Correspondents by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 12, 1864

Correspondents.

By Editor

We have something to say to you, correspondents, and we fear it will make some of you feel unpleasantly; nevertheless it may be duty to tell you some plain facts. But first we would state that after opening your communications they are put into the hands of one who fills your orders for books by mail, then separates them as follows:

Communications designed for the Review are laid aside for Bro. Smith's table; those for the Instructor, for Bro. Amadon's table; those containing business for the Review and Instructor, for Bro. Walker's table, and those letters which require our personal attention are laid upon our table. During the past winter we have received about thirty letters per day, and have not, probably, read more than one in ten of them.

A good proportion of these letters are written for the Review, and of course find their way to Bro. Smith's table. Some of them are written so poorly that it is a waste of time and patience to try to read them. About one in four of them find a place in the Review. Three-fourths are condemned for some one or more of the following reasons: some are written so badly that it is doing the printer injustice to give them to him with the necessary corrections marked upon them. We have to copy them, or lay them aside. We generally do the latter. Others are hastily and carelessly composed. The sentences need to be changed so much that it is doubtful whether the writers would know them in print were it not for their names being signed to them. These generally get laid aside. Other communications are so very wordy, that ideas are like neighbors in a very new country; that is, far apart. Words are signs of ideas, and every sentence should express one or more of those ideas which possess value.

We wish to state our own experience touching this subject for a few days only. When Bro. Smith commenced his review of Preble, he handed over to us his treasures in the line of doubtful communications, which had been accumulating for the last three months. We did not count them, but presume there were at least two hundred. Bro. Smith had used the best looking, best composed, and best theology, which left our task to supply the paper from what remained rather a dry one. But we were comforted with the thought that Bro. Smith had got rid of the job, and was in this respect free to do another work. We toiled two days, long and sad days they were, over the pile of spoiled foolscap, letter and note, and found some half dozen short articles for the Review, enough to fill about one page. The balance is respectfully rolled up, and placed upon a high shelf in the Office, where there is, probably, enough such matter to fill the Review for months.

Many of the articles would be excellent if they were composed with more care. Others would be used with the greatest pleasure if the hand writing was plain; and still others cannot be used in consequence of poor paper, poor pens, or poor ink. The printer's eyesight is one of his best treasures, and it is abusing him to make him trace lines over poor paper, made by an old scratching pen, occasionally dipped in pale ink. For these evils we offer the following general recipe, which in some particulars will prove a good remedy for them all:

Write only when you have something to say; then express your thoughts as fully and clearly as possible, in fewest words. When necessary, call a council of dictionaries, grammars, and other helps. Write each word so plainly that you could instantly recognize it if it stood disconnected from the sentence to which it belongs. Use good wide-ruled paper, and never write between lines. Obtain the best pens, and first quality of ink. Never copy from books and papers if you can send us the books and papers to copy from, according to your directions, or call our attention to the page or pages of the books or papers. We may have them in the Office, or can obtain them.

We would earnestly appeal to a certain class to take up the pen, and as often as once a week, write something for the Review. We refer to that class who will follow the above recipe, if they write at all. You may have a doctrine, an item of experience, or an incident of interest, which would make somewhere from two lines to a page of the Review. We intreat you not to hide your light under a bushel, but write out your thoughts, and let the thousands of readers of the Review, be instructed and cheered by them.

Our preachers should write more. They can almost always find time to write an article of some kind each week. Some of them of best minds and experience are miserable writers. A few dollars laid out by them in the purchase of a dictionary and helps on composition, pen, ink, paper, and practice with copy-book before them, would be a splendid investment.