We have made a standing arrangement for paper this year, of which the present pamphlet is a sample, and we shall do our utmost to have the whole volume printed in a neat and legible manner. As to _fine_ paper, covers, etc., they are like fine clothes only necessary to encase the bodies and souls which will not pass without them. You have, no doubt, seen the preacher wrapped in the finest broadcloth, and a golden chain for a watch-guard, who, after a labored effort for an hour would only prove that he was a human frame, finely clad, but _no preacher_. In clothing our thoughts in pamphlets, as in clothing our persons, the proper rule should be, to have the apparel just such as not to be noticed at all, and then the thoughts in the pamphlet or the man himself may be seen. Let the attire be neat enough not to be observed for its shabbiness, and plain enough not to be noticed for its fineness, that the person in the attire may be seen. It is true, it is desirable to have a paper printed plain and neat, but all this and fine paper into the bargain will never make it go, if there be not some life, spirit and power in the articles themselves.
Some men seem astonished that their publications do not circulate, seeing that they contain such a display of the most elegant literary taste, not seeming to be aware of the fact, that not one common reader out of fifty ever perceives the mighty effort at all. Yet there can be no objection to fine style. The difficulty in that class to which we refer, is not that they write in fine style, but that there is _nothing but the style_—neither soul, body, nor spirit.
It may seem strange that a human body, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, would be disturbed by a little thorn in it, not an eighth of an inch long! But, strange as it may appear, _it is a fact_. And you can not accustom the body to it by piercing the thorn in deeper and deeper, till the body will become easy and comfortable; but you can in that way produce irritation, then inflammation, then mortification, and then death. Death has been produced in this way many times. He is no friend to the body who continues to push the thorn in deeper and deeper, nor is he who would excuse him in so doing, or encourage him in it. There is but one remedy, and that is to _remove the thorn_. Even if you have to make the wound much larger than it is, the thorn _must be removed_, or the end will be death.