But the difficulty does not always arise from the preacher's terminology alone. It is possible to fall into the fault of _over-condensation_ in our preaching. Highly concentrated foods are proverbially hard of digestion, and the same may be true of highly concentrated sermons. "Words packed with profoundest meanings" are apt to pass over the mind carrying much of their meaning with them undiscovered. A "highly sententious style" may have some of the qualities of a thunder shower, in which the rain falls so fast as to be of little use in watering the thirsty ground, over which it courses unabsorbed to join the brook down yonder in the vale. The maxim "_multum in parvo_" may be an admirable one for an author whose book will lie in the reader's hand the while he has time to grasp the full significance of every well-filled sentence. By a public speaker, however, packing may easily be overdone; and here is one of the dangers of the written sermon as compared with one in which the preacher, having gathered together his knowledge and his thought upon a matter, leaves the choice of words to the hour of delivery. A little wise prolixity may be necessary to the speaker. A little repetition; the putting of a truth, first in _this_ way, then in _that_, and again perhaps in quite a different fashion, so that different minds may have in turn their chance--even this may be needed, and though the preacher's impatience may find such a method irksome, duty may lie that way while inclination turns to a more sententious and expeditious mode. When all has been done that can be done to render every argument and lesson absolutely transparent there will still be some who will not have quite understood. The simplest of preachers must some day encounter the old lady who accosted, so it is said, a former Bishop of Chester, who, at great pains to be lucid, had unfolded the argument against the errors of atheism, with the words, "Well, my lord, I must say as I think there is a God after all you've told us."