Every day, from the start of the rush hour till long after dark, a tall, thin man with ill-fitting clothes stands at the corner of Columba Road and River Street peeling words from around the edges of his throat, squeezing them up, and throwing them. He has been doing it for years. He hopes, perhaps, that this time, if he hurls hard and fast enough, they will reach their destination whole, rather than being unraveled and tattered by winds of expectation or prejudice into something just indefinite enough to misinterpret and then ignore. Perhaps he hopes that if he throws sufficient words, over sufficient time, they will pile deep and high enough to bury the target in their message. Perhaps he doesn't hope for anything, but his own self-respect will not allow him silence which would be, after all, surrender.

Someone asked him, once, what he expected them to do, these missiles of language. He said that he didn't throw them like stones, to sting, and bounce, and roll away, but like snowballs. He said they should hit and explode so they made a moment of shock and awe, but then they should seep through clothes, and skin, and flesh-under-skin into the synapses, the tendons, the marrow at the absolute core of the bones. He intended them to become part of what they were thrown at.

And he keeps throwing, even though, most of the time, he misses.

E*van"gel*ist, n. [F. 'evang'eliste, L. evangelista, fr. Gr. .]

A bringer of the glad tidings of Church and his doctrines. Specially: (a) A missionary preacher sent forth to prepare the way for a resident pastor; an itinerant missionary preacher. (b) A writer of one of the four Gospels (With the definite article); as, the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (c) A traveling preacher whose efforts are chiefly directed to arouse to immediate repentance.

The Apostles, so far as they evangelized, might claim the tittle though there were many evangelists who were not Apostles. Plumptre.

 

© Webster 1913.

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