57.

 "As a matter of fact, mere loquacity would not win any credit unless backed by Scriptural authority, that is, when men see that the speaker is trying to give his false doctrine Biblical support" (Tit. 1:10). Moreover, this garrulous eloquence and wordy rusticity "lacks biting power, has nothing vivid or life-giving in it; it is flaccid, languid and enervated; it is like boiled herbs and grass, which speedily dry up and wither away."[¹⁰⁶]

On the contrary the Gospel teaching is straightforward, it is like that "least of all seeds" - the mustard seed - "no mere vegetable, but something that 'grows into a tree so that the birds of the air come and dwell in its branches'."[¹⁰⁷] The consequence is that everybody hears gladly this simple and holy fashion of speech, for it is clear and has real beauty without artificiality:
There are certain eloquent folk who puff out their cheeks and produce a foaming torrent of words; may they win all the eulogiums they crave for! For myself, I prefer so to speak that I may be intelligible; when I discuss the Bible I prefer the Bible's simplicity[¹⁰⁸]. . . A cleric's exposition of the Bible should, of course, have a certain becoming eloquence; but he must keep this in the background, for he must ever have in view the human race and not the leisurely philosophical schools with their choice coterie of disciples.[¹⁰⁹]

If the younger clergy would but strive to reduce principles like these to practice, and if their elders would keep such principles before their eyes, we are well assured that they would prove of very real assistance to those to whom they minister.