Abraham Lincoln, in the accepted joshing style of the times, once remarked of a political opponent, "He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met."Louise Bachelder, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Wisdom and Wit (Mount Vernon, N.Y.: The Peter Pauper Press, 1965), p. 51.
On the other hand, sometimes people who have much to say don't use a lot of words to communicate it. One of the Christian Scientists who meant the most to me probably said less about Christian Science than many other people I've known. As I've thought about it over the years, I've realized that what came through so strongly in his sparing words was the assurance of an entire world of spiritual substance and meaning behind them. As people sometimes say, "He'd been there." He'd lived what he talked about.
Don't we make our greatest progress in Christian Science as we go beyond being readers and collectors of words? Mary Baker Eddy writes trenchantly, "Expect to heal simply by repeating the author's words, by right talking and wrong acting, and you will be disappointed." Science And Health with Key in the Scriptures, p. 452.
