How NOT to begin your first affirmative speech in a public debate…

“Gentlemen Moderators, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am glad of the opportunity to come before you this afternoon. I have really forgotten the wording of the proposition. The church of the New Testament was set up and organized by Jesus Christ during his personal ministry on earth. That’s only one of my habits of forgetting the proposition. It doesn’t matter much about that anyhow, as we say what we please, regardless.”

So began the Baptist, Ben Bogard, in his debate with N. B. Hardeman in 1938 (p. 158).