Rewrite Your Sermons and Addresses

Ernie Pyle, the world’s most famous and most-loved correspondent, used to attach himself to a small unit for several days, living as they lived in the field or at the battle front. When he had soaked himself in the experiences of these men, he returned to the rear to write about them.

Pyle wrote slowly, insisting on quiet. He always rewrote his column at least three or four times before he sent it forward to the paper.

Abraham Lincoln rewrote the Gettysburg speech at least three times. There are those who say he wrote it four times. In his final revision (which may be seen in the Library of Congress at Washington, D. C.) he significantly added to the statement, “That this nation may have a new birth of freedom,” the glorious phrase “under God” making his challenge to read, “that this nation under God may enjoy a new birth of freedom.”

Dr. Alexander Whyte of Edinburgh, strict Scotch divine, said, “No sermon is fit to preach which has not been written three times.”