to the occasion—your own latent capabilities, the expanding possibilities in the story, the response of your audience!
Let us take up the topic, telling the story, under the practical heads:
(1) Choosing or meeting story-telling time;
(2) The story-teller's part;
(3) Controlling canons of the story-teller's part.
(1) Choosing or meeting story-telling time.
"To everything," says Ecclesiastes, "there is a season
and a time for every purpose under the heaven
. . . a time to weep and a time to laugh . . . a time
to keep silence and a time to speak."
Is there an ideal time for telling a story? Assuredly; at this time the story comes to the listener with more pleasure, or stronger appeal to the feelings. But the "pedagogical" story-teller, parent or teacher, must take care not to mistake suitable occasion. The error is not that the story-teller may have, like the Ancient Mariner, a tale of sin and virtue to tell to the soul that must hear it. To say that the story must not be narrowed to didactic purpose is not to exclude altogether the story that may work spiritual reformation. The trouble is that the story-teller sometimes precipitates irritation rather than reformation by untimeliness. The
