In an address to a young minister F W Boreham states a qualification and a challenge for all effective communicators."The communicator must have a vision of humanity. How little people know of each other!
I watched a postman sorting his mail. How little he knew of the contents of the letters he handled! He saw the envelopes. Here one had a black border that gave a hint at sorrow. There was one with a silver edge that whispered to him of gladness and festivity. There was one marked ‘Urgent’, that told of important business and of anxiety. And another was registered, and he knew that it carried treasure. And that was all he knew.
And that is how we meet people on the street. A smile here, and a tear there, and a quick step or an anxious face yonder give hints of the thoughts that throb in the hearts of people, but that is all. The communicator needs a deeper knowledge of people than this. The communicator cannot afford to see people as trees walking. One must read more than the envelopes."
Frank W Boreham, ‘The Seer’ The Whisper of God (London: Arthur Stockwell, 1902), 51.
Image: “One must read more than the envelopes.”