contributions find their way to the waste-basket. (7) The Subscription, Manufacturing, and Editorial departments of the office are separate. Please do not mix business. You need not pay extra postage, but place each on a separate slip of paper, with post-office, state, date, and name of writer on each. If all our correspondents will heed these suggestions (some already do), it will greatly assist both us and them. (The proof-reader says, “Write articles in ink.”)