and I _do_ speak with them when it is necessary to do so in order to make myself understood: but in the Church, I had rather speak five words in a tongue and a style that my hearers can understand, that by my voice I may teach others, than ten thousand in an unknown tongue." And so the great, good, common-sense Apostle goes on. My wish and purpose were to carry out his principles to the farthest possible extent. If I had tried hard, I could have preached in Latin. With a little more effort I could have preached in Greek. I could have preached in the ordinary, high-sounding, Frenchified, Latinized, mongrel style, without an effort. It required an effort to keep clear of the abomination. And I made the effort. I wanted to feel when speaking, that I had not only myself a proper understanding of what I was talking about, but that I was conveying correct and clear ideas of it to the minds of my hearers. To utter words which I did not understand, or words which I could not make my hearers understand, was a thing I could not endure; and to this day, the very idea of such a thing excites in me a kind of horror. I had no ambition to preach what were called great sermons, or to be what was called a great preacher. My great desire was not to astonish or confound people, but to do them good; to convey religious truth to their minds in such a way, and so to impress it on their hearts, that they might be converted, edified, and saved. When I first began to preach I had a cousin who was commencing his career as a minister at the same time. _He_ was ambitious to shine, and to astonish his hearers by a show of learning. He knew nothing of Latin and Greek, but he was fond of great high-sounding words of Greek and Latin origin. He carried about with him a pocket dictionary, which he used for the purpose of turning little words into big ones, and common ones into strange ones. My taste was just the contrary. My desire was to be as simple as possible. Like my companion, I often carried about with me a pocket dictionary, but the end for which _I_ used it was, to help me to turn big words into little ones, and strange and hard ones into common and easy ones. And whenever I had to consult a dictionary in translating Latin, or Greek, or any other language, into English, I always took the simplest and best known words I could find to give the meaning of the original. My cousin's desire to shine betrayed him at times into very ridiculous blunders. I once heard him say, after having spent some time in explaining his text, "But that I may _devil-hope_ the subject a little more fully, I would observe, that the words are _mephitical_." He, of course, meant to say, _metaphorical_, figurative, not _mephitical_ which means of a _bad smell_. My plan secured me against such mistakes.