{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42558/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42558","id":"gutenberg_42558","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42558","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Language & Communication","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Homiletical illustrations","Preaching"],"text":"Transcriber's Notes:\n\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal\n  signs=.\n\n  Blank pages have been eliminated.\n\n  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the\n  original.\n\n  A few typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n\n\n\n  THE\n\n  ART OF ILLUSTRATION\n\n  BY\n\n  C. H. SPURGEON\n\n  NEW-YORK\n\n  WILBUR B. KETCHAM\n\n  2 COOPER UNION\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1894,\n  By WILBUR B. KETCHAM.\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHER'S NOTE.\n\n\nThe lectures in this volume were originally delivered to the students of\nthe Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England. It is\nthe first of his unfinished books to be published, and one to which he\nhad himself given the title, \"The Art of Illustration.\"\n\nOf the five lectures included in this volume, the first two were revised\nduring Mr. Spurgeon's lifetime. Two were partially revised by him before\nbeing redelivered to a later company of students than those who had\nheard them for the first time.\n\nThe remaining lecture was printed substantially as it was taken by the\nreporter; only such verbal corrections having been made as were\nabsolutely necessary to insure accuracy of statement. Mr. Spurgeon has\nsaid of his lectures to his students: \"I am as much at home with my\nyoung brethren as in the bosom of my family, and therefore speak\nwithout restraint. I do not offer that which has cost me nothing, for I\nhave done my best, and taken abundant pains. Therefore, with clear\nconscience, I place my work at the service of my brethren, especially\nhoping to have a careful reading from young preachers, whose profiting\nhas been my principal aim.\"\n\n     W. B. K.\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS.\n\n\n  LECTURE I.\n\n                                                           PAGE\n\n  ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING                                  7\n\n\n  LECTURE II.\n\n  ANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT                                  32\n\n\n  LECTURE III.\n\n  THE USES OF ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS                    57\n\n\n  LECTURE IV.\n\n  WHERE CAN WE FIND ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS?            103\n\n\n  LECTURE V.\n\n  THE SCIENCES AS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATION--ASTRONOMY        137\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\nILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING.\n\n\nThe topic now before us is the use of illustrations in our sermons.\nPerhaps we shall best subserve our purpose by working out an\nillustration in the present address; for there is no better way of\nteaching the art of pottery than by making a pot. Quaint Thomas Fuller\nsays, \"Reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon; but\nsimilitudes are the windows which give the best lights.\" The comparison\nis happy and suggestive, and we will build up our discourse under its\ndirection.\n\nThe chief reason for the construction of windows in a house is, as\nFuller says, _to let in light_. Parables, similes, and metaphors have\nthat effect; and hence we use them to _illustrate_ our subject, or, in\nother words, to \"_brighten it with light_,\" for that is Dr. Johnson's\nliteral rendering of the word _illustrate_. Often when didactic speech\nfails to enlighten our hearers we may make them see our meaning by\nopening a window and letting in the pleasant light of analogy. Our\nSaviour, who is the light of the world, took care to fill his speech\nwith similitudes, so that the common people heard him gladly; his\nexample stamps with high authority the practice of illuminating heavenly\ninstruction with comparisons and similes. To every preacher of\nrighteousness as well as to Noah, wisdom gives the command, \"A window\nshalt thou make in the ark.\" You may build up laborious definitions and\nexplanations and yet leave your hearers in the dark as to your meaning;\nbut a thoroughly suitable metaphor will wonderfully clear the sense. The\npictures in an illustrated paper give us a far better idea of the\nscenery which they represent than could be conveyed to us by the best\ndescriptive letterpress; and it is much the same with scriptural\nteaching: abstract truth comes before us so much more vividly when a\nconcrete example is given, or the doctrine itself is clothed in\nfigurative language. There should, if possible, be at least one good\nmetaphor in the shortest address; as Ezekiel, in his vision of the\ntemple, saw that even to the little chambers there were windows suitable\nto their size. If we are faithful to the spirit of the gospel we labor\nto make things plain: it is our study to be simple and to be understood\nby the most illiterate of our hearers; let us, then, set forth many a\nmetaphor and parable before the people. He wrote wisely who said, \"The\nworld below me is a glass in which I may see the world above. The works\nof God are the shepherd's calendar and the plowman's alphabet.\" Having\nnothing to conceal, we have no ambition to be obscure. Lycophron\ndeclared that he would hang himself upon a tree if he found a person who\ncould understand his poem entitled \"The Prophecy of Cassandra.\" Happily\nno one arose to drive him to such a misuse of timber. We think we could\nfind brethren in the ministry who might safely run the same risk in\nconnection with their sermons. Still have we among us those who are like\nHeraclitus, who was called \"the Dark Doctor\" because his language was\nbeyond all comprehension. Certain mystical discourses are so dense that\nif light were admitted into them it would be extinguished like a torch\nin the Grotta del Cane: they are made up of the palpably obscure and the\ninexplicably involved, and all hope of understanding them may be\nabandoned. This style of oratory we do not cultivate. We are of the same\nmind as Joshua Shute, who said: \"That sermon has most learning in it\nthat has most plainness. Hence it is that a great scholar was wont to\nsay, 'Lord, give me learning enough, that I may preach plain enough.'\"\n\nWindows greatly add to the pleasure and agreeableness of a habitation,\nand so do _illustrations make a sermon pleasurable and interesting_. A\nbuilding without windows would be a prison rather than a house, for it\nwould be quite dark, and no one would care to take it upon lease; and,\nin the same way, a discourse without a parable is prosy and dull, and\ninvolves a grievous weariness of the flesh. The preacher in Solomon's\nEcclesiastes \"sought to find out acceptable words,\" or, as the Hebrew\nhas it, \"words of delight\": surely, figures and comparisons are\ndelectable to our hearers. Let us not deny them the salt of parable with\nthe meat of doctrine. Our congregations hear us with pleasure when we\ngive them a fair measure of imagery: when an anecdote is being told they\nrest, take breath, and give play to their imaginations, and thus prepare\nthemselves for the sterner work which lies before them in listening to\nour profounder expositions. Riding in a third-class carriage some years\nago in the eastern counties, we had been for a long time without a lamp;\nand when a traveler lighted a candle, it was pleasant to see how all\neyes turned that way, and rejoiced in the light: such is frequently the\neffect of an apt simile in the midst of a sermon; it lights up the whole\nmatter, and gladdens every heart. Even the little children open their\neyes and ears, and a smile brightens up their faces as we tell a story;\nfor they, too, rejoice in the light which streams in through our\nwindows. We dare say they often wish that the sermon were all\nillustrations, even as the boy desired to have a cake made all of plums;\nbut that must not be: there is a happy medium, and we must keep to it by\nmaking our discourse pleasant hearing, but not a mere pastime. No reason\nexists why the preaching of the gospel should be a miserable operation\neither to the speaker or to the hearer. Pleasantly profitable let all\nour sermons be. A house must not have thick walls without openings,\nneither must a discourse be all made up of solid slabs of doctrine\nwithout a window of comparison or a lattice of poetry; if so, our\nhearers will gradually forsake us, and prefer to stay at home and read\ntheir favorite authors, whose lively tropes and vivid images afford more\npleasure to their minds.\n\nEvery architect will tell you that he looks upon his windows as _an\nopportunity for introducing ornament into his design_. A pile may be\nmassive, but it cannot be pleasing if it is not broken up with windows\nand other details. The palace of the popes at Avignon is an immense\nstructure; but the external windows are so few that it has all the\naspect of a colossal prison, and suggests nothing of what a palace\nshould be. Sermons need to be broken up, varied, decorated, and\nenlivened; and nothing can do this so well as the introduction of types,\nemblems, and instances. Of course, ornament is not the main point to be\nconsidered; but still many little excellences go to make up perfection,\nand this is one of the many, and therefore it should not be overlooked.\nWhen Wisdom built her house she hewed out her seven pillars, for glory\nand for beauty, as well as for the support of the structure; and shall\nwe think that any rough hovel is good enough for the beauty of holiness\nto dwell in? Certainly a gracious discourse is none the better for being\nbereft of every grace of language. Meretricious ornament we deprecate,\nbut an appropriate beauty of speech we cultivate. Truth is a king's\ndaughter, and her raiment should be of wrought gold; her house is a\npalace, and it should be adorned with \"windows of agate and gates of\ncarbuncle.\"\n\n_Illustrations tend to enliven an audience and quicken attention._\nWindows, when they will open--which, alas! is not often the case in our\nplaces of worship--are a great blessing by refreshing and reviving the\naudience with a little pure air, and arousing the poor mortals who are\nrendered sleepy by the stagnant atmosphere. A window should, according\nto its name, be a wind-door, through which a breath of air may visit the\naudience; even so, an original figure, a noble image, a quaint\ncomparison, a rich allegory, should open upon our hearers a breeze of\nhappy thought, which will pass over them like life-giving breath,\narousing them from their apathy, and quickening their faculties to\nreceive the truth. Those who are accustomed to the soporific\nsermonizings of certain dignified divines would marvel greatly if they\ncould see the enthusiasm and lively delight with which congregations\nlisten to speech through which there flows a quiet current of happy,\nnatural illustration. Arid as a desert are many volumes of discourses\nwhich are to be met with upon the booksellers' dust-covered shelves; but\nif in the course of a thousand paragraphs they contain a single simile,\nit is as an oasis in the Sahara, and serves to keep the reader's soul\nalive. In fashioning a discourse think little of the bookworm, which\nwill be sure of its portion of meat however dry your doctrine, but have\npity upon those hungering ones immediately around you who must find life\nthrough your sermon or they will never find it at all. If some of your\nhearers sleep on they will of necessity wake up in eternal perdition,\nfor they hear no other helpful voice.\n\nWhile we thus commend illustrations for necessary uses, it must be\nremembered that they are not the strength of a sermon any more than a\nwindow is the strength of a house; and for this reason, among others,\n_they should not be too numerous_. Too many openings for light may\nseriously detract from the stability of a building. We have known\nsermons so full of metaphors that they became weak, and we had almost\nsaid _crazy_, structures. Sermons must not be nosegays of flowers, but\nsheaves of wheat. Very beautiful sermons are generally very useless\nones. To aim at elegance is to court failure. It is possible to have too\nmuch of a good thing: a glass house is not the most comfortable of\nabodes, and besides other objectionable qualities it has the great fault\nof being sadly tempting to stone-throwers. When a critical adversary\nattacks our metaphors he generally makes short work of them. To friendly\nminds images are arguments, but to opponents they are opportunities for\nattack; the enemy climbs up by the window. Comparisons are swords with\ntwo edges which cut both ways; and frequently what seems a sharp and\ntelling illustration may be wittily turned against you, so as to cause\na laugh at your expense: therefore do not rely upon your metaphors and\nparables. Even a second-rate man may defend himself from a superior mind\nif he can dexterously turn his assailant's gun upon himself. Here is an\ninstance which concerns myself, and I give it for that reason, since\nthese lectures have all along been autobiographical. I give a cutting\nfrom one of our religious papers: \"Mr. Beecher was neatly tripped up in\n'The Sword and the Trowel.' In his 'Lectures on Preaching' he asserts\nthat Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded 'in spite of his Calvinism'; adding the\nremark that 'the camel does not travel any better, nor is it any more\nuseful, because of the hump on its back.' The illustration is not a\nfelicitous one, for Mr. Spurgeon thus retorts: 'Naturalists assure us\nthe camel's hump is of great importance in the eyes of the Arabs, who\njudge of the condition of their beasts by the size, shape, and firmness\nof their humps. The camel feeds upon his hump when he traverses the\nwilderness, so that in proportion as the animal travels over the sandy\nwastes, and suffers from privation and fatigue, the mass diminishes; and\nhe is not fit for a long journey till the hump has regained its\nproportions. Calvinism, then, is the spiritual meat which enables a man\nto labor on in the ways of Christian service; and, though ridiculed as\na hump by those who are only lookers-on, those who traverse the weary\npaths of a wilderness experience know too well its value to be willing\nto part with it, even if a Beecher's splendid talents could be given in\nexchange.'\"\n\nIllustrate, by all means, but do not let the sermon be all\nillustrations, or it will be only suitable for an assembly of\nsimpletons. A volume is all the better for engravings, but a scrap-book\nwhich is all woodcuts is usually intended for the use of little\nchildren. Our house should be built up with the substantial masonry of\ndoctrine, upon the deep foundation of inspiration; its pillars should be\nof solid scriptural argument, and every stone of truth should be\ncarefully laid in its place; and then the windows should be ranged in\ndue order, \"three rows\" if we will: \"light against light,\" like the\nhouse of the forest of Lebanon. But a house is not erected for the sake\nof the windows, nor may a sermon be arranged with the view of fitting in\na favorite apologue. A window is merely a convenience subordinate to the\nentire design, and so is the best illustration. We shall be foolish\nindeed if we compose a discourse to display a metaphor; as foolish as if\nan architect should build a cathedral with the view of exhibiting a\nstained-glass window. We are not sent into the world to build a Crystal\nPalace in which to set out works of art and elegancies of fashion; but\nas wise master-builders we are to edify a spiritual house for the divine\ninhabiting. Our building is intended to last, and is meant for every-day\nuse, and hence it must not be all crystal and color. We miss our way\naltogether, as gospel ministers, if we aim at flash and finery.\n\nIt is impossible to lay down a rule as to how much adornment shall be\nfound in each discourse: every man must judge for himself in that\nmatter. True taste in dress could not be readily defined, yet every one\nknows what it is; and there is a literary and spiritual taste which\nshould be displayed in the measuring out of tropes and figures in every\npublic speech. \"_Ne quid nimis_\" is a good caution: do not be too eager\nto garnish and adorn. Some men seem never to have enough of metaphors:\neach one of their sentences must be a flower. They compass sea and land\nto find a fresh piece of colored glass for their windows, and they break\ndown the walls of their discourses to let in superfluous ornaments, till\ntheir productions rather resemble a fantastic grotto than a house to\ndwell in. They are grievously in error if they think that thus they\nmanifest their own wisdom, or benefit their hearers. I could almost\nwish for a return of the window-tax if it would check these poetical\nbrethren. The law, I believe, allowed eight windows free from duty, and\nwe might also exempt \"a few, that is eight\" metaphors from criticism;\nbut more than that ought to pay heavily. Flowers upon the table at a\nbanquet are well enough; but as nobody can live upon bouquets, they will\nbecome objects of contempt if they are set before us in lieu of\nsubstantial viands. The difference between a little salt with your meat\nand being compelled to empty the salt-cellar is clear to all; and we\ncould wish that those who pour out so many symbols, emblems, figures,\nand devices would remember that nausea in oratory is not more agreeable\nthan in food. Enough is as good as a feast; and too many pretty things\nmay be a greater evil than none at all.\n\nIt is a suggestive fact that the tendency to abound in metaphor and\nillustration becomes weaker as men grow older and wiser. Perhaps this\nmay, in a measure, be ascribed to the decay of their imagination; but it\nalso occurs at the same time as the ripening of their understanding.\nSome may have to use fewer figures of necessity, because they do not\ncome to them as aforetime; but this is not always the case. I know that\nmen who still possess great facility in imagery find it less needful to\nemploy that faculty now than in their earlier days, for they have the\near of the people, and they are solemnly resolved to fill that ear with\ninstruction as condensed as they can make it. When you begin with a\npeople who have not heard the gospel, and whose attention you have to\nwin, you can hardly go too far in the use of figure and metaphor. Our\nLord Jesus Christ used very much of it; indeed, \"without a parable spake\nhe not unto them\"; because they were not educated up to the point at\nwhich they could profitably hear pure didactic truth. It is noticeable\nthat after the Holy Ghost had been given, fewer parables were used, and\nthe saints were more plainly taught of God. When Paul spoke or wrote to\nthe churches in his epistles he employed few parables, because he\naddressed those who were advanced in grace and willing to learn. As\nChristian minds made progress the style of their teachers became less\nfigurative, and more plainly doctrinal. We seldom see engravings in the\nclassics of the college; these are reserved for the spelling-books of\nthe dame-school. This should teach us wisdom, and suggest that we are to\nbe bound by no hard and fast rules, but should use more or less of any\nmode of teaching according to our own condition and that of our people.\n\n_Illustrations should really cast light upon the subject in hand_,\notherwise they are sham windows, and all shams are an abomination. When\nthe window-tax was still in force many people in country houses closed\nhalf their lights by plastering them up, and then they had the plaster\npainted to look like panes; so that there was still the appearance of a\nwindow, though no sunlight could enter. Well do I remember the dark\nrooms in my grandfather's parsonage, and my wonder that men should have\nto pay for the light of the sun. Blind windows are fit emblems of\nillustrations which illustrate nothing, and need themselves to be\nexplained. Grandiloquence is never more characteristic than in its\nfigures; there it disports itself in a very carnival of bombast. We\ncould quote several fine specimens of sublime spread-eagleism and\nmagnificent nonsense.\n\nA piece of high-flown oratory sheds light upon nothing, and does not in\nthe faintest degree enable us to understand the reasons. The object of\nlanguage of this kind is not to instruct the hearer, but to dazzle him,\nand, if possible, to impress him with the idea that his minister is a\nwonderful orator. He who condescends to use clap-trap of any kind\ndeserves to be debarred the pulpit for the term of his natural life. Let\nyour figures of speech really represent and explain your meaning, or\nelse they are dumb idols, which ought not to be set up in the house of\nthe Lord.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt may be well to note that _illustrations should not be too prominent_,\nor, to pursue our figure, they should not be painted windows, attracting\nattention to themselves rather than letting in the clear light of day. I\nam not pronouncing any judgment upon windows adorned with \"glass of\nvarious colors which shine like meadows decked in the flowers of\nspring\"; I am looking only to my illustration. Our figures are meant not\nso much to be seen as to be seen through. If you take the hearer's mind\naway from the subject by exciting his admiration of your own skill in\nimagery, you are doing evil rather than good. I saw in one of our\nexhibitions a portrait of a king; but the artist had surrounded his\nmajesty with a bower of flowers so exquisitely painted that every one's\neye was taken away from the royal figure. All the resources of the\npainter's art had been lavished upon the accessories, and the result was\nthat the portrait, which should have been all in all, had fallen into a\nsecondary place. This was surely an error in portrait-painting, even\nthough it might be a success in art. We have to set forth Christ before\nthe people, \"evidently crucified among them,\" and the loveliest emblem\nor the most charming image which calls the mind away from our divine\nsubject is to be conscientiously forsworn. Jesus must be all in all: his\ngospel must be the beginning and end of all our discoursing; parable and\npoesy must be under his feet, and eloquence must wait upon him as his\nservant. Never by any possibility must the minister's speech become a\nrival to his subject; that were to dishonor Christ, and not to glorify\nhim. Hence the caution that the illustrations be not too conspicuous.\n\nOut of this last observation comes the further remark that\n_illustrations are best when they are natural and grow out of the\nsubject_. They should be like those well-arranged windows which are\nevidently part of the plan of a structure, and not inserted as an\nafterthought, or for mere adornment. The cathedral of Milan inspires my\nmind with extreme admiration; it always appears to me as if it must have\ngrown out of the earth like a colossal tree, or rather like a forest of\nmarble. From its base to its loftiest pinnacle every detail is a natural\noutgrowth, a portion of a well-developed whole, essential to the main\nidea; indeed, part and parcel of it. Such should a sermon be; its\nexordium, divisions, arguments, appeals, and metaphors should all spring\nout of itself; nothing should be out of living relation to the rest; it\nshould seem as if nothing could be added without being an excrescence,\nand nothing taken away without inflicting damage. There should be\nflowers in a sermon, but the bulk of them should be the flowers of the\nsoil; not dainty exotics, evidently imported with much care from a\ndistant land, but the natural upspringing of a life natural to the holy\nground on which the preacher stands. Figures of speech should be\ncongruous with the matter of the discourse; a rose upon an oak would be\nout of place, and a lily springing from a poplar would be unnatural:\neverything should be of a piece and have a manifest relationship to the\nrest. Occasionally a little barbaric splendor may be allowed, after the\nmanner of Thomas Adams and Jeremy Taylor and other masters in Israel,\nwho adorn truth with rare gems and gold of Ophir, fetched from far. Yet\nI would have you note what Dr. Hamilton says of Taylor, for it is a\nwarning to those who aim at winning the ear of the multitude: \"Thoughts,\nepithets, incidents, images came trooping round with irrepressible\nprofusion, and they were all so apt and beautiful that it was hard to\nsend any of them away. And so he tried to find a place and use for\nall--for 'flowers and wings of butterflies,' as well as 'wheat'; and if\nhe could not fabricate links of his logical chain out of 'the little\nrings of the vine' and 'the locks of a new-weaned boy,' he could at\nleast decorate his subject with exquisite adornments. The passages from\nhis loved Austin and Chrysostom, and not less beloved Seneca and\nPlutarch, the scholar knows how to pardon. The squirrel is not more\ntempted to carry nuts to his hoard than the bookish author is tempted to\ntransfer to his own pages fine passages from his favorite authors. Alas!\nhe little knows how flat and meaningless they are to those who have not\ntraversed the same walks, and shared the delight with which he found\ngreat spoil. To him each polished shell recalls its autumnal tale of\nwoods, and groves, and sunshine showering through the yellow leaves; but\nto the quaint collection 'the general public' very much prefer a pint of\nfilberts from a huckster's barrow.\" No illustrations are half so telling\nas those which are taken from familiar objects. Many fair flowers grow\nin foreign lands, but those are dearest to the heart which bloom at our\nown cottage door.\n\n_Elaboration into minute points is not commendable_ when we are using\nfigures. The best light comes in through the clearest glass: too much\npaint keeps out the sun. God's altar of old was to be made of earth, or\nof unhewn stone, \"for,\" said the Word, \"if thou lift up thy tool upon\nit, thou hast polluted it\" (Ex. xx. 25). A labored, artificial style,\nupon which the graver's tool has left abundant marks, is more consistent\nwith human pleadings in courts of law, or in the forum, or in the\nsenate, than with prophetic utterances delivered in the name of God and\nfor the promotion of his glory. Our Lord's parables were as simple as\ntales for children, and as naturally beautiful as the lilies which\nsprang up in the valleys where he taught the people. He borrowed no\nlegend from the Talmud, nor fairy tale from Persia, neither fetched he\nhis emblems from beyond the sea; but he dwelt among his own people, and\ntalked of common things in homely style, as never man spake before, and\nyet as any observant man should speak. His parables were like himself\nand his surroundings, and were never strained, fantastic, pedantic, or\nartificial. Let us imitate him, for we shall never find a model more\ncomplete, or more suitable for the present age. Opening our eyes, we\nshall discover abundant imagery all around. As it is written, \"The word\nis nigh thee,\" so also is the analogy of that word near at hand:\n\n  \"All things around me, whate'er they be,\n   That I meet as the chance may come.\n   Have a voice and a speech in them all--\n   Birds that hover and bees that hum;\n   The beast of the field or the stall;\n   The trees, leaves, rushes, and grasses;\n   The rivulet running away;\n   The bird of the air as it passes,\n   Or the mountains that motionless stay;\n   And yet those immovable masses\n   Keep changing, as dreams do, all day.\" [1]\n\n  [1] Slightly altered from \"Fables in Song,\" by Robert Lord Lytton.\n\nThere will be little need to borrow from the recondite mysteries of\nhuman art, nor to go deep into the theories of science; for in nature\ngolden illustrations lie upon the surface, and the purest is that which\nis uppermost and most readily discerned. Of natural history in all its\nbranches we may well say, \"The gold of that land is good\": the\nillustrations furnished by every-day phenomena seen by the plowman and\nthe wagoner are the very best which earth can yield. An illustration is\nnot like a prophet, for it has most honor in its own country; and those\nwho have oftenest seen the object are those who are most gratified by\nthe figure drawn from it.\n\nI trust that it is scarcely necessary to add that _illustrations must\nnever be low or mean_. They may not be high-flown, but they should\nalways be in good taste. They may be homely, and yet chastely beautiful;\nbut rough and coarse they should never be. A house is dishonored by\nhaving dirty windows, cobwebbed and begrimed, patched with brown paper,\nor stuffed up with rags: such windows are the insignia of a hovel rather\nthan a house. About our illustrations there must never be even the\nslightest trace of anything that would shock the most delicate modesty.\nWe like not that window out of which Jezebel is looking. Like the bells\nupon the horses, our lightest expressions must be holiness unto the\nLord. Of that which suggests the groveling and the base we may say with\nthe Apostle, \"Let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.\"\nAll our windows should open toward Jerusalem, and none toward Sodom. We\nwill gather our flowers always and only from Emmanuel's land, and Jesus\nhimself shall be their savor and sweetness, so that when he lingers at\nthe lattice to hear us speak of himself he may say, \"Thy lips, O my\nspouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue.\"\nThat which grows beyond the border of purity and good repute must never\nbe bound up in our garlands, nor placed among the decorations of our\ndiscourses. That which would be exceedingly clever and telling in a\nstump orator's speech, or in a cheap-jack's harangue, would be\ndisgusting from a minister of the gospel. Time was when we could have\nfound far too many specimens of censurable coarseness, but it would be\nungenerous to mention them now that such things are on all hands\ncondemned.\n\nGentlemen, take care that your windows are not broken, or even cracked:\nin other words, _guard against confused metaphors and limping\nillustrations_. Sir Boyle Roche is generally credited with some of the\nfinest specimens of metaphorical conglomerate. We should imagine that\nthe passage is mythical in which he is represented as saying, \"I smell a\nrat; I see it floating in the air; I'll nip it in the bud.\" Minor\nblunderings are frequent enough in the speech of our own countrymen. An\nexcellent temperance advocate exclaimed, \"Comrades, let us be up and\ndoing! Let us take our axes on our shoulders, and plow the waste places\ntill the good ship Temperance sails gaily over the land.\" We well\nremember, years ago, hearing a fervent Irish clergyman exclaim,\n\"Garibaldi, sir, he is far too great a man to play second fiddle to\nsuch a wretched luminary as Victor Emmanuel.\" It was at a public\nmeeting, and therefore we were bound to be proper; but it would have\nbeen a great relief to our soul if we might have indulged in a hearty\nlaugh at the spectacle of Garibaldi with a fiddle, playing to a\nluminary; for a certain nursery rhyme jingled in our ears, and sorely\ntried our gravity. A poetic friend thus encouragingly addresses us:\n\n  \"March on, however rough the road,\n     Though foes obstruct thy way,\n   Deaf to _the barking curs that would_\n     _Ensnare thy feet astray_.\"\n\nThe other evening a brother expressed his desire that we might \"all be\nwinners of souls, and bring the Lord's blood-bought jewels to cast their\ncrowns at his feet.\" The words had such a pious ring about them that the\naudience did not observe the fractured state of the expression. One of\nyour own number hoped \"that every student might be enabled to sound the\ngospel trumpet with such a clear and certain sound _that the blind might\nsee_.\" Perhaps he meant that they should open their eyes with\nastonishment at the terrific blast; but the figure would have been more\ncongruous if he had said \"that the deaf should hear.\" A Scotch writer,\nin referring to a proposal to use an organ in divine service, says:\n\"Nothing will _stem this avalanche_ of will-worship and gross sin but\nthe _falling back on the Word of God_.\"\n\nThe _Daily News_, in reviewing a book written by an eminent minister,\ncomplained that his metaphors were apt to be a little unmanageable, as\nwhen he spoke of something which had remained a secret until a strangely\npotent key was inserted among the hidden wards of the parental heart,\nand a rude wrench flung wide the floodgates and set free the imprisoned\nstream. However, there is no wonder that ordinary mortals commit\nblunders in figurative speech, when even his late Infallible Holiness\nPius IX. said of Mr. Gladstone that he \"had suddenly come forward like a\nviper assailing the bark of St. Peter.\" A viper assailing a bark is\nrather too much for the most accommodating imagination, although some\nminds are ready for any marvels.\n\nOne of those reviews which reckon themselves to be the cream of the\ncream took pains to inform us that the Dean of Chichester, being the\nselect preacher at St. Mary's, Oxford, \"seized the opportunity to smite\nthe Ritualists hip and thigh, _with great volubility and vivacity_.\"\nSamson smote his foes with a great slaughter; but language is flexible.\n\nThese blunders are to be quoted by the page: I have given enough to let\nyou see how readily the pitchers of metaphor may be cracked, and\nrendered unfit to carry our meaning. The ablest speaker may occasionally\nerr in this direction; it is not a very serious matter, and yet, like a\ndead fly, it may spoil sweet ointment. A few brethren of my acquaintance\nare always off the lines; they muddle up every figure they touch, and as\nsoon as they approach a metaphor we look for an accident. It might be\nwisdom on their part to shun all figures of speech till they know how to\nuse them; for it is a great pity when illustrations are so confused as\nboth to darken the sense and create diversion. Muddled metaphors are\nmuddles indeed; let us give the people good illustrations or none at\nall.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT.\n\n\nIt is pretty generally admitted that sermons may wisely be adorned with\na fair share of illustrations; but anecdotes used to that end are still\nregarded by the prudes of the pulpit with a measure of suspicion. They\nwill come down low enough to quote an emblem, they will deign to use\npoetic imagery; but they cannot stoop to tell a simple, homely story.\nThey would probably say in confidence to their younger brethren, \"Beware\nhow you lower yourselves and your sacred office by repeating anecdotes,\nwhich are best appreciated by the vulgar and uneducated.\" We would not\nretort by exhorting all men to abound in stories, for there ought to be\ndiscrimination. It is freely admitted that there are useful and\nadmirable styles of oratory which would be disfigured by a rustic tale;\nand there are honored brethren whose genius would never allow them to\nrelate a story, for it would not appear suitable to their mode of\nthought. Upon these we would not even by implication hint at a censure;\nbut when we are dealing with others who seem to be somewhat, and are not\nwhat they seem, we feel no tenderness; nay, we are even moved to assail\ntheir stilted greatness. If they sneer at anecdotes, we smile at _them_\nand their sneers, and wish them more sense and less starch. Affectation\nof intellectual superiority and love of rhetorical splendor have\nprevented many from setting forth gospel truth in the easiest imaginable\nmanner, namely, by analogies drawn from common events. Because they\ncould not condescend to men of low estate, they have refrained from\nrepeating incidents which would have accurately explained their meaning.\nFearing to be thought vulgar, they have lost golden opportunities. As\nwell might David have refused to sling one of the smooth stones at\nGoliath's brow because he found it in a common brook.\n\nFrom individuals so lofty in their ideas nothing is likely to flow down\nto the masses of the people but a glacial eloquence--a river of ice.\nDignity is a most poor and despicable consideration unless it be the\ndignity of turning many to righteousness; and yet divines who have had\nscarcely enough of real dignity to save themselves from contempt have\nswollen \"huge as high Olympus\" through the affectation of it. A young\ngentleman, after delivering an elaborate discourse, was told that not\nmore than five or six in the congregation had been able to understand\nhim. This he accepted as a tribute to his genius; but I take leave to\nplace him in the same class with another person who was accustomed to\nshake his head in the most profound manner, that he might make his\nprelections the more impressive; and this had some effect with the\ngroundlings, until a shrewd Christian woman made the remark that he did\nshake his head certainly, but that _there was nothing in it_. Those who\nare too refined to be simple need to be refined again. Luther has well\nput it in his \"Table Talk\": \"Cursed are all preachers that in the church\naim at high and hard things; and neglecting the saving health of the\npoor unlearned people, seek their own honor and praise, and therefore\ntry to please one or two great persons. _When I preach I sink myself\ndeep down._\" It may be superfluous to remind you of the oft-quoted\npassage from George Herbert's \"Country Parson,\" and yet I cannot omit\nit, because it is so much to my mind: \"The Parson also serves himself of\nthe judgments of God, as of those of ancient times, so especially of the\nlate ones; and those most which are nearest to his parish; for people\nare very attentive at such discourses, and think it behooves them to be\nso when God is so near them, and even over their heads. Sometimes he\ntells them stories and sayings of others, according as his text invites\nhim; for them also men heed, and remember better than exhortations;\nwhich, though earnest, yet often die with the sermon, especially with\ncountry people, which are thick and heavy, and hard to raise to a point\nof zeal and fervency, and need a mountain of fire to kindle them, but\nstories and sayings they will well remember.\"\n\nIt ought never to be forgotten that the great God himself, when he would\ninstruct men, employs histories and biographies. Our Bible contains\ndoctrines, promises, and precepts; but these are not left alone--the\nwhole book is vivified and illustrated by marvelous records of things\nsaid and done by God and by men. He who is taught of God values the\nsacred histories, and knows that in them there is a special fulness and\nforcibleness of instruction. Teachers of Scripture cannot do better than\ninstruct their fellows after the manner of the Scriptures.\n\nOur Lord Jesus Christ, the great teacher of teachers, did not disdain\nthe use of anecdotes. To my mind it seems clear that certain of his\nparables were facts and, consequently, anecdotes. May not the story of\nthe Prodigal Son have been a literal truth? Were there not actual\ninstances of an enemy sowing tares among the wheat? May not the rich\nfool who said, \"Take thine ease,\" have been a photograph taken from\nlife? Did not Dives and Lazarus actually figure on the stage of history?\nCertainly the story of those who were crushed by the fall of the tower\nof Siloam, and the sad tragedy of the Galileans, \"whose blood Pilate had\nmingled with their sacrifices,\" were matters of current Jewish gossip,\nand our Lord turned both of them to good account. What HE did we need\nnot be ashamed to do. That we may do it with all wisdom and prudence let\nus seek the guidance of the Divine Spirit which rested upon him so\ncontinually.\n\nI shall make up this present address by quoting the examples of great\npreachers, beginning with the era of the Reformation, and following on\nwithout any very rigid chronological order down to our own day. Examples\nare more powerful than precepts; hence I quote them.\n\nFirst, let me mention that grand old preacher, _Hugh Latimer_, the most\nEnglish of all our divines, and one whose influence over our land was\nundoubtedly most powerful. Southey says, \"Latimer more than any other\nman promoted the Reformation by his preaching;\" and in this he echoes\nthe more important utterance of Ridley, who wrote from his prison, \"I do\nthink that the Lord hath placed old father Latimer to be his\nstandard-bearer in our age and country against his mortal foe,\nAntichrist.\" If you have read any of his sermons, you must have been\nstruck with the number of his quaint stories, seasoned with a homely\nhumor which smacks of that Leicestershire farmhouse wherein he was\nbrought up by a father who did yeoman's service, and a mother who milked\nthirty kine. No doubt we may attribute to these stories the breaking\ndown of pews by the overwhelming rush of the people to hear him, and the\ngeneral interest which his sermons excited. More of such, preaching, and\nwe should have less fear of the return of popery. The common people\nheard him gladly, and his lively anecdotes accounted for much of their\neager attention. A few of these narratives one could hardly repeat, for\nthe taste of our age has happily improved in delicacy; but others are\nmost admirable and instructive. Here are two of them:\n\n     THE FRIAR'S MAN AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.--I will tell you now a\n     pretty story of a friar, to refresh you withal. A limiter of the\n     Gray Friars in the time of his limitation preached many times, and\n     had but one sermon at all times; which sermon was of the Ten\n     Commandments. And because this friar had preached this sermon so\n     often, one that heard it before told the friar's servant that his\n     master was called \"Friar John Ten Commandments\"; wherefore the\n     servant showed the friar his master thereof, and advised him to\n     preach of some other matters; for it grieved the servant to hear\n     his master derided. Now, the friar made answer saying, \"Belike,\n     then, thou canst say the Ten Commandments well, seeing thou hast\n     heard them so many a time.\" \"Yea,\" said the servant, \"I warrant\n     you.\" \"Let me hear them,\" saith the master. Then he began: \"Pride,\n     covetousness, lechery,\" and so numbered the deadly sins for the Ten\n     Commandments. And so there be many at this time which be weary of\n     the old gospel. They would fain hear some new things, they think\n     themselves so perfect in the old, when they be no more skilful than\n     this servant was in his Ten Commandments.\n\n     SAINT ANTHONY AND THE COBBLER.--We read a pretty story of Saint\n     Anthony, which, being in the wilderness, led there a very hard and\n     straight life, insomuch as none at that time did the like, to whom\n     came a voice from heaven saying, \"Anthony, thou art not so perfect\n     as is a cobbler that dwelleth at Alexandria.\" Anthony hearing this\n     rose up forthwith and took his staff and went till he came to\n     Alexandria, where he found the cobbler. The cobbler was astonished\n     to see so reverend a father to come into his house. Then Anthony\n     said unto him, \"Come and tell me thy whole conversation and how\n     thou spendest thy time.\" \"Sir,\" said the cobbler, \"as for me, good\n     works I have none, for my life is but simple and slender. I am but\n     a poor cobbler. In the morning when I arise I pray for the whole\n     city wherein I dwell, especially for all such neighbors and poor\n     friends as I have. After, I set me at my labor, where I spend the\n     whole day in getting of my living, and keep me from all falsehood,\n     for I hate nothing so much as I do deceitfulness. Wherefore, when I\n     make to any man a promise I keep it and do it truly, and so spend\n     my time poorly with my wife and children, whom I teach and\n     instruct, as far as my wit will serve me, to fear and dread God.\n     This is the sum of my simple life.\"\n\n     In this story you see how God loveth those that follow their\n     vocation and live uprightly without any falsehood in their dealing.\n     This Anthony was a great and holy man, yet this cobbler was as much\n     esteemed before God as he.\n\nLet us take a long leap of about a century, and we come to _Jeremy\nTaylor_, another bishop, whom I mention immediately after _Latimer_\nbecause he is apparently such a contrast to that homely divine, while\nyet in very truth he has a measure of likeness to him as to the point\nnow in hand. They both rejoiced in figure and metaphor, and equally\ndelighted in incident and narrative. True, the one would talk of John\nand William, and the other of Anexagoras and Scipio; but actual scenes\nwere the delight of each. In this respect Jeremy Taylor may be said to\nbe Latimer turned into Latin. Jeremy Taylor is as full of classical\nallusions as a king's palace is full of rare treasures, and his language\nis of the lofty order which more becomes a patrician audience than a\npopular assembly; but when you come to the essence of things, you see\nthat if Latimer is homely, so also Taylor narrates incidents which are\n_homely to him_; but his home is among philosophers of Greece and\nsenators of Rome. This being understood, we venture to say that no one\nused more anecdotes than this splendid poet-preacher. His biographer\ntruly says: \"It would be hard to point out a branch of learning or of\nscientific pursuit to which he does not occasionally allude; or any\nauthor of eminence, either ancient or modern, with whom he does not\nevince himself acquainted. He more than once refers to obscure stories\nin ancient writers, as if they were of necessity as familiar to all his\nreaders as to himself; as, for instance, he talks of 'poor Attillius\nAviola,' and again of 'the Libyan lion that brake loose into his\nwilderness and killed two Roman boys.'\" In all this he is eminently\nselect and classical, and therefore I the more freely introduce him\nhere; for there can be no reason why our anecdotes should all be rustic;\nwe, too, may rifle the treasures of antiquity, and make the heathen\ncontribute to the gospel, even as Hiram of Tyre served under Solomon's\ndirection for the building of the temple of the Lord.\n\nI am no admirer of Taylor's style in other respects, and his teaching\nseems to be at times semi-popish; but in this place I have only to deal\nwith him upon one particular, and of that matter he is an admirable\nexample. He lavishes classic stories even as an Asiatic queen bedecks\nherself with countless pearls. Out of a sermon I extract the following,\nwhich may suffice for our purpose:\n\n     STUDENTS PROGRESSING BACKWARD.--Menedemus was wont to say \"that the\n     young boys that went to Athens the first year were wise men, the\n     second year philosophers, the third orators, and the fourth were\n     but plebeians, and understood nothing but their own ignorance.\" And\n     just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion. At first\n     they are violent and active, and then they satiate all the\n     appetites of religion; and that which is left is that they were\n     soon weary and sat down in displeasure, and return to the world and\n     dwell in the business of pride or money; and by this time they\n     understand that their religion is declined, and passed from the\n     heats and follies of youth to the coldness and infirmities of old\n     age.\n\n     DIOGENES AND THE YOUNG MAN.--Diogenes once spied a young man coming\n     out of a tavern or place of entertainment, who, perceiving himself\n     observed by the philosopher, with some confusion stepped back\n     again, that he might, if possible, preserve his fame with that\n     severe person. But Diogenes told him, \"_Quanto magis intraveris,\n     tanto magis eris in caupona_\" (\"The more you go back the longer you\n     are in the place where you are ashamed to be seen\"). He that\n     conceals his sin still retains that which he counts his shame and\n     burden.\n\nNo examples will have greater weight with you than those taken from\namong the Puritans, in whose steps it is our desire to walk, though,\nalas! we follow with feeble feet. Certain of them abounded in anecdotes\nand stories. _Thomas Brooks_ is a signal instance of the wise and\nwealthy use of holy fancy. I put him first, because I reckon him to be\nthe first in the special art which is now under consideration. He hath\ndust of gold; for even in the margins of his books there are sentences\nof exceeding preciousness, and hints at classic stories. His style is\nclear and full; he never so exceeds in illustration as to lose sight of\nhis doctrine. His floods of metaphor never drown his meaning, but float\nit upon their surface. If you have never read his works I almost envy\nyou the joy of entering for the first time upon his \"Unsearchable\nRiches,\" trying his \"Precious Remedies,\" tasting his \"Apples of Gold,\"\ncommuning with his \"Mute Christian,\" and enjoying his other masterly\nwritings. Let me give you a taste of his quality in the way of\nanecdotes. Here are two brief ones; but he so abounds with them that you\nmay readily cull scores of better ones for yourselves.\n\n     MR. WELCH WEEPING.--A soul under special manifestations of love\n     weeps that it can love Christ no more. Mr. Welch, a Suffolk\n     minister, weeping at table, and being asked the reason of it,\n     answered it was because he could love Christ no more. The true\n     lovers of Christ can never rise high enough in their love to\n     Christ. They count a little love to be no love, great love to be\n     but little, strong love to be but weak, and the highest love to be\n     infinitely below the worth of Christ, the beauty and glory of\n     Christ, the fulness, sweetness, and goodness of Christ. The top of\n     their misery in this life is that they love so little though they\n     are so much beloved.\n\n     SUBMISSIVE SILENCE.--Such was the silence of Philip the Second,\n     King of Spain, that when his Invincible Armada, that had been three\n     years a-fitting, was lost, he gave command that all over Spain they\n     should give thanks to God and the saints that it was no more\n     grievous.\n\n_Thomas Adams_, the Conforming Puritan, whose sermons are full of rugged\nforce and profound meaning, never hesitated to insert a story when he\nfelt that it would enforce his teaching. His starting-point is ever some\nBiblical sentence, or scriptural history; and this he works out with\nmuch elaboration, bringing to it all the treasures of his mind. As\nStowell says, \"Fables, anecdotes, classical poetry, gems from the\nfathers and other old writers, are scattered over almost every page.\"\nHis anecdotes are usually rough-and-ready ones, and might be compared to\nthose of Latimer, only they are not so genial; their humor is generally\ngrim and caustic. The following may serve as fair specimens:\n\n     THE HUSBAND AND HIS WITTY WIFE.--The husband told his wife that he\n     had one ill quality--he was given to be angry without cause. She\n     wittily replied that she would keep him from that fault, for she\n     would give him cause enough. It is the folly of some that they will\n     be offended without cause, to whom the world promises that they\n     shall have causes enough--\"In the world ye shall have tribulation.\"\n\n     THE SERVANT AT THE SERMON.--It is ordinary with many to commend the\n     lecture to others' ears, but few commend it to their own hearts. It\n     is morally true what the _Christian Tell-Truth_ relates: A servant\n     coming from church praiseth the sermon to his master. He asks him\n     what was the text. \"Nay,\" quoth the servant, \"it was begun before I\n     came in.\" \"What, then, was his conclusion?\" He answered, \"I came\n     out before it was done.\" \"But what said he in the midst?\" \"Indeed I\n     was asleep in the midst.\" Many crowd to get into the church, but\n     make no room for the sermon to get into them.\n\n_William Gurnall_, the author of \"The Christian in Complete Armor,\" must\nsurely have been a relater of pertinent stories in his sermons, since\neven in his set and solid writings they occur. Perhaps I need not have\nmade the distinction between his writings and his preaching, for it\nappears from the preface that his \"Christian in Complete Armor\" was\npreached before it was printed. In vivid imagery every page of his\nfamous book abounds, and whenever this is the case we are sure to light\nupon short narratives and striking incidents. He is as profuse in\nillustration as either Brooks, Watson, or Swinnock. Happy Lavenham, to\nhave been served by such a pastor! By the way, this \"Complete Armor\" is\nbeyond all others a preacher's book: I should think that more discourses\nhave been suggested by it than by any other uninspired volume. I have\noften resorted to it when my own fire has been burning low, and I have\nseldom failed to find a glowing coal upon Gurnall's hearth. John Newton\nsaid that if he might read only one book beside the Bible, he would\nchoose \"The Christian in Complete Armor,\" and Cecil was of much the same\nopinion. J. C. Ryle has said of it, \"You will often find in a line and a\nhalf some great truth, put so concisely, and yet so fully, that you\nreally marvel how so much thought could be got into so few words.\" One\nor two stories from the early part of his great work must suffice for\nour purpose.\n\n     BIRD SAFE IN A MAN'S BOSOM.--A heathen could say when a bird\n     (feared by a hawk) flew into his bosom, \"I will not betray thee\n     unto thine enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me.\" How\n     much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy when it takes\n     sanctuary in his name, saying, \"Lord, I am hunted with such a\n     temptation, dogged with such a lust; either thou must pardon it, or\n     I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into\n     the bosom of thy love for Christ's sake; castle me in the arms of\n     thy everlasting strength. It is in thy power to save me from or\n     give me up into the hands of my enemy. I have no confidence in\n     myself or any other. Into thy hands I commit my cause, my life,\n     and rely on thee.\" This dependence of a soul undoubtedly will\n     awaken the almighty power of God for such a one's defense. He hath\n     sworn the greatest oath that can come out of his blessed lips, even\n     by himself, that such as \"flee for refuge\" to hope in him shall\n     have \"strong consolation\" (Heb. vi. 17, 18).\n\n     THE PRINCE WITH HIS FAMILY IN DANGER.--Suppose a king's son should\n     get out of a besieged city where he hath left his wife and\n     children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die\n     by sword or famine, if supply come not the sooner. Could this\n     prince, when arrived at his father's house, please himself with the\n     delights of the court and forget the distress of his family? or\n     rather would he not come post to his father, having their cries and\n     groans always in his ears, and before he ate or drank do his errand\n     to his father, and entreat him if he ever loved him that he would\n     send all the force of his kingdom to raise the siege rather than\n     any of his dear relations should perish? Surely, sirs, though\n     Christ be in the top of his preferment and out of the storm in\n     regard of his own person, yet his children, left behind in the\n     midst of sin's, Satan's, and the world's batteries, are in his\n     heart, and shall not be forgotten a moment by him. The care he\n     takes in our business appeared in the speedy despatch he made of\n     his spirit to his apostles' supply, which, as soon almost as he was\n     warm in his seat at his Father's right hand, he sent, to the\n     incomparable comfort of his apostles and us that to this day--yea,\n     to the end of the world--do or shall believe on him.\n\n_John Flavel_ was greatest in metaphor and allegory; but in the matter\nof anecdote his preaching is a fine example. It was said of his ministry\nthat he who was unaffected by it must either have had a very soft head\nor a very hard heart. He had a fund of striking incidents, and a faculty\nof happy illustration, and as he was a man in whose manner cheerfulness\nwas blended with solemnity, he was popular in the highest degree both at\nhome and abroad. He sought out words which might suit the sailors of\nDartmouth and farmers of Devon, and therefore he has left behind him his\n\"Navigation Spiritualized,\" and his \"Husbandry Spiritualized,\" a legacy\nfor each of the two orders of men who plow the sea and the land. He was\na man worth making a pilgrimage to hear. What a crime it was to silence\nhis heaven-touched lips by the abominable Act of Uniformity! Instead of\nquoting several passages from his sermons, each one containing an\nanecdote, I have thought it as well to give a mass of stories as we find\nthem in his prelections upon\n\n     PROVIDENCE IN CONVERSION.--A scrap of paper accidentally coming to\n     view hath been used as an occasion of conversion. This was the case\n     of a minister of Wales who had two livings but took little care of\n     either. He, being at a fair, bought something at a peddler's\n     standing, and rent off a leaf of Mr. Perkins' catechism to wrap it\n     in, and reading a line or two of it, God sent it home so as it did\n     the work.\n\n     The marriage of a godly man into a carnal family hath been ordered\n     by Providence for the conversion and salvation of many therein.\n     Thus we read in the life of that renowned English worthy, Mr. John\n     Bruen, that in his second match it was agreed that he should have\n     one year's diet in his mother-in-law's house. During his abode\n     there that year, saith Mr. Clark, the Lord was pleased by his means\n     graciously to work upon her soul, as also upon his wife's sister\n     and half-sister, their brothers, Mr. William and Mr. Thomas Fox,\n     with one or two of the servants in that family.\n\n     Not only the reading of a book or hearing of a minister, but--which\n     is most remarkable--the very mistake or forgetfulness of a minister\n     hath been improved by Providence for this end and purpose.\n     Augustine, once preaching to his congregation, forgot the argument\n     which he first proposed, and fell upon the errors of the Manichees\n     beside his first intention, by which discourse he converted one\n     Firmus, his auditor, who fell down at his feet weeping and\n     confessing he had lived a Manichee many years. Another I knew who,\n     going to preach, took up another Bible than that he had designed,\n     in which, not only missing his notes but the chapter also in which\n     his text lay, was put to some loss thereby. But after a short pause\n     he resolved to speak about any other Scripture that might be\n     presented to him, and accordingly read the text, \"The Lord is not\n     slack concerning his promise\" (2 Pet. iii. 9); and though he had\n     nothing prepared, yet the Lord helped him to speak both\n     methodically and pertinently from it, by which discourse a gracious\n     change was wrought upon one in the congregation, who hath since\n     given good evidence of a sound conversion, and acknowledged this\n     sermon to be the first and only means thereof.\n\n_George Swinnock_, for some years chaplain to Hampden, had the gift of\nillustration largely developed, as his works prove. Some of his similes\nare far-fetched, and the growth of knowledge has rendered certain of\nthem obsolete; but they served his purpose, and made his teaching\nattractive. After deducting all his fancies, which in the present age\nwould be judged to be strained, there remains \"a rare amount of\nsanctified wit and wisdom\"; and sparkling here and there we spy out a\nfew telling stories, mostly of classic origin.\n\n     THE PRAYER OF PAULINUS.--It was the speech of Paulinus when his\n     city was taken by the barbarians, \"_Domine, ne excrucier ob aurum\n     et argentum_\" (\"Lord, let me not be troubled for my silver and gold\n     which I have lost, for thou art all things\"). As Noah, when the\n     whole world was overwhelmed with water, had a fair epitome of it in\n     the ark, having all sorts of beasts and fowls there, so he that in\n     a deluge hath God to be his God hath the original of all mercies.\n     He who enjoyeth the ocean may rejoice, though some drops are taken\n     from him.\n\n     QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE MILKMAID.--Queen Elizabeth envied the\n     milkmaid when she was in prison, but had she known the glorious\n     reign which she was to have for forty-four years she would not have\n     repined at the poor happiness of so mean a person. Christians are\n     too prone to envy the husks which wandering sinners fill themselves\n     with here below; but would they set before them their glorious\n     hopes of a heaven, how they must reign with Christ forever and\n     ever, they would see little reason for their repining.\n\n     THE BELIEVING CHILD.--I have read a story of a little child about\n     eight or nine years old, that, being extremely pinched with hunger,\n     looked one day pitifully necessitous on her mother, and said,\n     \"Mother, do you think that God will starve us?\" The mother\n     answered, \"No, child; he will not.\" The child replied, \"But if he\n     do, yet we must love him and serve him.\" Here was language that\n     spake a well-grown Christian. For, indeed, God brings us to want\n     and misery to try us whether we love him for his own sake or for\n     our own sakes, for those excellencies that are in him or for those\n     mercies we have from him, to see whether we will say with the cynic\n     to Antisthenes, \"_Nullus tam durus erit baculus_,\" etc. (\"There\n     should be no cudgel so crabbed as to beat me from thee\").\n\n_Thomas Watson_ was one of the many Puritan preachers who won the\npopular ear by their frequent illustrations. In the clear flowing stream\nof his teaching we find pearls of anecdote very frequently. No one ever\ngrew weary under such pleasant yet weighty discourse as that which we\nfind in his \"Beatitudes.\" Let two quotations serve to show his skill:\n\n     THE VESTAL AND THE BRACELETS.--Most men think because God hath\n     blessed them with an estate therefore they are blessed. Alas! God\n     often gives these things in anger. He loads his enemies with gold\n     and silver: as Plutarch reports of Tarpeia, a Vestal nun, who\n     bargained with the enemy to betray the Capitol of Rome to them in\n     case she might have the golden bracelets on their left hands, which\n     they promised; and being entered into the Capitol, they threw not\n     only their bracelets but their bucklers, too, upon her, through the\n     weight whereof she was pressed to death. God often lets men have\n     the golden bracelets of worldly substance, the weight whereof\n     sinks them into hell. Oh, let us, _superna anhelare_, get our eyes\n     \"fixed\" and our hearts \"united\" to God the supreme good. This is to\n     pursue blessedness as in a chase.\n\n     HEDGEHOG AND CONIES.--The Fabulist tells a story of the hedgehog\n     that came to the cony-burrows in stormy weather and desired harbor,\n     promising that he would be a quiet guest; but when once he had\n     gotten entertainment he did set up his prickles, and did never\n     leave till he had thrust the poor conies out of their burrows. So\n     covetousness, though it hath many fair pleas to insinuate and wind\n     itself into the heart, yet as soon as you have let it in, this\n     thorn will never cease pricking till it hath choked all good\n     beginnings and thrust all religion out of your hearts.\n\nI think this must suffice to represent the men of the Puritanic period,\nwho added to their profound theology and varied learning a zeal to be\nunderstood, and a skill in setting forth truth by the help of every-day\noccurrences. The age which followed them was barren of spiritual life,\nand was afflicted by a race of rhetorical divines, whose words had\nlittle connection with _the Word_ of life. The scanty thought of the\nQueen Anne dignitaries needed no aid of metaphor or parable: there was\nnothing to explain to the people; the utmost endeavor of these divines\nwas to hide the nakedness of their discourses with the fig-leaves of\nLatinized verbiage. Living preaching was gone, spiritual life was gone,\nand consequently a pulpit was set up which had no voice for the common\npeople; no voice, indeed, for anybody except the mere formalist, who is\ncontent if decorum be observed and respectability maintained. Of course,\nour notion of making truth clear by stories did not suit the dignified\ndeath of the period, and it was only when the dry bones began to be\nstirred that the popular method was again brought to the front.\n\nThe illustrious _George Whitefield_ stands, with Wesley, at the head of\nthat noble army who led the Revival of the last century. It is not at\nthis present any part of my plan to speak of his matchless eloquence,\nunquenchable earnestness, and incessant labor; but it is quite according\nto the run of my lecture to remind you of his own saying, \"I use market\nlanguage.\" He employed pure, good, flowing English; but he was as simple\nas if he spoke to children. Although by no means abounding in\nillustration, yet he always employed it when needed, and he narrated\nincidents with great power of action and emphasis. His stories were so\ntold that they thrilled the people: they saw as well as heard, for each\nword had its proper gesture. One reason why he could be understood at so\ngreat a distance was the fact that the eye helped the ear. As specimens\nof his anecdotes I have selected two, which follow:\n\n     THE TWO CHAPLAINS.--You cannot do without the grace of God when you\n     come to die. There was a nobleman that kept a deistical chaplain\n     and his lady a Christian one. When he was dying he says to his\n     chaplain, \"I liked you very well when I was in health, but it is my\n     lady's chaplain I must have when I am sick.\"\n\n     NEVER SATISFIED.--My dear hearers, there is not a single soul of\n     you all that is satisfied in your station. Is not the language of\n     your hearts when apprentices. We think we shall do very well when\n     journeymen; when journeymen, that we shall do very well when\n     masters; when single, that we shall do well when married? And, to\n     be sure, you think you shall do well when you keep a carriage. I\n     have heard of one who began low. He first wanted a house; then,\n     says he, \"I want two, then four, then six.\" And when he had them he\n     said, \"I think I want nothing else.\" \"Yes,\" says his friend, \"you\n     will soon want another thing; that is a hearse-and-six to carry you\n     to your grave.\" And that made him tremble.\n\nFearing that the quotation of any more examples might prove tedious, I\nwould only remind you that such men as Berridge, Rowland Hill, Matthew\nWilks, Christmas Evans, William Jay, and others who have but lately\ndeparted from us, owed much of their attractiveness to the way in which\nthey aroused their audiences, and flashed truth into their faces by\nwell-chosen anecdotes. Time calls upon me to have done, and how can I\ncome to a better close than by mentioning one living man, who, above\nall others, has in two continents stirred the masses of the people? I\nrefer to D. L. Moody. This admirable brother has a great aversion to the\nprinting of his sermons; and well he may have, for he is incessantly\npreaching, and has no time allowed him for the preparation of fresh\ndiscourses; and therefore it would be great unwisdom on his part to\nprint at once those addresses with which he is working through a\ncampaign. We hope, however, that when he has done with a sermon he will\nnever suffer it to die out, but give it to the church and to the world\nthrough the press. Our esteemed brother has a lively, telling style, and\nhe thinks it wise frequently to fasten a nail with the hammer of\nanecdote. Here are three extracts from the little book entitled \"Arrows\nand Anecdotes by D. L. Moody.\"\n\n     THE IDIOT'S MOTHER.--I know a mother who has an idiot child. For it\n     she gave up all society--almost everything--and devoted her whole\n     life to it. \"And now,\" said she, \"for fourteen years I have tended\n     it and loved it, and it does not even know me. Oh, it is breaking\n     my heart!\" Oh, how the Lord must say this of hundreds here! Jesus\n     comes here, and goes from seat to seat asking if there is a place\n     for him. Oh, will not some of you take him into your hearts?\n\n     SURGEON AND PATIENT.--When I was in Belfast I knew a doctor who had\n     a friend, a leading surgeon there, and he told me that the\n     surgeon's custom was, before performing any operation, to say to\n     the patient, \"Take a good look at the wound and then fix your eyes\n     on me, and don't take them off till I get through the operation.\" I\n     thought at the time that was a good illustration. Sinner, take a\n     good look at the wound to-night, and then fix your eyes on Christ\n     and don't take them off. It is better to look at the remedy than at\n     the wound.\n\n     THE ROLL-CALL.--A soldier lay on his dying couch during our last\n     war, and they heard him say, \"Here!\" They asked him what he wanted,\n     and he put up his hand and said, \"Hush! They are calling the roll\n     of heaven, and I am answering to my name.\" And presently he\n     whispered, \"Here!\" and he was gone.\n\nI will weary you no longer. You may safely do what the most useful of\nmen have done before you. Copy them not only in their use of\nillustration, but in their wisely keeping it in subservience to their\ndesign. They were not story-tellers, but preachers of the gospel; they\ndid not aim at the entertainment of the people, but at their conversion.\nNever did they go out of their way to drag in a telling bit which they\nhad been saving up for display, and never could any one say of their\nillustrations that they were\n\n  Windows that exclude the light,\n  And passages that lead to nothing.\n\nKeep you the due proportion of things lest I do worse than lose my\nlabor, by becoming the cause of your presenting to the people strings\nof anecdotes instead of sound doctrines, for that would be as evil a\nthing as if you offered to hungry men flowers instead of bread, and gave\nto the naked gauze of gossamer instead of woolen cloth.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nTHE USES OF ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\nThe uses of anecdotes and illustrations are manifold; but we may reduce\nthem to seven, so far as our present purposes are concerned, not for a\nmoment imagining that this will be a complete list.\n\nWe use them, first, _to interest the mind and secure the attention of\nour hearers_. We cannot endure a sleepy audience. To us, a slumbering\nman is no man. Sydney Smith observed that, although Eve was taken out of\nthe side of Adam while he was asleep, it was not possible to remove sin\nfrom men's hearts in that manner. We do not agree with Hodge, the hedger\nand ditcher, who remarked to a Christian man with whom he was talking,\n\"I loikes Sunday, I does; I loikes Sunday.\" \"And what makes you like\nSunday?\" \"Cause, you see, it's a day of rest: I goes down to the old\nchurch, I gets into a pew, and puts my legs up, and I thinks o'\nnothin'.\" It is to be feared that in town as well as in country this\nthinking of nothing is a very usual thing. But your regard for the\nsacred day, and the ministry to which you are called, and the worshiping\nassembly, will not allow you to give your people the chance of thinking\nof nothing. You want to arouse every faculty in them to receive the Word\nof God, that it may be a blessing to them.\n\nWe want to win attention at the commencement of the service, and to hold\nit till the close. With this aim, many methods may be tried; but\npossibly none will succeed better than the introduction of an\ninteresting story. This sets Hodge listening, and although he will miss\nthe fresh air of the fields, and begin to feel drowsy in your stuffy\nchapel, another tale will stir him to renewed attention. If he hears\nsome narrative in connection with his village or county, you will have\nhim \"all there,\" and you may then hope to do him good.\n\nThe anecdote in the sermon answers the purpose of an engraving in a\nbook. Everybody knows that people are attracted by volumes with pictures\nin them; and that, when a child gets a book, although it may pass over\nthe letterpress without observation, it is quite sure to pause over the\nwoodcuts. Let us not be too great to use a method which many have found\nsuccessful. We must have attention. In some audiences we cannot get it\nif we begin with solid instruction; they are not desirous of being\ntaught, and consequently they are not in a condition to receive the\ntruth if we set it before them nakedly. Now for a bunch of flowers to\nattract these people to our table, for afterward we can feed them with\nthe food they so much need. Just as the Salvation Army goes trumpeting\nand drumming through the streets to draw the people into the barracks,\nso may an earnest man spend the first few minutes with an unprepared\ncongregation in waking the folks up, and enticing them to enter the\ninner chamber of the truth. Even this awakening prelude must have in it\nthat which is worthy of the occasion; but if it is not up to your usual\naverage in weight of doctrine, it may not only be excused, but\ncommended, if it prepares the audience to receive that which is to\nfollow. Ground-bait may catch no fish; but it answers its purpose if it\nbrings them near the bait and the hook.\n\nA congregation which has been well instructed, and is mainly made up of\nestablished believers, will not need to be addressed in the same style\nas an audience gathered fresh from the world, or a meeting of dull,\nformal church-goers. Your common sense will teach you to suit your\nmanner to your audience. It is possible to maintain profound and\nlong-continued attention without the use of an illustration; I have\nfrequently done so in the Tabernacle when it has been mainly filled with\nchurch-members; but when my own people are away, and strangers fill\ntheir places, I bring out all my store of stories, similes, and\nparables.\n\nI have sometimes told anecdotes in the pulpit, and very delicate and\nparticular people have expressed their regret and horror that I should\nsay such things; but when I have found that God has blessed some of the\nillustrations I have used, I have often thought of the story of the man\nwith a halberd, who was attacked by a nobleman's dog, and, of course, in\ndefending himself, he killed the animal. The nobleman was very angry,\nand asked the man how he dared to kill the dog; and the man replied that\nif he had not killed it the dog would have bitten him and torn him in\npieces. \"Well,\" said the nobleman, \"but you should not have struck it on\nthe head with the halberd; why did you not hit it with the handle?\" \"My\nlord,\" answered the man, \"so I would if it had tried to bite me with its\ntail.\" So, when I have to deal with sin, some people say, \"Why don't you\naddress it delicately? Why don't you speak to it in courtly language?\"\nAnd I answer, \"So I would if it would bite me with its tail; but as\nlong as ever I find that it deals roughly with me, I will deal roughly\nwith it; and any kind of weapon that will help to slay the monster, I\nshall not find unfitted to my hand.\"\n\nWe cannot afford in these days to lose any opportunity of getting hold\nof the public ear. We must use every occasion that comes in our way, and\nevery tool that is likely to help us in our work; and we must rouse up\nall our faculties, and put forth all our energies, if that by any means\nwe may get the people to heed that which they are so slow to regard, the\ngreat story of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. We shall\nneed to read much, and to study hard, or else we shall not be able to\ninfluence our day and generation for good. I believe that the greatest\nindustry is necessary to make a thoroughly efficient preacher, and the\nbest natural ability, too; and it is my firm conviction that, when you\nhave the best natural ability, you must supplement it with the greatest\nimaginable industry, if you are really to do much service for God among\nthis crooked and perverse generation.\n\nThe fool in Scotland who got into the pulpit before the preacher arrived\nwas requested by the minister to come down. \"Nay, nay,\" answered the\nman, \"you come up, too, for it will take both of us to move this\nstiff-necked generation.\" It will certainly take all the wisdom that we\ncan obtain to move the people among whom our lot is cast; and if we do\nnot use every lawful means of interesting the minds of our hearers, we\nshall find that they will be like a certain other congregation, in which\nthe people were all asleep except one poor idiot. The minister woke them\nup, and tried to reprove them by saying, \"There, you were all asleep\nexcept poor Jock the idiot;\" but his rebuke was cut short by Jock, who\nexclaimed, \"And if I had not been an idiot, I should have been asleep\ntoo.\"\n\nI will leave the moral of that well-known story to speak for itself, and\nwill pass on to my second point, which is, that the use of anecdotes and\nillustrations _renders our preaching lifelike and vivid_. This is a most\nimportant matter. Of all things that we have to avoid, one of the most\nessential is that of giving our people the idea, when we are preaching,\nthat we are acting a part. Everything theatrical in the pulpit, either\nin tone, manner, or anything else, I loathe from my very soul. Just go\ninto the pulpit and talk to the people as you would in the kitchen, or\nthe drawing-room, and say what you have to tell them in your ordinary\ntone of voice. Let me conjure you, by everything that is good, to throw\naway all stilted styles of speech, and anything approaching affectation.\nNothing can succeed with the masses except naturalness and simplicity.\nWhy, some ministers cannot even give out a hymn in a natural manner!\n\"Let us sing to the praise and glory of God\" (spoken in the tone that is\nsometimes heard in churches or chapels)--who would ever think of\nspeaking like that at the tea-table? \"I shall be greatly obliged if you\nwill kindly give me another cup of tea\" (spoken in the same unnatural\nway)--you would never think of giving any tea to a man who talked like\nthat; and if we preach in that stupid style, the people will not believe\nwhat we say; they will think it is our business, our occupation, and\nthat we are doing the whole thing in a professional manner. We must\nshake off professionalism of every kind, as Paul shook off the viper\ninto the fire; and we must speak as God has ordained that we should\nspeak, and not by any strange, out-of-the-way, new-fangled method of\npulpit oratory.\n\nOur Lord's teaching was amazingly lifelike and vivid; it was the setting\nout of truth before the eye, not as a flat picture, but as in a\nstereoscope, making it stand up, with all its lines and angles of\nbeauty in lifelike reality. That was a fine living sermon when he took a\nlittle child, and set him in the midst of the disciples; and that was\nanother powerful discourse when he preached about abstaining from\ncarking cares, and stooped down and plucked a lily (as I suppose he did)\nand said, \"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil\nnot, neither do they spin.\" I can readily suppose that some ravens were\nflying just over his head, and that he pointed to them, and said,\n\"Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have\nstorehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them.\" There was a lifelikeness;\nyou see, a vividness, about the whole thing. We cannot always literally\nimitate our Lord, as we have mostly to preach in places of worship. It\nis a blessing that we have so many houses of prayer, and I thank God\nthat there are so many of them springing up all around us; yet I should\npraise the Lord still more if half the ministers who preach in our\nvarious buildings were made to turn out of them, and to speak for their\nMaster in the highways and byways, and anywhere that the people would go\nto listen to them. We are to go out into all the world, and preach the\ngospel to every creature--not to stop in our chapels waiting for every\ncreature to come in to hear what we have to say. A sportsman who should\nsit at his parlor window, with his gun loaded all ready for shooting\npartridges, would probably not make up a very heavy bag of game. No; he\nmust put on his buskins, and tramp off over the fields, and then he will\nget a shot at the birds he is seeking. So must we do, brethren; we must\nalways have our buskins ready for field work, and be ever on the watch\nfor opportunities of going out among the souls of men, that we may bring\nthem back as trophies of the power of the gospel we have to proclaim.\n\nIt might not be wise for us to try to make our sermons lifelike and\nvivid in the style in which quaint old Matthew Wilks sometimes did; as\nwhen, one Sabbath morning, he took into the pulpit a little box, and\nafter a while, opened it, and displayed to the congregation a small pair\nof scales, and then, turning over the leaves of the Bible with great\ndeliberation, held up the balances, and announced as his text, \"Thou art\nweighed in the balances, and art found wanting.\" I think, however, that\nwas puerile rather than powerful. I like Matthew Wilks better when, on\nanother occasion, his text being, \"See that ye walk circumspectly,\" he\ncommenced by saying, \"Did you ever see a tom-cat walking on the top of\na high wall that was covered with bits of broken glass bottles? If so,\nyou had just then an accurate illustration of what is meant by the\ninjunction, 'See that ye walk circumspectly.'\" There is the case, too,\nof good \"Father Taylor,\" who, preaching in the streets in one of the\ntowns of California, stood on the top of a whisky-barrel. By way of\nillustration, he stamped his foot on the cask and said, \"This barrel is\nlike man's heart, full of evil stuff; and there are some people who say\nthat if sin is within you, it may just as well come out.\" \"No,\" said the\nspeaker, \"it is not so; now here is this whisky that is in the barrel\nunder my foot: it is a bad thing; it is a damnable thing; it is a\ndevilish thing; but as long as it is kept tightly bunged up in the\nbarrel, it certainly will not do the hurt that it will if it is taken\nover to the liquor-bar, and sold out to the drunkards of the\nneighborhood, sending them home to beat their wives or kill their\nchildren. So, if you keep your sins in your own heart, they will be evil\nand devilish, and God will damn you for them; but they will not do so\nmuch hurt to other people, at any rate, as if they are seen in public.\"\nStamping his foot again on the barrel, the preacher said, \"Suppose you\ntry to pass this cask over the boundaries of the country, and the\ncustom-house officer comes and demands the duty upon its contents. You\nsay that you will not let any of the whisky get out; but the officer\ntells you that he cannot allow it to pass. So, if it were possible for\nus to abstain from outward sin, yet, since the heart is full of all\nmanner of evil, it would be impossible for us to pass the frontiers of\nheaven, and to be found in that holy and happy place.\" That I thought to\nbe somewhat of a lifelike illustration, and a capital way of teaching\ntruth, although I should not like always to have a whisky-barrel for a\npulpit, for fear the head might fall in, and I might fall in, too.\n\nI should not recommend any of you to be so lifelike in your ministry as\nthat notable French priest, who, addressing his congregation, said, \"As\nto the Magdalenes and those who commit the sins of the flesh, such\npersons are very common; they abound even in this church; and I am going\nto throw this mass-book at a woman who is a Magdalene,\" whereupon all\nthe women in the place bent down their heads. So the priest said, \"No,\nsurely you are not all Magdalenes; I hardly thought that was the case;\nbut you see how your sin finds you out!\" Nor should I even recommend you\nto follow the example of the clergyman, who, when a collection was to be\nmade for lighting and warming the church, after he had preached some\ntime, blew out the candles on both sides of the pulpit, saying that the\ncollection was for the lights and the fires, and he did not require any\nlight, for he did not read his sermon, \"but,\" he added, \"when Roger\ngives out the psalm presently, you will want a light to see your books;\nso the candles are for yourselves. And as for the stove, I do not need\nits heat, for my exercise in preaching is sufficient to keep me warm;\ntherefore you see that the collection is wholly for yourselves on this\noccasion. Nobody can say that the clergy are collecting for themselves\nthis time, for on this Sunday it is wholly for your own selves.\" I\nthought the man was a fool for making such remarks, though I find that\nhis conduct has been referred to as being a very excellent instance of\nboldness in preaching.\n\nThere is a story told about myself, which, like very many of the tales\ntold about me, is a _story_ in two senses. It is said that in order to\nshow the way in which men backslide, I once slid down the banisters of\nthe pulpit. I only mention this, in passing, because it is a remarkable\nfact that, at the time the story was told, my pulpit was fixed in the\nwall, and there was no banister, so that the reverend fool (which he\nwould have been if he had done what people said) could not have\nperformed the antic if he had been inclined to attempt it. But the\nanecdote, although it is not true, serves all the purposes of the\nlifelikeness I have tried to describe.\n\nYou probably recollect the instance of Whitefield depicting the blind\nman, with his dog, walking on the brink of a precipice, and his foot\nalmost slipping over the edge. The preacher's description was so\ngraphic, and the illustration so vivid and lifelike, that Lord\nChesterfield sprang up and exclaimed, \"Good God, he's gone!\" but\nWhitefield answered, \"No, my lord, he is not quite gone; let us hope\nthat he may yet be saved.\" Then he went on to speak of the blind man as\nbeing led by his reason, which is only like a dog, showing that a man\nled only by reason is ready to fall into hell. How vividly one would see\nthe love of money set forth in the story told by our venerable friend,\nMr. Rogers, of a man who, when he lay a-dying, would put his money in\nhis mouth because he loved it so and wanted to take some of it with him!\nHow strikingly is the non-utility of worldly wealth, as a comfort to us\nin our last days, brought before us by the narrative in which good\nJeremiah Burroughes speaks of a miser who had his money-bags laid near\nhis hand on his dying-bed! He kept taking them up, and saying, \"Must I\nleave you? Must I leave you? Have I lived all these years for you, and\nnow must I leave you?\" And so he died. There is a tale told of another,\nwho had many pains in his death, and especially the great pain of a\ndisturbed conscience. He also had his money-bags brought, one by one,\nwith his mortgages, and bonds, and deeds, and putting them near his\nheart, he sighed, and said, \"These won't do; these won't do; these won't\ndo; take them away! What poor things they all are when I most need\ncomfort in my dying moments!\"\n\nHow distinctly love to Christ is brought out in the story of John\nLambert, fastened to the stake, and burning to death, yet clapping his\nhands as he was burning, and crying out, \"None but Christ! None but\nChrist!\" until his nether extremities were burned, and he fell from the\nchains into the fire, still exclaiming in the midst of the flames, \"None\nbut Christ! None but Christ!\" How clearly the truth stands out before\nyou when you hear such stories as these! You can realize it almost as\nwell as if the incident happened before your eyes. How well you can see\nthe folly of misunderstanding between Christians in Mr. Jay's story of\ntwo men who were walking from opposite directions on a foggy night!\nEach saw what he thought was a terrible monster moving toward him, and\nmaking his heart beat with terror; as they came nearer to each other,\nthey found that the dreadful monsters were brothers. So, men of\ndifferent denominations are often afraid of one another; but when they\nget close to each other, and know each other's hearts, they find out\nthat they are brethren after all. The story of the negro and his master\nwell illustrates the need of beginning at the beginning in heavenly\nthings, and not meddling with the deeper points of our holy religion\ntill we have learned its elements thoroughly. A poor negro was laboring\nhard to bring his master to a knowledge of the truth, and was urging him\nto exercise faith in Christ, when he excused himself because he could\nnot understand the doctrine of election. \"Ah! Massa,\" said the negro,\n\"don't you know what comes before de Epistle to de Romans? You must read\nde Book de right way; de doctrine ob election is in Romans, and dere is\nMatthew, Mark, Luke, and John, first. You are only in Matthew yet; dat\nis about repentance; and when you get to John, you will read where de\nLord Jesus Christ said dat God so loved de world, dat he gave his only\nbegotten Son, dat whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but hab\neverlasting life.\" So, brethren, you can say to your hearers, \"You will\ndo better by reading the four Gospels first than by beginning to read in\nRomans; first study Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then you can go\non to the Epistles.\"\n\nBut I must not keep on giving you illustrations, because so many will\nsuggest themselves. I have given you sufficient to show that they do\nmake our preaching vivid and lifelike; therefore, the more you have of\nthem, the better. At the same time, gentlemen, I must warn you against\nthe danger of having too many anecdotes in any one sermon. You ought,\nperhaps, to have a dish of salad on the table; but if you ask your\nfriends to dinner, and give them nothing but salad, they will not fare\nvery well, and will not care to come to your house again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThirdly, anecdotes and illustrations may be used _to explain either\ndoctrines or duties to dull understandings_. They may, in fact, be the\nvery best form of exposition. A preacher should instance, and\nillustrate, and exemplify his subject, so that his hearers may have real\nacquaintance with the matter he is bringing before them. If a man\nattempted to give me a description of a piece of machinery, he would\npossibly fail to make me comprehend what it was like; but if he will\nhave the goodness to let me see a drawing of the various sections, and\nthen of the whole machine, I will, somehow or other, by hook or by\ncrook, make out how it works. The pictorial representation of a thing is\nalways a much more powerful means of instruction than any mere verbal\ndescription ever could be. It is just in this way that anecdotes and\nillustrations are so helpful to our hearers. For instance, take this\nanecdote as illustrating the text, \"Thou, when thou prayest, enter into\nthy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which\nis in secret.\" A little boy used to go up into a hay-loft to pray; but\nhe found that, sometimes, persons came up and disturbed him; therefore,\nthe next time he climbed into the loft, he pulled the ladder up after\nhim. Telling this story, you might explain how the boy thus entered into\nhis closet and shut the door. The meaning is not so much the literal\nentrance into a closet, or the shutting of the door, as the getting away\nfrom earthly sources of distraction, pulling up the ladder after us, and\nkeeping out anything that might come in to hinder our secret devotions.\nI wish we could always pull the ladder up after us when we retire for\nprivate prayer; but many things try to climb that ladder. The devil\nhimself will come up to disturb us if he can; and he can get into the\nhay-loft without any ladder.\n\nWhat a capital exposition of the fifth commandment was that which was\ngiven by Corporal Trim, when he was asked, \"What dost thou mean by\nhonoring thy father and thy mother?\" and he answered, \"Please, your\nhonor, it is allowing them a shilling a week out of my pay when they\ngrow old.\" That was an admirable explanation of the meaning of the text.\nThen, if you are trying to show how we are to be doers of the Word, and\nnot hearers only, there is a story of a woman who, when asked by the\nminister what he had said on Sunday, replied that she did not remember\nthe sermon; but it had touched her conscience, for when she got home she\nburned her bushel, which was short measure. There is another story which\nalso goes to show that the gospel may be useful even to hearers who\nforget what they have heard. A woman is called upon by her minister on\nthe Monday, and he finds her washing wool in a sieve, holding it under\nthe pump. He asks her, \"How did you enjoy last Sabbath's discourses?\"\nand she says that they did her much good. \"Well, what was the text?\" She\ndoes not recollect. \"What was the subject?\" \"Ah, sir, it is quite gone\nfrom me!\" says the poor woman. Does she remember any of the remarks\nthat were made? No, they are all gone. \"Well, then, Mary,\" says the\nminister, \"it could not have done you much good.\" Oh! but it had done\nher a great deal of good; and she explained it to him by saying, \"I will\ntell you, sir, how it is; I put this wool in the sieve under the pump, I\npump on it, and all the water runs through the sieve, but then it washes\nthe wool. So it is with your sermon; it comes into my heart, and then it\nruns right through my poor memory, which is like a sieve, but it washes\nem clean, sir.\" You might talk for a long while about the cleansing and\nsanctifying power of the Word, and it would not make such an impression\nupon your hearers as that simple story would.\n\nWhat finer exposition of the text, \"Weep with them that weep,\" can you\nhave than this pretty anecdote? \"Mother,\" said little Annie, \"I cannot\nmake out why poor Widow Brown likes me to go in to see her; she says I\ndo comfort her so; but, mother, I cannot say anything to comfort her,\nand as soon as she begins crying, I put my arms round her neck, and I\ncry too, and she says that that comforts her.\" And so it does; that is\nthe very essence of the comfort, the sympathy, the fellow-feeling that\nmoved the little girl to weep with the weeping widow. Mr. Hervey thus\nillustrates the great truth of the different appearance of sin to the\neye of God and the eye of man. He says that you may take a small insect,\nand with the tiniest needle make a puncture in it so minute that you can\nscarcely see it with the naked eye; but when you look at it through a\nmicroscope, you see an enormous rent, out of which there flows a purple\nstream, making the creature seem to you as though it had been smitten\nwith the ax that killeth an ox. It is but a defect of our vision that we\ncannot see things correctly; but the microscope reveals them as they\nreally are. Thus you may explain to your hearers how God's microscopic\neye sees sin in its true aspects. Suppose that you wanted to set forth\nthe character of Caleb, who followed the Lord fully; it would greatly\nhelp many of your people if you said that the name Caleb signifies a\ndog, and then showed how a dog follows his master. There is his owner on\nhorseback, riding along the miry roads; but the dog keeps as close to\nhim as he can, no matter how much mud and dirt are splashed upon him,\nand not heeding the kicks he might get from the horse's heels. Even so\nshould we follow the Lord. If you wish to exemplify the shortness of\ntime, you might bring in the poor seamstress, with her little piece of\ncandle, stitching away to get her work done before the light went out.\n\nMany preachers find the greatest difficulty in getting suitable\nmetaphors to set forth simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a\ncapital anecdote of an idiot who was asked by the minister, who was\ntrying to instruct him, whether he had a soul. To the utter\nconsternation of his kind teacher, he replied, \"No, I have no soul.\" The\npreacher said he was greatly surprised, after he had been taught for\nyears, that he did not know better than that; but the poor fellow thus\nexplained himself, \"I had a soul once, but I lost it; and Jesus Christ\ncame and found it, and now I let him keep it, for it is his, it does not\nbelong to me any longer.\" That is a fine picture of the way of salvation\nby simple faith in the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the\nsmallest child in the congregation might be able to understand it\nthrough the story of the poor idiot.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFourthly, _there is a kind of reasoning in anecdotes and illustrations_,\nwhich is very clear to illogical minds; and many of our hearers,\nunfortunately, have such minds, yet they can understand illustrative\ninstances and stubborn facts. Truthful anecdotes are facts, and facts\nare stubborn things. Instances, when sufficiently multiplied, as we know\nby the inductive philosophy, prove a point. Two instances may not prove\nit; but twenty may prove it to a demonstration. Take the very important\nmatter of answers to prayer. You can prove that God answers prayer by\nquoting anecdote after anecdote, that you know to be authentic, of\ninstances in which God has really heard and answered prayer. Take that\ncapital little book by Mr. Prime on the \"Power of Prayer\"; there I\nbelieve you have the truth upon this subject demonstrated as clearly as\nyou could have it in any proposition in Euclid. I think that, if such a\nnumber of facts could be instanced in connection with any question\nrelating to geology or astronomy, the point would be regarded as\nsettled. The writer brings such abundant proofs of God's having heard\nprayer, that even men who reject inspiration ought, at least, to\nacknowledge that this is a marvelous phenomenon for which they cannot\naccount by any other explanation than the one which proclaims that there\nis a God who sitteth in heaven, and who hath respect unto the cry of his\npeople upon the earth.\n\nI have heard of some persons who have had objections to labor for the\nconversion of their children, on the ground that God would save his own\nwithout any effort on our part. I remember making one man wince who held\nthis view, by telling him of a father who would never teach his child to\npray, or have him instructed even as to the meaning of prayer. He\nthought it was wrong, and that such work ought to be left to God's Holy\nSpirit. The boy fell down and broke his leg, and had to have it taken\noff; and all the while the surgeon was amputating it the boy was cursing\nand swearing in the most frightful manner. The good surgeon said to the\nfather, \"You see, you would not teach your boy to pray, but the devil\nevidently had no objection to teach him to swear.\" That is the mischief\nof it; if we do not try our best to bring our children to Christ, there\nis another who will do his worst to drag them down to hell. A mother\nonce said to her sick son, who was about to die, and was in a dreadful\nstate of mind, \"My boy, I am sorry you are in such trouble; I am sure I\nnever taught you any hurt.\" \"No, mother,\" he answered, \"but you never\ntaught me any good; and therefore there was room for all sorts of evil\nto get into me.\" All these stories will be to many people the very best\nkind of argument that you could possibly use with them. You bring to\nthem facts, and these facts reach their conscience, even though it is\nembedded in several inches of callousness.\n\nI do not know of any reasoning that would explain the need of submission\nto the will of God better than the telling of the story, which Mr.\nGilpin gives us in his Life, of his being called in to pray with a woman\nwhose boy was very ill. The good man asked that God would, if it were\nhis will, restore the dear child to life and health, when the mother\ninterrupted him, and said, \"No, I cannot agree to such a prayer as that;\nI cannot put it in that shape; it must be God's will to restore him. I\ncannot bear that my child should die; pray that he may live whether it\nis God's will or not.\" He answered, \"Woman, I cannot pray that prayer,\nbut it is answered; your child will recover, but you will live to rue\nthe day that you made such a request.\" Twenty years after, there was a\nwoman carried away in a fainting fit from under a drop at Tyburn, for\nher son had lived long enough to bring himself to the gallows by his\ncrimes. The mother's wicked prayer had been heard, and God had answered\nit. So, if you want to prove the power of the gospel, do not go on\nexpending words to no purpose, but tell the stories of cases you have\nmet with that illustrate the truth you are enforcing, for such anecdotes\nwill convince your hearers as no other kind of reasoning can. I think\nthat is clear enough to every one of you.\n\nAnecdotes are useful, also, because they often appeal very forcibly to\nhuman nature. In order to rebuke those who profane the Sabbath, tell the\nstory of the gentleman who had seven sovereigns, and who met with a poor\nfellow, to whom he gave six out of the seven, and then the wicked wretch\nturned round and robbed him of the seventh. How clearly that sets forth\nthe ingratitude of our sinful race in depriving God of that one day out\nof the seven which he has set apart for his own service! This story\nappeals to nature, too. Two or three boys come round one of their\ncompanions, and they say to him, \"Let us go and get some cherries out of\nyour father's garden.\" \"No,\" he replies, \"I cannot steal, and my father\ndoes not wish those cherries to be picked.\" \"Oh, but then your father is\nso kind, and he never beats you!\" \"Ah, I know that is true!\" answers the\nboy, \"and that is the very reason why I would not steal his cherries.\"\nThis would show that the grace and goodness of God do not lead his\nchildren to licentiousness; but, on the contrary, they restrain them\nfrom sin. This story, also, appeals to human nature, and shows that the\nfathers of the church are not always to be depended upon as fountains\nof authority. A nobleman had heard of a certain very old man, who lived\nin a village, and he sought out and found him, and ascertained that he\nwas seventy years of age. He was talking with him, supposing him to be\nthe oldest inhabitant, when the man said, \"Oh, no, sir, I am not the\noldest; I am not the father of the village; there is an older one--my\nfather--who is still alive.\" So, I have heard of some who have said that\nthey turned away from \"the fathers\" of the church to the very old\nfathers, that is, away from what are commonly called \"the patristic\nfathers,\" back to the apostles, who are the true fathers and\ngrandfathers of the Christian Church.\n\nSometimes anecdotes have force in them on account of their appealing to\nthe sense of the ludicrous. Of course, I must be very careful here, for\nit is a sort of tradition of the fathers that it is wrong to laugh on\nSundays. The eleventh commandment is, that we are to love one another,\nand then, according to some people, the twelfth is, \"Thou shalt pull a\nlong face on Sunday.\" I must confess that I would rather hear people\nlaugh than I would see them asleep in the house of God; and I would\nrather get the truth into them through the medium of ridicule than I\nwould have the truth neglected, or leave the people to perish through\nlack of reception of the truth. I do believe in my heart that there may\nbe as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to\nlaugh is the better thing of the two, for I may weep, and be murmuring,\nand repining, and thinking all sorts of bitter thoughts against God;\nwhile, at another time, I may laugh the laugh of sarcasm against sin,\nand so evince a holy earnestness in the defense of the truth. I do not\nknow why ridicule is to be given up to Satan as a weapon to be used\nagainst us, and not to be employed by us as a weapon against him. I will\nventure to affirm that the Reformation owed almost as much to the sense\nof the ridiculous in human nature as to anything else, and that those\nhumorous squibs and caricatures that were issued by the friends of\nLuther, did more to open the eyes of Germany to the abominations of the\npriesthood than the more solid and ponderous arguments against Romanism.\nI know no reason why we should not, on suitable occasions, try the same\nstyle of reasoning. \"It is a dangerous weapon,\" it will be said, \"and\nmany men will cut their fingers with it.\" Well, that is their own\nlookout; but I do not know why we should be so particular about their\ncutting their fingers, if they can, at the same time, cut the throat of\nsin, and do serious damage to the great adversary of souls.\n\nHere is a story that I should not mind telling on a Sunday for the\nbenefit of certain people who are good at hearing sermons and attending\nprayer-meetings, but who are very bad hands at business. They never work\non Sundays because they never work on any day of the week; they forget\nthat part of the commandment which says, \"Six days shalt thou labor,\"\nwhich is just as binding as the other part, \"The seventh day is the\nsabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.\" To these\npeople who never labor because they are so heavenly-minded, I would tell\nthe story of a certain monk, who entered a monastery, but who would not\nwork in the fields, or the garden, or at making clothes, or anything\nelse, because, as he told the superior, he was a spiritually-minded\nmonk. He wondered, when the dinner-hour approached, that there came to\nhim no summons from the refectory. So he went down to the prior, and\nsaid, \"Don't the brethren eat here? Are you not going to have any\ndinner?\" The prior said, \"We do, because we are carnal; but you are so\nspiritual that you do not work, and therefore you do not require to eat;\nthat is why we did not call you. The law of this monastery is, that if\nany man will not work, neither shall he eat.\"\n\nThat is a good story of the boy in Italy who had his Testament seized,\nand who said to the _gendarme_, \"Why do you seize this book? Is it a bad\nbook?\" \"Yes,\" was the answer. \"Are you sure the book is bad?\" he\ninquired; and again the reply was, \"Yes.\" \"Then why do you not seize the\nAuthor of it if it is a bad book?\" That was a fine piece of sarcasm at\nthose who had a hatred of the Scriptures, and yet professed to have love\nto Christ. That is another good story of our friend the Irishman, who,\nwhen he was asked by the priest what warrant an ignorant man such as he\nwas had for reading the Bible, said, \"Truth, but I have a\nsearch-warrant; for it says, 'Search the Scriptures; for in them ye\nthink ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.'\"\n\nThis story would not be amiss, I think, as a sort of ridiculous argument\nshowing what power the gospel ought to have over the human mind. Dr.\nMoffat tells us of a certain Kaffir, who came to him one day, saying\nthat the New Testament, which the missionary had given him a week\nbefore, had spoiled his dog. The man said that his dog had been a very\ngood hunting-dog, but that he had torn the Testament to pieces, and\neaten it up, and now he was quite spoiled. \"Never mind,\" said Dr.\nMoffat, \"I will give you another Testament.\" \"Oh!\" said the man, \"it is\nnot that that troubles me, I do not mind the dog spoiling the book, for\nI could buy another; but the book has spoiled the dog.\" \"How is that?\"\ninquired the missionary; and the Kaffir replied, \"The dog will be of no\nuse to me now, because he has eaten the Word of God, and that will make\nhim love his enemies, so that he will be of no good for hunting.\" The\nman supposed that not even a dog could receive the New Testament without\nbeing sweetened in temper thereby; that is, in truth, what ought to be\nthe case with all who feed upon the gospel of Christ. I should not\nhesitate to tell that story after Dr. Moffat, and I should, of course,\nuse it to show that, when a man has received the truth as it is in\nJesus, there ought to be a great change in him, and he ought never to be\nof any use to his old master again.\n\nWhen the priests were trying to pervert the natives of Tahiti to\nRomanism, they had a fine picture which they hoped would convince the\npeople of the excellence of the Church of Rome. There were certain dead\nlogs of wood: whom were they to represent? They were the heretics, who\nwere to go into the fire. And who were these small branches of the\ntree? They were the faithful. Who were the larger ones? They were the\npriests. And who were the next? They were the cardinals. And who was the\ntrunk of the tree? Oh, that was the pope! And the root, whom did that\nset forth? Oh, the root was Jesus Christ! So the poor natives said,\n\"Well, we do not know anything about the trunk or the branches; but we\nhave got the root, and we mean to stick to that, and not give it up.\" If\nwe have the root, if we have Christ, we may laugh to scorn all the\npretensions and delusions of men.\n\nThese stories may make us laugh, but they may also smite error right\nthrough the heart, and lay it dead; and they may, therefore, lawfully be\nused as weapons with which we may go forth to fight the Lord's battles.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFifthly, another use of anecdotes and illustrations lies in the fact\nthat _they help the memory to grasp the truth_. There is a story\ntold--though I will not vouch for the truth of it--of a certain\ncountryman, who had been persuaded by some one that all Londoners were\nthieves; and, therefore, on coming to London for the first time, he\ntried to secure his watch by putting it into his waistcoat pocket, and\nthen covering it all over with fish-hooks. \"Now,\" he thought, \"if any\ngentleman tries to get my watch, he will remember it.\" The story says\nthat, as he was walking along, he desired to know the time himself, and\nput his own hand into his pocket, forgetting all about the fish-hooks.\nThe effect produced upon him can better be imagined than described. Now,\nit seems to me that a sermon should always be like that countryman's\npocket, full of fish-hooks, so that, if anybody comes in to listen to\nit, he will get some forget-me-not, some remembrancer, fastened in his\near, and, it may be, in his heart and conscience. Let him drop in just\nat the end of the discourse, there should be something at the close that\nwill strike and stick. As when we walk in our farmer friends' fields\nthere are certain burrs that are sure to cling to our clothes; and, rush\nas we may, some of the relics of the fields remain upon our garments; so\nthere ought to be some burr in every sermon that will stick to those who\nhear it.\n\nWhat do you remember best in the discourses you heard years ago? I will\nventure to say that it is some anecdote that the preacher related. It\nmay possibly be some pithy sentence; but it is more probable that it is\nsome striking story which was told in the course of the sermon. Rowland\nHill, a little while before he died, was visiting an old friend, who\nsaid to him, \"Mr. Hill, it is now sixty-five years since I first heard\nyou preach; but I remember your text, and a part of your sermon.\"\n\"Well,\" asked the preacher, \"what part of the sermon do you recollect?\"\nHis friend answered, \"You said that some people, when they went to hear\na sermon, were very squeamish about the delivery of the preacher. Then\nyou said, 'Supposing you went to hear the will of one of your relatives\nread, and you were expecting a legacy from him; you would hardly think\nof criticizing the manner in which the lawyer read the will; but you\nwould be all attention to hear whether anything was left to you, and if\nso, how much; and that is the way to hear the gospel.'\" Now, the man\nwould not have recollected that for sixty-five years if Mr. Hill had not\nput the matter in that illustrative form. If he had said, \"Dear friends,\nyou must listen to the gospel for its own sake, and not merely for the\ncharms of the preacher's oratory, or those delightful soaring periods\nwhich gratify your ears,\" if he had put it in the very pretty manner in\nwhich some people can do the thing, I will be bound to say that the man\nwould have remembered it as long as a duck recollects the last time it\nwent into the water, and no longer; for it would have been so common to\nhave spoken in that way; but putting the truth in the striking manner\nthat he did, it was remembered for sixty-five years.\n\nA gentleman related the following anecdote, which just answers the\npurpose I have in view, so I will pass it on to you. He said: \"When I\nwas a boy, I used to hear the story of a tailor who lived to a great\nage, and became very wealthy, so that he was an object of envy to all\nwho knew him. His life, as all lives will, drew to a close; but before\nhe passed away, feeling some desire to benefit the members of his craft,\nhe gave out word that, on a certain day, he would be happy to\ncommunicate to all the tailors of the neighborhood the secret by which\nthey might become wealthy. A great number of knights of the thimble\ncame, and while they waited in anxious silence to hear the important\nrevelation, he was raised up in his bed, and with his expiring breath\nuttered this short sentence, _'Always put a knot in your thread_.'\" That\nis why I recommend you, brethren, to use anecdotes and illustrations,\nbecause they put knots in the thread of your discourse. What is the use\nof pulling the end of your thread through the material on which you are\nworking? Yet, has it not been the case with very many of the sermons to\nwhich we have listened, or the discourses we have ourselves delivered?\nThe bulk of what we have heard has just gone through our minds without\nleaving any lasting impression, and all we recollect is some anecdote\nthat was told by the preacher.\n\nThere is an authenticated case of a man being converted by a sermon\neighty-five years after he had heard it preached. Mr. Flavel, at the\nclose of a discourse, instead of pronouncing the usual benediction,\nstood up, and said, \"How can I dismiss you with a blessing, for many of\nyou are 'Anathema Maranatha,' because you love not the Lord Jesus\nChrist?\" A lad of fifteen heard that remarkable utterance; and\neighty-five years afterward, sitting under a hedge, the whole scene came\nvividly before him as if it had been but the day before; and it pleased\nGod to bless Mr. Flavel's words to his conversion, and he lived three\nyears longer to bear good testimony that he had felt the power of the\ntruth in his heart.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSixthly, anecdotes and illustrations are useful because _they frequently\narouse the feelings_. They will not do this, however, if you tell the\nsame stories over and over again ever so many times. I recollect, when I\nfirst heard that wonderful story about \"There is another man,\" I cried a\ngood deal over it. Poor soul, just rescued, half-dead, with only a few\nrags on him, and yet he said, \"There is another man,\" needing to be\nsaved. The second time I heard the story, I liked it, but I did not\nthink it was quite so new as at first; and the third time I heard it, I\nthought that I never wanted to hear it again. I do not know how many\ntimes I have heard it since; but I can always tell when it is coming\nout. The brother draws himself up, and looks wonderfully solemn, and in\na sepulchral tone says, \"There is another man,\" and I think to myself,\n\"Yes, and I wish there had not been,\" for I have heard that story till I\nam sick and tired of it. Even a good anecdote may get so hackneyed that\nthere is no force in it, and no use in retailing it any longer.\n\nStill, a live illustration is better for appealing to the feelings of an\naudience than any amount of description could possibly be. What we want\nin these times is not to listen to long prelections upon some dry\nsubject, but to hear something practical, something matter-of-fact, that\ncomes home to our every-day reasoning; and when we get this then our\nhearts are soon stirred.\n\nI have no doubt that the sight of a death-bed would move men much more\nthan that admirable work called \"Drelincourt on Death,\" a book which, I\nshould think, nobody has ever been able to read through. There may have\nbeen instances of persons who have attempted it; but I believe that,\nlong before they have reached the latter end, they have been in a state\nof asphyxia or coma, and have been obliged to be rubbed with hot\nflannels; and the book has had to be removed to a distance before they\ncould recover. If you have not read \"Drelincourt on Death,\" I believe I\nknow what you have read--that is, the ghost story that is stitched in at\nthe end of the book. The work would not sell, the whole impression was\nupon the shelves of the bookseller, when Defoe wrote the fiction\nentitled, \"A True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal, after her\nDeath, to Mrs. Bargrave,\" in which \"Drelincourt on Death\" is recommended\nby the apparition as the best book on the subject. This story had not a\nvestige or shadow of truth in it, it was all a piece of imagination; but\nit was put in at the end of the book, and then the whole edition was\nspeedily cleared out, and more were wanted. It may be something like\nthat very often with your sermons; only you must tell the people of what\nhas actually occurred, and so you will retain their attention and reach\ntheir hearts.\n\nMany have been moved to self-sacrifice by the story of the Moravians in\nSouth Africa who saw a large inclosed space of ground, in which there\nwere persons rotting away with leprosy, some without arms and some\nwithout legs; and these Moravians could not preach to the poor lepers\nwithout going in there themselves for life to rot with them, and they\ndid so. Two more of the same noble band of brethren sold themselves into\nslavery in the West Indies, in order that they might be allowed to\npreach to the slaves. When you can give such instances as these of\nmissionary disinterestedness and devotedness, it will do more to arouse\na spirit of enthusiasm for foreign missions than all your closely\nreasoned arguments could possibly do.\n\nWho has not heard and felt the force of the story of the two miners,\nwhen the fuse was burning, and only one could escape, and the Christian\nman cried out to his unconverted companion, \"Escape for your life,\nbecause, if you die, you are lost; but if I die, it is all right with\nme; so you go.\"\n\nThe fool's plan, too, I have sometimes used as a striking illustration.\nThere was a little boat which got wrecked, and the man in it was trying\nto swim to shore, but the current was too strong for him. After he had\nbeen drowned an hour, a man said, \"I could have saved him;\" and when\nthey asked him how he could have saved him, he described a plan that\nseemed to be most excellent and feasible, by which the man might, no\ndoubt, have been saved; but then, unfortunately, by that time he was\ndrowned! So, there are some who are always wise just too late, some who\nmay have to say to themselves, when such and such a one is gone the way\nof all living, \"What might I not have done for him if I had but taken\nhim in time?\" Brethren, let that anecdote be a reminder to us all that\nwe should seek to be wise in winning souls before it is too late to\nrescue them from everlasting destruction.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSeventhly, and lastly, anecdotes and illustrations are exceedingly\nuseful because _they catch the ear of the utterly careless_. Something\nis wanted in every sermon for this class of people; and an anecdote is\nwell calculated to catch the ear of the thoughtless and the ungodly. We\nreally desire their salvation, and we would bait our trap in any way\npossible by which we might catch them for Christ. We cannot expect our\nyoung people to come and listen to learned doctrinal disquisitions that\nare not at all embellished with anything that interests their immature\nminds. Nay, even grown-up people, after the toils of the week, some of\nthem busy till early on the Sunday morning, cannot be expected to attend\nto long prosaic discourses which are not broken by a single anecdote.\n\nOh, dear, dear, dear! How I do pity those unpractical brethren who do\nnot seem to know to whom they are preaching! \"Ah,\" said a brother once,\n\"whenever I preach, I do not know where to look, and so I look up at the\nventilator!\" Now, there is not anybody up in the ventilator; there\ncannot be supposed to be anybody there, unless the angels of heaven are\nlistening there to hear the words of truth. A minister should not preach\n_before_ the people, but he should preach right _at_ them; let him look\nstraight at them; if he can, let him search them through and through,\nand take stock of them, as it were, and see what they are like, and then\nsuit his message to them.\n\nI have often seen some poor fellow standing in the aisle at the\nTabernacle. Why, he looks just like a sparrow that has got into a church\nand cannot get out again! He cannot make out what sort of service it is;\nhe begins to count how many people sit in the front row in the gallery,\nand all kinds of ideas pass through his mind. Now I want to attract his\nattention; how shall I do it? If I quote a text of Scripture, he may\nnot know what it means, and may not be interested in it. Shall I put a\nbit of Latin into the sermon, or quote the original Hebrew or Greek of\nmy text? That will not do for such a man. What shall I do? Ah, I know a\nstory that will, I believe, just fit him! Out it comes, and the man does\nnot look up at the gallery any more; but he is wondering whatever the\npreacher is at. Something is said that so exactly suits his case that he\nbegins to ask himself who has been telling the minister about him, and\nhe thinks, \"Why, I know; my wife comes to hear this man sometimes, so\nshe has been telling him all about me!\" Then he feels curious to hear\nmore, and while he is looking up at the preacher, and listening to the\ntruth that is being proclaimed, the first gleam of light on divine\nthings dawns upon him; but if we had kept on with our regular discourse,\nand had not gone out of our way, what might have become of that man I\ncannot tell. \"They say I ramble,\" said Rowland Hill, in a sermon I have\nbeen reading this afternoon; \"they say I ramble, but it is because you\nramble, and I am obliged to ramble after you. They say I do not stick to\nmy subject; but, thank God, I always stick to my object, which is, the\nwinning of your souls, and bringing you to the cross of Jesus Christ!\"\n\nMr. Bertram aptly illustrates the way in which men are engrossed in\nworldly cares by telling the story of the captain of a whaling ship,\nwhom he tried to interest in the things of God, and who said, \"It is no\nuse, sir; your conversation will not have any effect upon me. I cannot\nhear what you are saying, or understand the subject you are talking\nabout. I left my home to try to catch whales; I have been a year and\nnine months looking for whales, sir, and I have not caught a whale yet.\nI have been plowing the deep in search of whales; when I go to bed I\ndream of whales; and when I get up in the morning, I wonder if there\nwill be any whales caught that day; there is a whale in my heart, sir, a\nwhale in my brain, and it is of no use for you to talk to me about\nanything else but whales.\" So, your people have their business in their\nheads and in their hearts; they want to make a fortune and retire; or\nelse they have a family of children to bring up, and Susan must be\nmarried, and John must be got into a situation, and it is no use for you\nto talk to them about the things of God unless you can drive away the\nwhales that keep floundering and splashing about.\n\nThere is a merchant, perhaps, who has just thought of some bad bill; or\nanother has looked across the building and noticed a piece of ribbon of\na particular color, and he thinks, \"Yes, I ought to have had a larger\nstock of that kind of thing, I see that it is getting fashionable!\" or\nit may be that one of the hearers has caught sight of his neighbor, and\nhe thinks he must pay him a visit on the morrow; and so people's\nthoughts are occupied with all sorts of subjects besides that of which\nthe preacher is speaking. You ask me how I know that this is the case.\nWell, I know because I have been guilty of the same offense myself; I\nfind this occur when I am listening to another brother preaching. I do\nnot think, when I am preaching, that I get on very well; but sometimes,\nwhen I go into the country, and take the morning and evening services,\nand then hear some one else in the afternoon, I think, \"Well, really,\nwhen I was up there, I thought I was a stick: but _now_! I only wish I\nhad my turn again!\" Now, this is very wrong, to let such thoughts come\ninto our minds; but, as we are all very apt to wander, the preacher\nshould carry anecdotes and illustrations into the pulpit, and use them\nas nails to fasten the people's attention to the subject of his sermon.\n\nMr. Paxton Hood once said in a lecture that I heard him deliver, \"Some\npreachers expect too much of their hearers; they take a number of\ntruths into the pulpit as a man might carry up a box of nails; and then,\nsupposing the congregation to be posts, they take out a nail, and expect\nit to get into the post by itself. Now, that is not the way to do it.\nYou must take your nail, hold it up against the post, hammer it in, and\nthen clinch it on the other side; and then it is that you may expect the\ngreat Master of assemblies to fasten the nails so that they will not\nfall out.\" We must try thus to get the truth into the people, for it\nwill never get in of itself; and we must remember that the hearts of our\nhearers are not open, like a church door, so that the truth may go in,\nand take its place, and sit upon its throne to be worshiped there. No,\nwe have often to break open the doors with great effort, and to thrust\nthe truth into places where it will not at first be a welcome guest, but\nwhere, afterward, the better it is known, the more it will be loved.\n\nIllustrations and anecdotes will greatly help to make a way for the\ntruth to enter; and they will do it by catching the ear of the careless\nand the inattentive. We must try to be like Mr. Whitefield, of whom a\nshipbuilder said, \"When I have been to hear anybody else preach, I have\nalways been able to lay down a ship from stem to stern; but when I\nlisten to Mr. Whitefield, I cannot even lay the keel.\" And another, a\nweaver, said, \"I have often, when I have been in church, calculated how\nmany looms the place would hold; but when I listen to that man, I forget\nmy weaving altogether.\" You must endeavor, brethren, to make your people\nforget matters relating to this world by interweaving the whole of\ndivine truth with the passing things of every day, and this you will do\nby a judicious use of anecdotes and illustrations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, gentlemen, these seven reasons--that they interest the mind and\nsecure the attention of our hearers, that they render the teaching vivid\nand lifelike, that they explain some difficult passages to dull\nunderstandings, that they help the reasoning faculties of certain minds,\nthat they aid the memory, that they arouse the feelings, and that they\ncatch the ear of the careless--have reconciled me for many a day to the\nuse of anecdotes and illustrations, and I think it is very likely that\nthey will reconcile you to the use of them, too.\n\nAt the same time, I must repeat what I before said: we must take care\nthat we do not let our anecdotes and illustrations be like empty casks\nthat carry nothing. We must not have it truthfully said of our sermons,\nas was said by a certain lady who, after having heard a clergyman\npreach, was asked what she thought of the sermon, and whether there was\nnot much spirit in it. \"Oh, yes!\" she replied, \"it was all spirit; there\nwas no body to it at all.\" There must be some \"body\" in every discourse,\nsome really sound doctrine, some suitable instruction for our hearers to\ncarry home; not merely stories to amuse them, but solid truth to be\nreceived in the heart, and wrought out in the life. If this be so with\nyour sermons, my dear brethren, I shall not have spoken to you in vain\nupon the uses of anecdotes and illustrations.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nWHERE CAN WE FIND ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS?\n\n\nDear brethren: After my last lecture to you, upon the uses of anecdotes\nand illustrations, you are probably quite ready to employ them in your\ndiscourses; but some of you may ask, \"Where can we get them?\" At the\nvery beginning of this afternoon's talk, let me say that _nobody need\nmake anecdotes_ in order to interest a congregation. I have heard of one\nwho called to see a minister on a Friday, and he was told by the servant\nthat her master could not be seen, for he was up in his study \"making\nanecdotes.\" That kind of work will not do for a Christian minister. I\nwould also bid you beware of the many common anecdotes, which are often\nrepeated, but which I half suspect could not be proved to be matters of\nfact. Whenever I have the slightest suspicion about the truth of a\nstory, I drop it at once; and I think that every one else should do the\nsame. So long as the anecdotes are current, and are generally believed,\nand provided they can be used for a profitable purpose, I believe they\nmay be told, without any affirmation as to their truthfulness being made\nin a court of justice; but the moment any doubt comes across the mind of\nthe preacher as to whether the tale is at least founded on fact, I think\nhe had better look for something else, for he has the whole world to go\nto as a storehouse of illustration.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf you want to interest your congregation, and keep up their attention,\nyou can find anecdotes and illustrations in many channels, like golden\ngrains glistening among the mountain streams. For instance, there is\n_current history_. You may take up the daily newspaper, and find\nillustrations there. In my little book, \"The Bible and the Newspaper,\" I\nhave given specimens of how this may be done; and when I was preparing\nthe present lecture, I took up a newspaper to see if I could find an\nillustration in it, and I soon found one. There was an account of a man\nat Wandsworth, who was discovered, with a gun and a dog, trespassing on\nsome gentleman's preserves, and he said that he was only looking for\nmushrooms! Can you imagine what the gun and the dog had to do with\nmushrooms? However, the keeper felt in the man's pocket, and laying\nhold of something soft, asked, \"What is this!\" \"Oh,\" said the poacher,\n\"it is only a rabbit!\" When it was suggested to him that the creature's\nears were too long for a rabbit, he said that it was only a leveret,\nwhereas it proved to be a very fine and plump hare. The man then said\nthat he had found the hare lying near some mushrooms, but his intention\nwas to get the mushrooms only! Now, that is a capital illustration. As\nsoon as ever you lay hold of a man, and begin to accuse him of sin, he\nsays, \"Sin, sir! Oh, dear, no! I was only doing a very proper thing,\njust what I have a perfect right to do; I was looking for mushrooms; I\nwas not poaching!\" You press him a little more closely, and try to bring\nhim to conviction of sin; and then he says, \"Well, perhaps it was hardly\nthe thing, it may have been a little amiss; but it was only a rabbit!\"\nWhen the man cannot any longer deny that he is guilty of sin, he says\nthat it was only a very little one; and it is long before you can get\nhim to admit that sin is exceeding sinful; indeed, no human power can\never produce genuine conviction in the heart of a single sinner; it must\nbe the work of the Holy Spirit.\n\nI also read in the same newspaper of a calamitous shipwreck caused\nthrough the lack of lights. You could easily turn that incident to\naccount by using it to illustrate the destruction of souls through the\nwant of a knowledge of Christ. I have no doubt, if you were to take up\nany of this morning's daily papers, you would very readily find an\nabundance of illustrations. Mr. Newman Hall, in addressing us once, said\nthat every Christian minister ought to read regularly his Bible and _The\nTimes_ newspaper. I should imagine from the usual mode of his address\nthat he does so himself. Whether you read that particular paper or any\nother, you should somehow keep yourselves well stored with illustrations\ntaken from the ordinary transactions going on round about you. I pity\neven a Sunday-school teacher, much more a minister of the gospel, who\ncould not make use of such incidents as the terrible burning of the\nchurch at Santiago, the great fire at London Bridge, the entrance into\nLondon of the Princess Alexandra, the taking of the census; and, indeed,\nanything that attracts public attention. There is in all these events an\nillustration, a simile, an allegory, which may point a moral and adorn a\ntale.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou may sometimes adapt _local history_ to the illustration of your\nsubject. When a minister is preaching in any particular district he\nwill often find it best to catch the ears of the people, and engross\ntheir attention, by relating some anecdote that relates to the place\nwhere they live. Whenever I can, I get the histories of various\ncounties; for, having to go into all sorts of country towns and villages\nto preach, I find that there is a great deal of useful material to be\ndug out of even dull, dry, topographical books. They begin, perhaps,\nwith the name of John Smith, laborer, the man who keeps the parish\nregister, and winds up the parish clock, and makes mouse-traps, and\ncatches rats, and does fifty other useful things; but if you have the\npatience to read on, you will find much information that you could get\nnowhere else, and you will probably meet with many incidents and\nanecdotes that you can use as illustrations of the truth you are seeking\nto set forth.\n\nPreaching at Winslow, in Buckinghamshire, it would not be at all amiss\nto introduce the incident of good Benjamin Keach, the pastor of the\nBaptist church in that town, standing in the pillory in the market-place\nin the year 1664, \"for writing, printing, and publishing a schismatical\nbook entitled, 'The Child's Instructor; or, a New and Easy Primmer.'\" I\ndo not think, however, that if I were preaching at Wapping I should\ncall the people \"_Wapping_ sinners,\" as Rowland Hill is said to have\ndone, when he told them that \"Christ could save old sinners, great\nsinners, yea, even Wapping sinners!\" At Craven Chapel it would be most\nappropriate to tell the story of Lord Craven, who was packing up his\ngoods to go into the country at the time of the Great Plague of London,\nwhen his servant said to him, \"My lord, does your God live only in the\ncountry?\" \"No,\" replied Lord Craven, \"he is here as well as there.\"\n\"Well, then,\" said the servant, \"if I were your lordship, I think I\nwould stop here; you will be as safe in the city as in the country;\" and\nLord Craven did stop there, relying upon the good providence of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBesides this, brethren, you have the marvelous storehouse of _ancient\nand modern history_--Roman, Greek, and English--with which, of course,\nyou are seeking to become well acquainted. Who can possibly read the old\nclassic tales without feeling his soul on fire? As you rise from their\nperusal, you will not merely be familiar with the events which happened\nin \"the brave days of old,\" but you will have learned many lessons that\nmay be of service in your preaching to-day. For instance, there is the\nstory of Phidias and the statue of the god which he had carved. After\nhe had finished it, he had chiseled in the corner, in small letters, the\nword \"Phidias,\" and it was objected that the statue could not be\nworshiped as a god, nor considered sacred, while it bore the sculptor's\nname. It was even seriously questioned whether Phidias should not be\nstoned to death because he had so desecrated the statue. How could he\ndare, they asked, to put his own name on the image of a god? So, some of\nus are very apt to want to put our little names down at the bottom of\nany work which we have done for God, that we may be remembered, whereas\nwe ought rather to upbraid ourselves for wishing to have any of the\ncredit of that which God the Holy Ghost enables us to do.\n\nThen there is that other story of an ancient sculptor, who was about to\nput the image of a god into a heathen temple, although he had not\nfinished that portion of the statue which was to be embedded in the\nwall. The priest demurred, and declared that the statue was not\ncompleted. The sculptor said, \"That part of the god will never be seen,\nfor it will be built into the wall.\" \"The gods can see in the wall,\"\nanswered the priest. In like manner, the most private parts of our\nlife--those secret matters that can never reach the human eye--are\nstill under the ken of the Almighty, and ought to be attended to with\nthe greatest care. It is not sufficient for us to maintain our public\nreputation among our fellow-creatures, for our God can see in the wall;\nhe notices our coldness in the closet of communion, and he perceives our\nfaults and failures in the family.\n\nTrying once to set forth how the Lord Jesus Christ delights in his\npeople because they are his own handiwork, I found a classic story of\nCyrus extremely useful. When showing a foreign ambassador round his\ngarden, Cyrus said to him, \"You cannot possibly take such an interest in\nthese flowers and trees as I do, for I laid out the whole garden myself,\nand every plant here I planted with my own hand. I have watered them,\nand I have seen them grow, I have been a husbandman to them, and\ntherefore I love them far better than you can.\" So, the Lord Jesus\nChrist loves the fair garden of his church, because he laid it all out,\nand planted it with his own gracious hand, and he has watched over every\nplant, and nourished and cherished it.\n\nThe days of the Crusaders are a peculiarly rich period for noble stories\nthat will make good illustrations. We read that the soldiers of Godfrey\nde Bouillon, when they came within sight of the city of Jerusalem, were\nso charmed with the view that they fell on their faces, and then rose to\ntheir feet, and clapped their hands, and made the mountains ring with\ntheir shouts of joy. Thus, when we get within sight of the New\nJerusalem, our happy home on high, whose name is ever dear to us, we\nwill make our dying-chamber ring with hallelujahs, and even the angels\nshall hear our songs of praise and thanksgiving. It is also recorded,\nconcerning this same Godfrey, that, when he had entered Jerusalem at the\nhead of his victorious army, he refused to wear the crown with which his\nsoldiers wanted to deck his brow. \"For,\" said he, \"why should I wear a\ncrown of gold in the city where my Lord wore a crown of thorns!\" This is\na good lesson for us to learn for ourselves, and to teach to our people.\nIn the world where Christ was despised and rejected of men, it would be\nunseemly for a Christian to be seeking to win earthly honors, or\nambitiously hunting after fame. The disciple must not think of being\nabove his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.\n\nThen you might easily make an illustration out of that romantic story,\nwhich may or may not be true, of Queen Eleanor sucking the poison out of\nher husband's wounded arm. Many of us, I trust, would be willing, as it\nwere, to suck out all the slander and venom from the arm of Christ's\nchurch, and to bear any amount of suffering ourselves, so long as the\nchurch itself might escape and live. Would not any one of you, my\nbrethren, gladly put his lips to the envenomed wounds of the church\nto-day, and suffer even unto death, sooner than let the doctrines of\nChrist be impugned, and the cause of God be dishonored?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat a fine field of illustration lies open to you in _religious\nhistory_! It is difficult to tell where to begin digging in this mine of\nprecious treasure. The story of Luther and the Jew might be used to set\nforth the evil of sin, and how to avoid it. A Jew was seeking an\nopportunity of stabbing the Reformer; but Luther received a portrait of\nthe would-be murderer, so that, wherever he went, he was on his guard\nagainst the assassin. Using this fact himself as an illustration, Luther\nsaid: \"God knows that there are sins that would destroy us, and he has\ntherefore given us portraits of them in his Word, so that, wherever we\nsee them, we may say, 'That is a sin that would stab me; I must beware\nof that evil thing, and keep out of its way.'\"\n\nStout Hugh Latimer, in that famous story of an incident in his trial\nbefore several bishops, brings out very clearly the omnipresence and\nomniscience of God, and the care that we ought to exercise in the\npresence of One who can read our most secret thoughts and imaginations.\nHe says: \"I was once in examination before five or six bishops, where I\nhad much trouble; thrice every week I came to examinations, and many\ntraps and snares were laid to get something.... At last I was brought\nforth to be examined in a chamber hung with arras, where I was wont to\nbe examined; but now at this time the chamber was somewhat altered. For\nwhereas, before, there was wont always to be a fire in the chimney, now\nthe fire was taken away, and arras hung over the chimney, and the table\nstood near the fireplace. There was, among the bishops who examined me,\none with whom I had been very familiar, and took him for my great\nfriend, an aged man, and he sat next to the table's end. Then, among all\nother questions, he put forth a very subtle and crafty one, and such a\none, indeed, as I could not think so great danger in. And when I should\nmake answer, 'I pray you, Mr. Latimer,' said one, 'speak out; I am very\nthick of hearing, and there may be many that sit far off.' I marveled at\nthis, that I was bid to speak out, and began to suspect, and give an\near to the chimney; and there I heard a pen writing in the chimney\nbehind the cloth. They had appointed one there to write all mine\nanswers, for they made sure that I should not start from them; and there\nwas no starting from them. God was my good Lord, and gave me answer,\nelse I could never have escaped.\" Preaching, some years afterward,\nLatimer himself told the story, and applied the illustration. \"My\nhearer,\" said he, \"there is a recording pen always at work behind the\narras, taking down all thou sayest, and noting all thou doest: therefore\nbe thou careful that thy words and acts are worthy of record in God's\nBook of Remembrance.\"\n\nYou might aptly illustrate the doctrine of God's special providential\ncare of his servants by relating the story of John Knox, who, one\nevening, refused to sit in his usual seat, though he did not know any\nparticular reason for so acting. No one was allowed to occupy that\nchair, and during the evening a shot came in through the window, and\nstruck a candlestick that stood immediately opposite where John Knox\nwould have been sitting if he had taken his accustomed place. There is\nalso the case of the godly minister, who, in escaping from his\npersecutors, went into a hay-loft, and hid himself in the hay. The\nsoldiers went into the place, pricking and thrusting with their swords\nand bayonets, and the good man even felt the cold steel touch the sole\nof his foot, and the scratch which was made remained for years: yet his\nenemies did not discover him. Afterward a hen came and laid an egg every\nday hard by the place where he was hidden, and so he was sustained as\nwell as preserved until it was safe for him to leave his hiding-place.\nIt was either the same minister, or one of his persecuted brethren, who\nwas providentially protected by such a humble agent as a spider. This is\nthe story as I have read it: \"Receiving friendly warning of an intended\nattempt to apprehend him, and finding men were on his track, he took\nrefuge in a malt-house, and crept into the empty kiln, where he lay\ndown. Immediately after, he saw a spider lower itself across the narrow\nentrance by which he had got in, thus fixing the first line of what was\nsoon wrought into a large and beautiful web. The weaver and the web,\nplaced directly between him and the light, were very conspicuous. He was\nso much struck with the skill and diligence of the spider, and so much\nabsorbed in watching her work, that he forgot his own danger. By the\ntime the network was completed, crossing and re-crossing the mouth of\nthe kiln in every direction, his pursuers came into the malt-house to\nsearch for him. He noted their steps, and listened to their cruel words\nwhile they looked about. Then they came close to the kiln, and he\noverheard one say to another, 'It's no use to look in _there_; the old\nvillain can never be there: _look at that spider's web; he could never\nhave got in there without breaking it_.' Without further search they\nwent to seek elsewhere, and he escaped safely out of their hands.\"\n\nThere is another story I have somewhere met with, of a prisoner, during\nthe American war, who was put into a cell in which there was a little\nslit, through which a soldier's eye always watched him day and night.\nWhatever the prisoner did, whether he ate, or drank, or slept, the\nsentinel's eye was perpetually gazing at him; and the thought of it, he\nsaid, was perfectly dreadful to him, it almost drove him mad; he could\nnot bear the idea of having that man's eye always scrutinizing him. He\ncould scarcely sleep; his very breathing became a misery, because, turn\nwhich way he would, he could never escape from the gaze of that\nsoldier's eye. That story might be used as an illustration of the fact\nthat God's omniscient eye is always looking at every one of us.\n\nI remember making two or three of my congregation speak out pretty\nloudly by telling them this story, which I read in a tract. I suppose it\nmay be true; I receive it as reliable, and I wish I could tell it as it\nis printed. A Christian minister, residing near the backwoods, took a\nwalk one evening for silent meditation. He went much farther than he\nintended, and, missing the track, wandered away into the woods. He kept\non, endeavoring to find the road to his home; but failed to do so. He\nwas afraid that he would have to spend the night in some tree; but\nsuddenly, as he was going forward, he saw the glimmer of lights in the\ndistance, and therefore pressed on, hoping to find shelter in a friendly\ncottage. A strange sight met his gaze; a meeting was being held in a\nclearing in the middle of the woods, the place being lit up with blazing\npine-torches. He thought, \"Well, here are some Christian people met to\nworship God; I am glad that what I thought was an awkward mistake in\nlosing my way has brought me here; I may, perhaps, both do good and get\ngood.\"\n\nTo his horror, however, he found that it was an atheistical gathering,\nand that the speakers were venting their blasphemous thoughts against\nGod with very great boldness and determination. The minister sat down\nfull of grief. A young man declared that he did not believe in the\nexistence of God, and dared Jehovah to destroy him then and there if\nthere was such a God. The good man's heart was meditating how he ought\nto reply, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; and\nthe infidel orator sat down amid loud acclamations of admiration and\napproval. Our friend did not wish to be a craven, or to hold back in the\nday of battle, and therefore he was almost inclined to rise and speak,\nwhen a hale, burly man, who had passed the meridian of life, but who was\nstill exceedingly vigorous, and seemed a strong, muscular clearer of the\nbackwoods, rose and said, \"I should like to speak if you will give me a\nhearing. I am not going to say anything about the topic which has been\ndiscussed by the orator who has just sat down; I am only going to tell\nyou a fact: will you hear me?\" \"Yes, yes,\" they shouted; it was a free\ndiscussion, so they would hear him, especially as he was not going to\ncontrovert. \"A week ago,\" he began, \"I was working up yonder, on the\nriver's bank, felling trees. You know the rapids down below. Well, while\nI was at my employment, at some little distance from them, I heard cries\nand shrieks, mingled with prayers to God for help. I ran down to the\nwater's edge, for I guessed what was the matter. There I saw a young\nman, who could not manage his boat; the current was getting the mastery\nof him, and he was drifting down the stream, and ere long, unless some\none had interposed, he would most certainly have been swept over the\nfalls, and carried down to a dreadful death. I saw that young man kneel\ndown in the boat, and pray to the Most High God, by the love of Christ,\nand by his precious blood, to save him. He confessed that he had been an\ninfidel; but said that, if he might but be delivered this once, he would\ndeclare his belief in God. I at once sprang into the river. My arms are\nnot very weak, I think, though they are not so strong as they used to\nbe. I managed to get into the boat, turned her round, brought her to the\nshore, and so I saved that young man's life; and that young man is the\none who has just sat down, and who has been denying the existence of\nGod, and daring the Most High to destroy him!\" Of course I used that\nstory to show that it was an easy thing to brag and boast about holding\ninfidel sentiments in a place of safety; but that, when men come into\nperil of their lives, then they talk in a very different fashion.\n\nThere is a capital story, which exemplifies the need of going up to the\nhouse of God, not merely to listen to the preacher, but to seek the\nLord. A certain lady had gone to the communion in a Scotch church, and\nhad greatly enjoyed the service. When she reached her home, she inquired\nwho the preacher was, and she was informed that it was Mr. Ebenezer\nErskine. The lady said that she would go again, the next Sabbath, to\nhear him. She went, but she was not profited in the least; the sermon\ndid not seem to have any unction or power about it. She went to Mr.\nErskine, and told him of her experience at the two services. \"Ah,\nmadam,\" said he, \"the first Sabbath you came to meet the Lord Jesus\nChrist, and you had a blessing; but the second Sabbath you came to hear\nEbenezer Erskine, and you had no blessing, and you had no right to\nexpect any.\" You see, brethren, a preacher might talk to the people, in\ngeneral terms, about coming to worship God, and not merely to hear the\nminister, yet no effect might be produced by his words, for there might\nnot be anything sufficiently striking to remain in the memory; but after\nsuch an anecdote as this one about Mr. Erskine and the lady, who could\nforget the lesson that was intended to be taught?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWell, now, supposing that you have exhausted all the illustrations to be\nfound in current history, in local history, in ancient and modern\nhistory, and in religious history--which I do not think you will do\nunless you are yourselves exhausted--you may then turn to _natural\nhistory_, where you will find illustrations and anecdotes in great\nabundance; and you need never feel any qualms of conscience about using\nthe facts of nature to illustrate the truths of Scripture, because there\nis a sound philosophy to support the use of such illustrations. It is a\nfact that can easily be accounted for, that people will more readily\nreceive the truth of revelation if you link it with some kindred truth\nin natural history, or anything that is visible to the eye, than if you\ngive them a bare statement of the doctrine itself. Besides, there is\nthis important fact that must not be forgotten: the God who is the\nAuthor of revelation is also the Author of creation, and providence, and\nhistory, and everything else from which you ought to draw your\nillustrations. When you use natural history to illustrate the\nScriptures, you are only explaining one of God's books by another volume\nthat he has written.\n\nIt is just as if you had before you two works by one author, who had, in\nthe first place, written a book for children; and then, in the second\nplace, had prepared a volume of more profound instruction for persons\nof riper years and higher culture. At times, when you found obscure and\ndifficult passages in the work meant for the more advanced scholars, you\nwould refer to the little book which was intended for the younger folk,\nand you would say, \"We know that this means so-and-so, because that is\nhow the matter is explained in the book for beginners.\" So creation,\nprovidence, and history are all books which God has written for those to\nread who have eyes, written for those who have ears to hear his voice in\nthem, written even for carnal men to read, that they may see something\nof God therein. But the other glorious Book is written for you who are\ntaught of God, and made spiritual and holy. Oftentimes, by turning to\nthe primer, you will get something out of that simple narrative which\nwill elucidate and illustrate the more difficult classic, for that is\nwhat the Word of God is to you.\n\nThere is a certain type of thought which God has followed in all things.\nWhat he made with his Word has a similarity to the Word itself by which\nhe made it; and the visible is the symbol of the invisible, because the\nsame thought of God runs through it all. There is a touch of the divine\nfinger in all that God has made; so that the things which are apparent\nto our senses have certain resemblances to the things which do not\nappear. That which can be seen, and tasted, and touched, and handled is\nmeant to be to us the outward and visible sign of a something which we\nfind in the Word of God, and in our spiritual experience, which is the\ninward and the spiritual grace; so that there is nothing forced and\nunnatural in bringing nature to illustrate grace; it was ordained of God\nfor that very purpose. Range over the whole of creation for your\nsimiles; do not confine yourself to any particular branch of natural\nhistory. The congregation of one very learned doctor complained that he\ngave them spiders continuously by way of illustration. It would be\nbetter to give the people a spider or two occasionally, and then to vary\nthe instruction by stories, and anecdotes, and similes, and metaphors\ndrawn from geology, astronomy, botany, or any of the other sciences\nwhich will help to shed a side-light upon the Scriptures.\n\nIf you keep your eyes open, you will not see even a dog following his\nmaster, nor a mouse peeping up from his hole, nor will you hear even a\ngentle scratching behind the wainscot without getting something to weave\ninto your sermons if your faculties are all on the alert. When you go\nhome to-night, and sit by your fireside, you ought not to be able to\ntake up your domestic cat without finding that which will furnish you\nwith an illustration. How soft are pussy's pads, and yet, in a moment,\nif she is angered, how sharp will be her claws! How like to temptation,\nsoft and gentle when first it cometh to us, but how deadly, how damnable\nthe wounds it causeth ere long!\n\nI recollect using, with very considerable effect in a sermon, an\nincident that occurred in my own garden. There was a dog which was in\nthe habit of coming through the fence and scratching in my flower beds,\nto the manifest spoiling of the gardener's toil and temper. Walking in\nthe garden one Saturday afternoon, and preparing my sermon for the\nfollowing day, I saw the four-footed creature--rather a scurvy specimen,\nby the by--and having a walking-stick in my hand, I threw it at him with\nall my might, at the same time giving him some good advice about going\nhome. Now, what should my canine friend do but turn round, pick up the\nstick in his mouth, and bring it, and lay it down at my feet, wagging\nhis tail all the while in expectation of my thanks and kind words? Of\ncourse, you do not suppose that I kicked him, or threw the stick at him\nany more. I felt quite ashamed of myself, and I told him that he was\nwelcome to stay as long as he liked, and to come as often as he pleased.\nThere was an instance of the power of non-resistance, submission,\npatience, and trust, in overcoming even righteous anger. I used that\nillustration in preaching the next day, and I did not feel that I had at\nall degraded myself by telling the story.\n\nMost of us have read Alphonse Karr's book, \"A Tour Round my Garden.\" Why\ndoes not somebody write \"A Tour Round my Dining-Table,\" or, \"A Tour\nRound my Kitchen\"? I believe a most interesting volume of the kind might\nbe written by any man who had his eyes open to see the analogies of\nnature. I remember that, one day, when I lived in Cambridge, I wanted a\nsermon very badly; and I could not fix upon a subject, when, all at\nonce, I noticed a number of birds on the slates of the opposite house.\nAs I looked closely at them, I saw that there was a canary, which had\nescaped from somebody's house, and a lot of sparrows had surrounded it,\nand kept pecking at it. There was my text at once: \"Mine heritage is\nunto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnce more, brethren, if you cannot find illustrations in natural\nhistory, or any of the other histories I have mentioned, _find them\nanywhere_. Anything that occurs around you, if you have but brains in\nyour head, will be of service to you; but if you are really to interest\nand profit your congregations, you will need to keep your eyes open, and\nto use all the powers with which the Lord has endowed you. If you do so,\nyou will find that, in simply walking through the streets, something or\nother will suggest a passage of Scripture, or will help you, when you\nhave chosen your text, to open it up to the people so as really to\narrest their attention, and convey the truth to their minds and hearts.\n\nFor instance, the snow to-day covered all the ground, and the black soil\nlooked fair and white. It is thus with some men under transient\nreformations; they look as holy, and as heavenly, and as pure as though\nthey were saints; but when the sun of trial arises, and a little heat of\ntemptation cometh upon them, how soon do they reveal their true\nblackness, and all their surface goodliness melteth away!\n\nThe whole world is hung round by God with pictures; and the preacher has\nonly to take them down, one by one, and hold them up before his\ncongregation, and he will be sure to enlist their interest in the\nsubject he is seeking to illustrate. But he must have his own eyes\nopen, or he will not see these pictures. Solomon said, \"The wise man's\neyes are in his head,\" and addressing such a man, he wrote, \"Let thine\neyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.\"\nWhy does he speak of seeing with the eyelids? I think he means that the\neyelids are to shut in what the eyes have perceived. You know that there\nis all the difference in the world between a man with eyes and one with\nno eyes. One sits down by a stream, and sees much to interest and\ninstruct him; but another, at the same place, is like the gentleman of\nwhom Wordsworth wrote:\n\n  A primrose by a river's brim\n  A yellow primrose was to him,\n      And it was nothing more.\n\nIf you find any difficulty in illustrating your subject, I should\nstrongly recommend you to _try to teach children_ whenever you can get\nan opportunity of doing so. I do not know a better way of schooling your\nown mind to the use of illustrations than frequently to take a class in\nthe Sunday-school, or to give addresses to the scholars as often as you\ncan; because, if you do not illustrate _there_, you will have your\nlesson or your address illustrated for you very strikingly. You will\nfind that the children will do it by their general worry and\ninattention, or by their talk and play. I used to have a class of boys\nwhen I was a Sunday-school teacher, and if I was ever a little dull,\nthey began to make wheels of themselves, twisting round on the forms on\nwhich they sat. That was a very plain intimation to me that I must give\nthem an illustration or an anecdote; and I learned to tell stories\npartly by being obliged to tell them. One boy whom I had in the class\nused to say to me, \"This is very dull, teacher; can't you pitch us a\nyarn?\" Of course he was a naughty boy, and you may suppose that he went\nto the bad when he grew up, though I am not at all sure that he did; but\nI used to try and pitch him the yarn that he wanted in order to get his\nattention again. And I dare say that some of our hearers, if they were\nallowed to speak out during the sermon, would ask us to pitch them a\nyarn--that is, to give them something to interest them. I believe that\none of the best things you can do to teach either the old or the young\nis to give them plenty of anecdotes and illustrations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI think it would be very useful to some of you who are not yet adepts at\nthe art of illustration if you were to _read hooks in which there is an\nabundance of metaphor, simile, and emblem_. I am not going fully into\nthat subject on this occasion, because this lecture is only preliminary\nto the next two that I hope to deliver, in which I will try to give you\na list of cyclopedias of anecdotes and illustrations, and books of\nfables, emblems, and parables; but I advise you to study such works as\nGurnall's \"Christian in Complete Armor,\" or Matthew Henry's\n\"Commentary,\" with the distinct view of noticing all the illustrations,\nemblems, metaphors, and similes that you can find. I should even select\n_non_-comparisons; I like Keach's \"Metaphors,\" where he points out the\ndisparity between the type and the Antitype. Sometimes, the contrasts\nbetween different persons or objects will be as instructive as their\nresemblances.\n\nWhen you have read the book once, and tried to mark all the figures, go\nthrough it again, and note all the illustrations you missed in your\nfirst reading. You will probably have missed many; and you will be\nsurprised to find that there are _illustrations even in the words\nthemselves_. How frequently a word is itself a picture! Some of the most\nexpressive words that are found in human language are like rich gems,\nwhich have passed before your eye very often, but you have not had time\nto handle or to value them. In your second examination of the book, you\nwill notice, perhaps, what eluded you the first time, and you will find\nmany illustrations which are merely hinted at, instead of being given at\nlength. Do as I have recommended with a great many books. Get copies\nthat you can afford to mark with a colored pencil, so that you will be\nsure to see the illustrations readily; or put them down in one of your\nnote-books.\n\nI am sure that those brethren who begin early to keep a record of such\nthings act wisely. The commonplace-books of the old Puritans were\ninvaluable to them. They would never have been able to have compiled\nsuch marvelous works as they did if they had not been careful in\ncollecting and arranging their matter under different heads; and thus,\nall that they had ever read upon any subject was embalmed and preserved,\nand they could readily refer to any point that they might require, and\nrefresh their memories and verify their quotations. Some of us, who are\nvery busy, may be excused from that task; we must do the best we can;\nbut some of you, who go to smaller charges, in the country especially,\nought to keep a commonplace-book, or else I am afraid you will get to be\nvery commonplace yourselves.\n\nYour selection of similes, metaphors, parables, and emblems will not be\ncomplete unless you also _search the Scriptures to find the\nillustrations that are recorded there_. Biblical allusions are the most\neffective methods of illustrating and enforcing the truths of the\ngospel; and the preacher who is familiar with his Bible will never be at\na loss for an instance of that which \"is profitable for doctrine, for\nreproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.\" The Lord\nmust have meant us thus to use his Word, otherwise he would not have\ngiven us, in the Old Testament, such a number of types and symbols of\ntruths, to be afterward more fully revealed under the gospel\ndispensation.\n\nSuch a collection of illustrations as I have suggested will come very\nhandy to you in future days, and you will be reminded, by the\ncomparisons and figures used by others, to make comparisons and figures\nfor yourself. Familiarity with anything makes us _au fait_ at it; we can\nlearn to do almost anything by practice. I suppose that I could, by\ndegrees, learn to make a tub if I spent my time with a man engaged in\nthat business. I should know how to put the staves and the hoops if I\nstayed long enough in the cooper's yard; and I have no doubt that any of\nyou could learn anything you desired provided you had sufficient time\nand opportunity. So, if you search for illustrations, you will learn to\nmake them for yourselves.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat brings me to my last point. I began this lecture by warning you\nagainst the practice of making anecdotes; I close it by advising you\noften to _set yourself the task of making illustrations_. Try to make\ncomparisons from the things round about you. I think it would be well,\nsometimes, to shut the door of your study, and say to yourself, \"I will\nnot go out of this room until I have made at least half a dozen good\nillustrations.\" The Chinese say that the intellect lies in the stomach,\nand that the affections are there too. I think they are right on the\nlatter point, because, you know, if you are ever very fond of\nanybody--your wife, for instance--you say that you could eat her; and\nyou also say that such and such a person is very sweet. So, too, the\nintellect may lie in the stomach; and consequently, when you have been\nshut in for two or three hours, and begin to want your dinner or tea,\nyou may be quickened into the making of the six illustrations I have\nmentioned as a minimum. Your study would be a veritable prison if you\ncould not make as many useful comparisons as that from the different\nobjects in the room. I should say that a prison itself would furnish\nsuggestions for making many metaphors. I do not wish you to go to prison\nfor that purpose; but if you ever do get there, you ought to be able to\nlearn how to preach in an interesting manner upon such a passage as\nthis--\"Bring my soul out of prison;\" or this, \"He was there in the\nprison. But the Lord was with Joseph.\"\n\nIf you cannot get your brains to work in the house, you might take a\nwalk, and say to yourself, \"I will wander over the fields, or I will get\ninto the garden, or I will stroll in the wood, and see if I cannot find\nsome illustration or other.\" You might even go and look in at a\nshop-window, and see if there are not some illustrations to be\ndiscovered there. Or you might stand still a little while, and hear what\npeople say as they go by; or stop where there is a little knot of\nidlers, and try to hear what they are talking about, and see what symbol\nyou can make out of it. You should also spend as much time as you can\nvisiting the sick; that will be a most profitable thing to do, for in\nthat sacred service you will have many opportunities of getting\nillustrations from the tried children of God as you hear their varied\nexperiences. It is wonderful what pages of a new cyclopedia of\nillustrative teaching you might find written out with indelible ink if\nyou went visiting the sick, or even in talking with children. Many of\nthem will say things that you will be able to quote with good effect in\nyour sermons. At any rate, do make up your mind that you will attract\nand interest the people by the way in which you set the gospel before\nthem. Half the battle lies in making the attempt, in coming to this\ndetermined resolution, \"God helping me, I will teach the people by\nparables, by similes, by illustrations, by anything that will be helpful\nto them; and I will seek to be a thoroughly interesting preacher of the\nWord.\"\n\nI earnestly hope you will practise the art of making illustrations. I\nwill try to prepare a little set of exercises for you to do week by\nweek. I shall give you some subject and some object, between which there\nis a likeness; and I shall get you to try to see the resemblance, and to\nfind out what comparisons can be instituted between them. I shall also,\nif I can, give you some subject without an object, and then say to you,\n\"Illustrate that; tell us, for instance, what virtue is like.\" Or,\nsometimes, I may give you the object without the subject, thus--\"A\ndiamond; how will you use that as an illustration?\" Then, sometimes, I\nmay give you neither the subject nor the object, but just say, \"Bring\nme an illustration.\" I think we might, in this way, make a set of\nexercises which would be very useful to you all.\n\nThe way to get a mind worth having is to get one well stored with things\nworth keeping. Of course, the man who has the most illustrations in his\nhead will be the one who will use the most illustrations in his\ndiscourses. There are some preachers who have the bump of illustration\nfully developed; they are sure to illustrate their subject, they cannot\nhelp it. There are some men who always see \"likes\"; they catch a\ncomparison long before others see it. If any of you say that you are not\ngood at illustrating, I reply, \"My brother, you must try to grow horns\nif you have not any on your head.\" You may never be able to develop any\nvast amount of imagination or fancy if you do not possess it at the\nfirst--just as it is hard to make a cheese out of a millstone--but by\ndiligent attention to this matter you may improve upon what you now are.\nI do believe that some fellows have a depression in their craniums where\nthere ought to be a bump. I knew a young man, who tried hard to get into\nthis college; but he never saw how to join things together unless he\ntied them by their tails. He brought out a book; and when I read it, I\nfound at once that it was full of my stories and illustrations; that is\nto say, every illustration or story in the book was one that I had used,\nbut there was not one of them that was related as it ought to have been.\nThis man had so told the story that it was not there at all; the very\npoint which I had brought out he had carefully omitted, and every bit of\nit was told correctly except the one thing that was the essence of the\nwhole. Of course, I was glad that I did not have that brother in the\ncollege; he might have been an ornament to us by his deficiencies, but\nwe can do without such ornaments, indeed, we have had enough of them\nalready.\n\nFinally, dear brethren, do try with all your might to get the power to\nsee a parable, a simile, an illustration, wherever it is to be seen; for\nto a great extent this is one of the most important qualifications of\nthe man who is to be a public speaker, and especially of the man who is\nto be an efficient preacher of the gospel of Christ. If the Lord Jesus\nmade such frequent use of parables, it must be right for us to do the\nsame.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nTHE SCIENCES AS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATION.\n\n_Astronomy._\n\n\nI propose, brethren, if I am able to do it--and I am somewhat dubious\nupon that point--to give you a set of lectures at intervals upon THE\nVARIOUS SCIENCES AS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATION. It seems to me that every\nstudent for the Christian ministry ought to know at least something of\nevery science; he should intermeddle with every form of knowledge that\nmay be useful in his life's work. God has made all things that are in\nthe world to be our teachers, and there is something to be learned from\nevery one of them; and as he would never be a thorough student who did\nnot attend all classes at which he was expected to be present, so he who\ndoes not learn from all things that God has made will never gather all\nthe food that his soul needs, nor will he be likely to attain to that\nperfection of mental manhood which will enable him to be a fully\nequipped teacher of others.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI shall commence with the science of ASTRONOMY; and you will, at the\nbeginning, understand that I am not going to deliver an astronomical\nlecture, nor to mention all the grand facts and details of that\nfascinating science; but I intend simply to use _astronomy as one of the\nmany fields of illustration that the Lord has provided for us_. Let me\nsay, however, that the science itself is one which ought to receive much\nattention from all of us. It relates to many of the greatest wonders in\nnature, and its effect upon the mind is truly marvelous. The themes on\nwhich astronomy discourses are so grand, the wonders disclosed by the\ntelescope are so sublime, that, very often, minds that have been unable\nto receive knowledge through other channels have become remarkably\nreceptive while they have been studying this science. There is an\ninstance of a brother who was one of the students in this college, and\nwho seemed to be a dreadful dolt; we really thought he never would learn\nanything, and that we should have to give him up in despair. But I\nintroduced to him a little book called \"The Young Astronomer\"; and he\nafterward said that, as he read it, he felt just as if something had\ncracked inside his head, or as if some string had been snapped. He had\nlaid hold of such enlarged thoughts that I believe his cranium did\nactually experience an expansion which it ought to have undergone in his\nchildhood, and which it did undergo by the marvelous force of the\nthoughts suggested by the study of even the elements of astronomical\nscience.\n\nThis science ought to be the special delight of ministers of the gospel,\nfor surely it brings us into closer connection with God than almost any\nother science does. It has been said that an undevout astronomer is mad.\nI should say that an undevout man of any sort is mad--with the worst\nform of madness; but, certainly, he who has become acquainted with the\nstars in the heavens, and who yet has not found out the great Father of\nlights, the Lord who made them all, must be stricken with a dire\nmadness. Notwithstanding all his learning, he must be afflicted with a\nmental incapacity which places him almost below the level of the beasts\nthat perish.\n\nKepler, the great mathematical astronomer, who has so well explained\nmany of the laws which govern the universe, closes one of his books--his\n\"Harmonics\"--with this reverent and devout expression of his feelings:\n\"I give thee thanks, Lord and Creator, that thou hast given me joy\nthrough thy creation; for I have been ravished with the work of thy\nhands. I have revealed unto mankind the glory of thy works, as far as my\nlimited spirit could conceive their infinitude. Should I have brought\nforward anything that is unworthy of thee, or should I have sought my\nown fame, be graciously pleased to forgive me.\" And you know how the\nmighty Newton, a very prince among the sons of men, was continually\ndriven to his knees as he looked upward to the skies, and discovered\nfresh wonders in the starry heavens. Therefore, the science which tends\nto bring men to bow in humility before the Lord should always be a\nfavorite study with us whose business it is to inculcate reverence for\nGod in all who come under our influence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe science of astronomy would never have become available to us in many\nof its remarkable details if it had not been for the discovery or\ninvention of the _telescope_. Truth is great, but it does not savingly\naffect us till we become personally acquainted with it. The knowledge of\nthe gospel, as it is revealed to us in the Word of God, makes it true to\nus; and oftentimes the Bible is to us what the telescope is to the\nastronomer. The Scriptures do not make the truth; but they reveal it in\na way in which our poor, feeble intellect, when enlightened by the Holy\nSpirit, is able to behold and comprehend it.\n\nFrom a book[2] to which I am indebted for many quotations in this\nlecture, I learn that the telescope was discovered in this singular\nmanner: \"A maker of spectacles at Middleburg stumbled upon the discovery\nowing to his children directing his attention to the enlarged appearance\nof the weathercock of a church, as accidentally seen through two\nspectacle-glasses, held between the fingers some distance apart. This\nwas one of childhood's inadvertent acts; and seldom has there been a\nparallel example of mighty results springing out of such a trivial\ncircumstance. It is strange to reflect upon the playful pranks of\nboyhood being connected in their issue, and at no distant date, with\nenlarging the known bounds of the planetary system, resolving the nebula\nof Orion, and revealing the richness of the firmament.\" In a similar\nway, a simple incident has often been the means of revealing to men the\nwonders of divine grace. What a certain individual only meant to be\ntrifling with divine things, God has overruled for his soul's salvation.\nHe stepped in to hear a sermon as he might have gone to the theater to\nsee a play; but God's Spirit carried the truth to his heart, and\nrevealed to him the deep things of the kingdom, and his own personal\ninterest in them.\n\n  [2] \"The Heavens and the Earth,\" by Thomas Milner, M. A., F. R. G. S.\n\nI think that incident of the discovery of the telescope might be\nusefully employed as an illustration of the connection between little\ncauses and great results, showing how the providence of God is\ncontinually making small things to be the means of bringing about\nwonderful and important revolutions. It may often happen that what seems\nto us to be a matter of pure accident, with nothing at all notable about\nit, may really have the effect of changing the entire current of our\nlife, and it may be influential also in turning the lives of many others\nin quite a new direction.\n\nWhen once the telescope had been discovered, then the numbers and\nposition and movements of the stars became increasingly visible, until\nat the present time we are able to study the wonders of the stellar sky,\nand continually to learn more and more of the marvels that are there\ndisplayed by the hand of God. The telescope has revealed to us much more\nof the sun, and the moon, and the stars than we could ever have\ndiscovered without its aid. Dr. Livingstone, on account of his\nfrequently using the sextant when he was traveling in Africa, was spoken\nof by the natives as the white man who could bring down the sun, and\ncarry it under his arm. That is what the telescope has done for us, and\nthat is what faith in the gospel has done for us in the spiritual\nheavens; it has brought down to us the Father, the Son, and the Holy\nSpirit, and given us the high eternal things to be our present\npossession and our perpetual joy.\n\nThus, you see, the telescope itself may be made to furnish us with many\nvaluable illustrations. We may also turn to good account the lessons to\nbe learned by the study of the stars for the purpose of navigation. The\nmariner, crossing the trackless sea, by taking astronomical\nobservations, can steer himself with accuracy to his desired haven.\nCaptain Basil Hall tells us, in the book I have previously mentioned,\nthat \"he once sailed from San Blas, on the West Coast of Mexico; and,\nafter a voyage of eight thousand miles, occupying eighty-nine days, he\narrived off Rio de Janeiro, having in this interval passed through the\nPacific Ocean, rounded Cape Horn, and crossed the South Atlantic,\nwithout making land, or seeing a single sail except an American whaler.\nWhen within a week's sail of Rio, he set seriously about determining, by\nlunar observations, the position of his ship, and then steered his\ncourse by those common principles of navigation which may be safely\nemployed for short distances between one known station and another.\nHaving arrived within what he considered, from his computations, fifteen\nor twenty miles of the coast, he hove to, at four o'clock in the\nmorning, to await the break of day, and then bore up, proceeding\ncautiously on account of a thick fog. As this cleared away, the crew had\nthe satisfaction of seeing the great Sugar-Loaf Rock, which stands on\none side of the harbor's mouth, so nearly right ahead that they had not\nto alter their course above a point in order to hit the entrance of the\nport. This was the first land they had seen for nearly three months,\nafter crossing so many seas, and being set backward and forward by\ninnumerable currents and foul winds. The effect upon all on board was\nelectric; and, giving way to their admiration, the sailors greeted the\ncommander with a hearty cheer.\"\n\nIn a similar manner, we also sail by guidance from the heavenly bodies,\nand we have for a long season no sight of land, and sometimes do not\neven see a passing sail; and yet, if we take our observations correctly,\nand follow the track which they point out, we shall have the great\nblessing, when we are about to finish our voyage, of seeing, not the\ngreat Sugar-Loaf Rock, but the Fair Haven of Glory right straight before\nus. We shall not have to alter our course even a single point; and, as\nwe sail into the heavenly harbor, what songs of joy will we raise, not\nin glorification of our own skill, but in praise of the wondrous Captain\nand Pilot who has guided us over life's stormy sea, and enabled us to\nsail in safety even where we could not see our way!\n\nKepler makes a wise remark, when speaking about the mathematical system\nby which the course of a star could be predicted. After describing the\nresult of his observations, and declaring his firm belief that the will\nof the Lord is the supreme power in the laws of nature, he says: \"But if\nthere be any man who is too dull to receive this science, I advise that,\nleaving the school of astronomy, he follow his own path, and desist from\nthis wandering through the universe; and, lifting up his natural eyes,\nwith which he alone can see, pour himself out in his own heart, in\npraise of God the Creator; being certain that he gives no less worship\nto God than the astronomer, to whom God has given to see more clearly\nwith his inward eye, and who, for what he has himself discovered, both\ncan and will glorify God.\"\n\nThat is, I think, a very beautiful illustration of what you may say to\nany poor illiterate man in your congregation: \"Well, my friend, if you\ncannot comprehend this system of theology which I have explained to you,\nif these doctrines seem to you to be utterly incomprehensible, if you\ncannot follow me in my criticism upon the Greek text, if you cannot\nquite catch the poetical idea that I tried to give you just now, which\nis so charming to my own mind, nevertheless, if you know no more than\nthat your Bible is true, that you yourself are a sinner, and that Jesus\nChrist is your Saviour, go on your way, and worship and adore, and think\nof God as you are able to do. Never mind about the astronomers, and the\ntelescopes, and the stars, and the sun, and the moon; worship the Lord\nin your own fashion. Altogether apart from my theological knowledge, and\nmy explanation of the doctrines revealed in the Scriptures, the Bible\nitself, and the precious truth you have received into your own soul,\nthrough the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will be quite enough to make\nyou an acceptable worshiper of the Most High God.\"\n\nI suppose you are all aware that among the old systems of astronomy was\none which placed the earth in the center, and made the sun, and the\nmoon, and the stars revolve around it. \"Its three fundamental principles\nwere the immobility of the earth, its central position, and the daily\nrevolution of all the heavenly bodies around it in circular orbits.\"\n\nNow, in a similar fashion, there is a way of making a system of theology\nof which man is the center, by which it is implied that Christ and his\natoning sacrifice are only made for man's sake, and that the Holy Spirit\nis merely a great Worker on man's behalf, and that even the great and\nglorious Father is to be viewed simply as existing for the sake of\nmaking man happy. Well, that may be the system of theology adopted by\nsome; but, brethren, we must not fall into that error, for, just as the\nearth is not the center of the universe, so man is not the grandest of\nall beings. God has been pleased highly to exalt man; but we must\nremember how the psalmist speaks of him: \"When I consider thy heavens,\nthe work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has\nordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the son of man,\nthat thou visitest him?\" In another place, David says, \"Lord, what is\nman, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou\nmakest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow\nthat passeth away.\" Man cannot be the center of the theological\nuniverse; he is altogether too insignificant a being to occupy such a\nposition, and the scheme of redemption must exist for some other end\nthan that of merely making man happy, or even of making him holy. The\nsalvation of man must surely be first of all for the glory of God; and\nyou have discovered the right form of Christian doctrine when you have\nfound the system that has God in the center, ruling and controlling\naccording to the good pleasure of his will. Do not dwarf man so as to\nmake it appear that God has no care for him; for if you do that, you\nslander God. Give to man the position that God has assigned to him; by\ndoing so, you will have a system of theology in which all the truths of\nrevelation and experience will move in glorious order and harmony around\nthe great central orb, the Divine Sovereign Ruler of the universe, God\nover all, blessed forever.\n\nYou may, however, any one of you, make another mistake by imagining\nyourself to be the center of a system. That foolish notion is a good\nillustration, I think. There are some men whose fundamental principles\nare, first of all, their own immobility: what they are, they always are\nto be, and they are right, and no one can stir them; secondly, their\nposition is central, for them suns rise and set, and moons do wax and\nwane. For them their wives exist; for them their children are born; for\nthem everything is placed where it appears in God's universe; and they\njudge all things according to this one rule, \"How will it benefit _me_?\"\nThat is the beginning and the end of their grand system, and they expect\nthe daily revolution, if not of all the heavenly bodies, certainly of\nall the earthly bodies around them. The sun, the moon, and the eleven\nstars are to make obeisance to them. Well, brethren, that is an exploded\ntheory so far as the earth is concerned, and there is no truth in such a\nnotion with reference to ourselves. We may cherish the erroneous idea;\nbut the general public will not, and the sooner the grace of God expels\nit from us, the better, so that we may take our proper position in a far\nhigher system than any of which we can ever be the center.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Sun, then, not the earth, is the center of the solar system; which\nsystem, mark you, is probably only one little insignificant corner of\nthe universe, although it includes such a vast space that if I could\ngive you the actual figures you would not be able to form the slightest\nidea of what they really represented. Yet that tremendous system,\ncompared with the whole of God's universe, may be only like a single\ngrain of dust on the sea-shore, and there may be myriads upon myriads of\nsystems, some of which are made up of innumerable systems as large as\nours, and the great sun himself may only be a planet revolving round a\ngreater sun, and this world only a little satellite to the sun, never\nyet observed by the astronomers who, it may be, live in that remoter sun\nstill farther off. It is a marvelous universe that God has made; and\nhowever much of it we may have seen, we must never imagine that we have\ndiscovered more than a very small portion of the worlds upon worlds that\nGod has created.\n\nThe earth, and all the planets, and all the solid matter of the\nuniverse, are controlled, as you know, by the force of attraction. We\nare kept in our place in the world, in going round the sun, by two\nforces, the one called centripetal, which draws us toward the sun, and\nthe other called centrifugal, which is generally illustrated by the\ntendency of drops of water on a trundled mop to fly off at a tangent\nfrom the circle they are describing.\n\nNow, I believe that, in like manner, there are two forces which are ever\nat work upon all of us, the one which draws us toward God, and the\nother which drives us away from him, and we are thus kept in the circle\nof life; but, for my part, I shall be very glad when I can pass out of\nthat circle, and get away from the influence of the centrifugal force. I\nbelieve that, the moment I do so--as soon as ever the attraction which\ndraws me away from God is gone--I shall be with him in heaven; that I do\nnot doubt. Directly one or other of the two forces which influence human\nlife shall be exhausted, we shall have either to drift away into the\nfar-off space, through the centrifugal force--which God forbid!--or else\nwe shall fly at once into the central orb, by the centripetal force, and\nthe sooner that glorious end of life comes, the better will it be for\nus. With Augustine, I would say, \"All things are drawn to their own\ncenter. Be thou the Center of my heart, O God, my Light, my only Love!\"\n\nThe sun himself is an enormous body; he has been measured, but I think I\nwill not burden you with the figures, since they will convey to you no\nadequate idea of his actual size. Suffice it to say that, if the earth\nand the moon were put inside the sun, there would be abundance of room\nfor them to go on revolving in their orbits just as they are now doing;\nand there would be no fear of their knocking against that external\ncrust of the sun which would represent to them the heavens.\n\nIt takes about eight minutes for light to reach us from the sun. We may\njudge of the pace at which that light comes when we reflect that a\ncannon-ball, rushing with the swiftest possible velocity, would take\nseven years to get there, and that a train, traveling at the rate of\nthirty miles an hour, and never stopping for refreshments, would require\nmore than three hundred and fifty years before it would reach the\nterminus. You may thus form some slight idea of the distance that we are\nfrom the sun; and this, I think, furnishes us with a good illustration\nof faith. There is no man who can know, except by faith, that the sun\nexists. That he did exist eight minutes ago, I know, for here is a ray\nof light that has just come from him, and told me that; but I cannot be\nsure that he is existing at this moment. There are some of the fixed\nstars, that are at such a vast distance from the earth, that a ray of\nlight from them takes hundreds of years to reach us; and, for aught we\nknow, they may have been extinct long ago. Yet we still put them down in\nour chart of the heavens, and we can only keep them there by faith, for\nas, \"through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word\nof God,\" so it is only by faith that we can know that any of them now\nexist. When we come to examine the matter closely, we find that our\neyesight, and all our faculties and senses, are not sufficient to give\nus positive conviction with regard to these heavenly bodies; and\ntherefore we still have to exercise faith; so is it to a high degree in\nspiritual affairs, we walk by faith, not by sight.\n\nThat the sun has spots upon his face, is a fact which everybody notices.\nJust so; and if you are suns, and are never so bright, yet if you have\nany spots upon you, you will find that people will be very quick to\nnotice them, and to call attention to them. There is often much more\ntalk about the sun's spots than there is about his luminous surface;\nand, after the same fashion, more will be said about any spots and\nimperfections that men may discover in our character than about any\nexcellences that they may see in us. It was for some time asserted that\nthere were no spots or specks whatever on the sun. Many astronomers,\nwith the aid of the telescope, as well as without it, discovered these\nblemishes and patches on the face of the sun; but they were assured by\nmen who ought to have known--namely, by the reverend fathers of the\nchurch, that it was impossible that there could be anything of the\nkind. The book I have previously quoted says: \"Upon Scheiner, a German\nJesuit, reporting the evidence of his senses to his provincial superior,\nthe latter positively refused to believe him. 'I have read,' said he,\n'Aristotle's writings from end to end many times, and I can assure you\nthat I have nowhere found in them anything similar to what you mention.\nGo, my son, and tranquilize yourself: be assured that what you take for\nspots in the sun are the faults of your glasses, or of your eyes.'\" So,\nbrethren, we know the force of bigotry, and how men will not see what is\nperfectly plain to us, and how, even when facts are brought before them,\nthey cannot be made to believe in them, but will attribute them to\nanything but that which is the real truth. I am afraid that the Word of\nGod itself has often been treated just in that way. Truths that are\npositively and plainly revealed there are stoutly denied, because they\ndo not happen to fit in with the preconceived theories of unbelievers.\n\nThere have been a great many attempts to explain what the spots upon the\nsun really are. One theory is, that the solar orb is surrounded by a\nluminous atmosphere, and that the spots are open spaces in that\natmosphere through which we see the solid surface of the sun. I cannot\nsee any reason why that theory should not be the truth; and, if it be\nso, it seems to me to explain the first chapter of Genesis, where we are\ntold that God created the light on the first day, though he did not make\nthe sun until the fourth day. Did he not make the light first, and then\ntake the sun, which otherwise might have been a dark world, and put the\nlight on it as a luminous atmosphere? The two things certainly might\nvery well fit in with each other; and if these spots are really openings\nin the luminous atmosphere through which we see the dark surface of the\nsun, they are admirable illustrations of the spots that men see in us.\nWe are clothed with holiness as with a garment of light; but every now\nand then there is a rift through which observers can see down into the\ndark body of natural depravity that still is in the very best of us.\n\nIt is a dangerous thing to look at the sun with unprotected eyes. Some\nhave ventured to look at it with glasses that have no coloring in them,\nand they have been struck blind. There have been several instances of\npersons who have inadvertently neglected to use a proper kind of glass\nbefore turning the telescope to the sun, and so have been blinded. This\nis an illustration of our need of a Mediator, and of how necessary it is\nto see God through the medium of Christ Jesus our Lord; else might the\nexcessive glory of the Deity utterly destroy the faculty of seeing God\nat all.\n\nThe effect of the sun upon the earth, I shall not dwell upon now, as\nthat may rather concern another branch of science than astronomy. It\nwill suffice to say that living plants will sometimes grow without the\nsun, as you may have seen them in a dark cellar; but how blanched they\nare when existing under such circumstances! What must have been the\npleasure with which Humboldt entered into the great subterranean cave\ncalled the Cueva del Guacharo, in the district of Caraccas! It is a\ncavern inhabited by nocturnal, fruit-eating birds, and this was what the\ngreat naturalist saw: \"Seeds, carried in by the birds to their young,\nand dropped, had sprung up, producing tall, blanched, spectral stalks,\ncovered with half-formed leaves; but it was impossible to recognize the\nspecies from the change in form, color, and aspect, which the absence of\nlight had occasioned. The native Indians gazed upon these traces of\nimperfect organization with mingled curiosity and fear, as if they were\npale and disfigured phantoms banished from the face of the earth.\"\n\nSo, brethren, think what you and I would be without the light of God's\ncountenance. Picture a church growing, as some churches do grow, without\nany light from heaven, a cavern full of strange birds and blanched\nvegetation. What a terrible place for any one to visit! There is a cave\nof that sort at Rome, and there are others in various parts of the\nearth; but woe unto those who go to live in such dismal dens!\n\nWhat a wonderful effect the light of God's countenance has upon men who\nhave the divine life in them, but who have been living in the dark!\nTravelers tell us that, in the vast forests of the Amazon and the\nOrinoco, you may sometimes see, on a grand scale, the influence of light\nin the coloring of the plants when the leaf-buds are developing. One\nsays: \"Clouds and rain sometimes obscure the atmosphere for several days\ntogether, and during this time the buds expand themselves into leaves.\nBut these leaves have a pallid hue till the sun appears, when, in a few\nhours of clear sky and splendid sunshine, their color is changed to a\nvivid green. It has been related that, during twenty days of dark dull\nweather, the sun not once making his appearance, the leaves were\nexpanded to their full size, but were almost white. One forenoon the sun\nbegan to shine in full brightness, when the color of the forest changed\nso rapidly that its progress might be marked. By the middle of the\nafternoon, the whole, for many miles, presented the usual summer dress.\"\n\nThat is a beautiful illustration, it seems to me, that does not want any\nopening up; you can all make the application of it to the Lord Jesus for\nyourselves. As Dr. Watts sings--\n\n  In the darkest shades if he appear,\n    My dawning is begun;\n  He is my soul's sweet morning star,\n    And he my rising sun.\n\nThen we begin to put on all sorts of beauty, as the leaves are painted\nby the rays of the sun. We owe every atom of color that there is in any\nof our virtues, and every trace of flavor that there is in any of our\nfruits, to those bright sunbeams that come streaming down to us from the\nSun of Righteousness, who carries many other blessings besides healing\nbeneath his wings.\n\nThe effect of the sun upon vegetation can be observed among the flowers\nin your own garden. Notice how they turn to him whenever they can; the\nsunflower, for instance, follows the sun's course as if he were himself\nthe sun's son, and lovingly looked up to his father's face. He is very\nmuch like a sun in appearance, and I think that is because he is so\nfond of turning to the sun. The innumerable leaves of a clover field\nbend toward the sun; and all plants, more or less, pay deference to the\nsunlight to which they are so deeply indebted. Even the plants in the\nhothouse, you can observe, do not grow in that direction you would\nexpect them to do if they wanted warmth, that is, toward the stovepipe,\nwhence the heat comes, nor even to the spot where most air is admitted;\nbut they will always, if they possibly can, send out their branches and\ntheir flowers toward the sun. That is how we ought to grow toward the\nSun of Righteousness; it is for our soul's health that we should turn\nour faces toward the Sun, as Daniel prayed with his windows open toward\nJerusalem. Where Jesus is, there is our Sun; toward him let us\nconstantly incline our whole being.\n\nNot very long ago I met with the following remarkable instance of the\npower of rays of light transmitted from the sun: some divers were\nworking at Plymouth Breakwater; they were down in the diving-bell,\nthirty feet below the surface of the water; but a convex glass, in the\nupper part of the bell, concentrated the sun's rays full upon them, and\nburned their caps. As I read this story, I thought it was a capital\nillustration of the power there is in the gospel of our Lord Jesus\nChrist. Some of our hearers are fully thirty feet under the waters of\nsin, if they are not even deeper down than that; but, by the grace of\nGod, we will yet make them feel the blessed burning power of the truths\nwe preach, even if we do not succeed in setting them all on fire with\nthis powerful glass. Perhaps, when you were a boy, you had a\nburning-glass, and when you were out with a friend who did not know what\nyou had in your pocket, while he was sitting very quietly by your side,\nyou took out your glass, and held it for a few seconds over the back of\nhis hand until he felt something rather hot just there. I like the man\nwho, in preaching, concentrates the rays of the gospel on a sinner till\nhe burns him. Do not scatter the beams of light; you can turn the glass\nso as to diffuse the rays instead of concentrating them; but the best\nway of preaching is to focus Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness,\nright on a sinner's heart. It is the best way in the world to get at\nhim; and if he is thirty feet under the water, this burning-glass will\nenable you to reach him; only mind that you do not use your own candle\ninstead of the Sun, for that will not answer the same purpose.\n\nSometimes the sun suffers eclipse, as you know. The moon intrudes\nbetween us and the sun, and then we cannot see the great orb of day. I\nsuppose we have all seen one total eclipse, and we may see another. It\nis a very interesting sight; but it appears to me that people take a\ngreat deal more notice of the sun when he is eclipsed than they do when\nhe is shining clearly. They do not stand looking at him, day after day,\nwhen he is pouring forth his bright beams in unclouded glory; but as\nsoon as ever he is eclipsed, then they are out in their thousands, with\ntheir glasses, and every little boy in the street has a fragment of\nsmoked glass through which he watches the eclipse of the sun.\n\nThus, brethren, I do not believe that our Lord Jesus Christ ever\nreceives so much attention from men as when he is set forth as the\nsuffering Saviour, evidently crucified among them. When the great\neclipse passed over the Sun of Righteousness, then all eyes were fixed\nupon him, and well they might be. Do not fail to tell your hearers\ncontinually about that awful eclipse on Calvary; but mind that you also\ntell them all the effects of that eclipse, and that there will be no\nrepetition of that stupendous event.\n\n  Lo! the sun's eclipse is o'er;\n  Lo! he sets in blood no more.\n\nSpeaking of eclipses reminds me that there is, in the book I have\nmentioned, a striking description of one given by a correspondent who\nwrote to the astronomer Halley. He took his stand at Haradow Hill, close\nto the east end of the avenue of Stonehenge, a very capital place for\nobservation, and there he watched the eclipse. He says of it: \"We were\nnow enveloped in a total and palpable darkness, if I may be allowed the\nexpression. It came on rapidly, but I watched so attentively that I\ncould perceive its progress. It came upon us like a great black cloak\nthrown over us, or like a curtain drawn from that side. The horses we\nheld by the bridle seemed deeply struck by it, and pressed closely to us\nwith marks of extreme surprise. As well as I could perceive, the\ncountenances of my friends wore a horrible aspect. It was not without an\ninvoluntary exclamation of wonder that I looked around me at this\nmoment. It was the most awful sight I had ever beheld in my life.\"\n\nSo, I suppose, it must be in the spiritual realm. When the Sun of this\ngreat world suffered eclipse, then were all men in darkness; and when\nany dishonor comes upon the cross of Christ, or upon Christ himself,\nthen is each Christian himself in darkness of a horrible kind. He\ncannot be in the light if his Lord and Master is in the shade.\n\nOne observer describes what he saw in Austria, where, it appears, all\nthe people made the eclipse a time for keeping holiday, and turned out\ntogether on the plain with various modes of observing the wonderful\nsight. This writer says: \"The phenomenon, in its magnificence, had\ntriumphed over the petulance of youth, over the levity which some\npersons assume as a sign of superiority, over the noisy indifference of\nwhich soldiers usually make profession. A profound stillness also\nreigned in the air; the birds had ceased to sing.\" The more curious\nthing is that, in London, after an eclipse, when the cocks found that\nthe sun shone out again, they all began crowing as though they joyfully\nthought that the daylight had broken through the gloom of night.\n\nYet this wonderful phenomenon does not appear to have always attracted\nthe attention of all persons who might have witnessed it. History says\nthat, at one time, there was a battle being fought, I think, in Greece,\nand, during its progress, there came on a total eclipse of the sun; but\nthe warriors went on fighting all the same, indeed, they never noticed\nthe extraordinary occurrence. That shows us how strong passions may\nmake us forget surrounding circumstances, and it also teaches us how a\nman's engagements on earth may make him oblivious of all that is\ntranspiring in the heavens. We read, just now, of how those horses, that\nwere standing idly on Salisbury Plain, trembled during the eclipse; but\nanother writer tells us that the horses in Italy, that were busily\noccupied in drawing the carriages, do not appear to have taken the\nslightest notice of the phenomenon, but to have gone on their way the\nsame as usual. Thus, the engagements of a worldly man are often so\nengrossing in their character that they prevent him from feeling those\nemotions which are felt by other men whose minds are more at liberty to\nmeditate upon them.\n\nI met with a very pretty story concerning an eclipse, which you will\nprobably like to hear. A poor little girl, belonging to the commune of\nSi\u00e8yes, in the Lower Alps, was tending her flock on the mountain-side at\nsix o'clock on a bright summer morning. The sun had risen, and was\ndissipating the vapors of the night, and every one thought that there\nwould be a glorious, unclouded day; but gradually the light darkened\nuntil the sun had wholly disappeared, and a black orb took the place of\nthe glowing disk, while the air became chill, and a mysterious gloom\npervaded the whole region. The little child was so terrified by the\ncircumstance, which was certainly unusual, that she began to weep, and\ncried out loudly for help. Her parents, and other friends, who came at\nher call, did not know anything about an eclipse, so they were also\nastounded and alarmed; but they tried to comfort her as best they could.\nAfter a short time, the darkness passed away from the face of the sun,\nand it shone out as before, and then the little girl cried aloud, in the\n_patois_ of the district, \"O beautiful sun!\" and well she might. When I\nread the story, I thought that, when my heart had suffered eclipse, and\nthe presence of Christ had gone for a while, and then had come back\nagain, how beautiful the Sun seemed to me, even more bright and fair\nthan before the temporary darkness. Jesus seemed to shine on me with a\nbrighter light than ever before, and my soul cried out in an ecstasy of\ndelight, \"O beautiful Sun of Righteousness!\"\n\nThat story must, I think, close our illustrations derived from the sun;\nfor we want also to learn all we can from his planets, and if we intend\nto pay a visit to them all, we shall have to travel far, and to travel\nfast, too.\n\nThe nearest planet that revolves around the sun is MERCURY, which is\nabout 37,000,000 miles from the great luminary. Mercury, therefore,\nreceives a far greater allowance of light and heat from the sun than\ncomes to us upon the earth. It is believed that, even at the poles of\nMercury, water would always boil; that is to say, if the planet is\nconstituted at all as this world is. None of us could possibly live\nthere; but that is no reason why other people should not, for God could\nmake some of his creatures to live in the fire just as well as he could\nmake others to live out of it. I have no doubt that, if there are\ninhabitants there, they enjoy the heat. In a spiritual sense, at any\nrate, we know that men who live near to Jesus dwell in the divine flame\nof love.\n\nMercury is a comparatively small planet; its diameter is about 2960\nmiles, while that of the earth is 7975. Mercury rushes round the sun in\neighty-eight days, traveling at the rate of nearly 110,000 miles in an\nhour, while the earth traverses only 65,000 miles in the same time.\nFancy crossing the Atlantic in about two or three minutes! It is an\ninstance of the wisdom of God that Mercury appears to be the densest of\nthe planets. You see, that part of a machine in which there is the most\nrapid whirl, and the greatest wear and tear, ought to be made of the\nstrongest material; and Mercury is made very strong in order to bear the\nenormous strain of its swift motion, and the great heat to which it is\nsubjected.\n\nThis is an illustration of how God fits every man for his place; if he\nmeans me to be Mercury--the messenger of the gods, as the ancients\ncalled him--and to travel swiftly, he will give me a strength\nproportioned to my day. In the formation of every planet, adapting it to\nits peculiar position, there is a wonderful proof of the power and\nforethought of God; and in a similar manner does he fit human beings for\nthe sphere they are each called to occupy.\n\nI like to see in Mercury a picture of the child of God who is full of\ngrace. Mercury is always near the sun; indeed, so near that it is itself\nvery seldom seen. I think Copernicus said that he never did see it,\nalthough he had long watched for it with great care, and he deeply\nregretted that he had to die without having ever seen this planet.\nOthers have observed it, and it has been quite a treat for them to be\nable to watch its revolutions.\n\nMercury is usually lost in the rays of the sun; and that is where you\nand I ought to be, so close to Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, in our\nlife and in our preaching, that the people who are trying to observe\nour movements can scarcely see us at all. Paul's motto must be\nours--\"Not I, but Christ.\"\n\nMercury, also, in consequence of being so near the sun, is apparently\nthe least understood of any of the planets. It has, perhaps, given more\ntrouble to the astronomers than any other member of the heavenly family;\nthey have paid great attention to it, and tried to find out all about\nit; but they have had a very difficult task, for it is generally lost in\nthe solar glory, and never seen in a dark portion of the heavens. So, I\nbelieve, brethren, that the nearer we live to Christ, the greater\nmystery shall we be to all mankind. The more we are lost in his\nbrightness, the less will they be able to understand us.\n\nIf we were always what we should be, men would see in us an illustration\nof the text, \"Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.\"\nLike Mercury, we ought also to be so active in our appointed orbit that\nwe should not give observers time to watch us in any one position; and\nnext, we should be so absorbed in the glory of Christ's presence, that\nthey would not be able to perceive us.\n\nWhen Mercury is seen from the earth, it is never visible in its\nbrightness, for its face is always turned toward the sun. I am afraid\nthat, whenever any of us are seen very much, we usually appear only as\nblack spots; when the preacher is very prominent in a sermon, there is\nalways a darkness. I like gospel preaching to be all Christ, the Sun of\nRighteousness, and no black spot at all; nothing of ourselves, but all\nof the Lord Jesus. If there are any inhabitants of Mercury, the sun must\nappear to them four or five times as large as he does to us; the\nbrightness would be insufferable to our eyes. It would be a very\nsplendid sight if one could gaze upon it; and thus, the nearer you get\nto Christ, the more you see of him, and the more he grows in your\nesteem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next planet to Mercury is VENUS; it is about 66,000,000 miles from\nthe sun, and is a little smaller than the earth, its diameter being 7510\nmiles, compared with our 7975. Venus goes round the sun in 225 days,\ntraveling at the rate of 80,000 miles an hour. When the Copernican\nsystem of astronomy was fairly launched upon the world, one of the\nobjections to it was stated thus: \"It is clear that Venus does not go\nround the sun, because, if it does, it must present the same aspect as\nthe moon--namely, it must sometimes be a crescent, at other times a\nhalf-moon, or it must assume the form known as _gibbous_, and sometimes\nit must appear as a complete circle. But,\" said the objector, pointing\nto Venus, \"she is always the same size; look at her, she is not at all\nlike the moon.\" This was a difficulty that some of the earlier\nastronomers could not explain; but when Galileo was able to turn his\nnewly made telescope to the planet, what did he discover? Why, that\nVenus does pass through similar phases to those of the moon! We cannot\nalways see the whole of it enlightened, yet I suppose it is true that\nthe light of Venus always appears about the same to us. You will\nperceive in a moment why that is; when the planet's face is turned\ntoward us, it is at the greatest distance from the earth; consequently,\nthe light that reaches us is no more than when it is closer, but has its\nface at least partly turned away from us. To my mind, the two facts are\nperfectly reconcilable; and so is it, I believe, with some of the\ndoctrines of grace that perplex certain people. They say, \"How do you\nmake these two things agree?\" I reply, \"I do not know that I am bound to\nprove how they agree. If God had told me I would tell you; but as he has\nnot done so, I must leave the matter where the Bible leaves it.\" I may\nnot have discovered the explanation of any apparent difference between\nthe two truths, and yet, for all that, the two things may be perfectly\nconsistent with each other.\n\nVenus is both the morning star and \"the star of the evening, beautiful\nstar.\" It has been called Lucifer, and Phosphorus, the light-bringer,\nand also Hesperus, the vesper star. You perhaps remember how Milton, in\n\"Paradise Lost,\" refers to this double character and office of Venus:\n\n  Fairest of stars! last in the train of night,\n  If better thou belong not to the dawn;\n  Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn\n  With thy bright circlet: praise him in thy sphere,\n  While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.\n\nOur Lord Jesus Christ calls himself \"the bright and morning star.\"\nWhenever he comes into the soul, he is the sure harbinger of that\neverlasting light which shall go no more down forever. Now that Jesus,\nthe Sun of Righteousness, has gone from the gaze of man, you and I must\nbe like evening stars, keeping as close as we can to the great central\nSun, and letting the world know what Jesus was like by our resemblance\nto him. Did he not say to his disciples, \"Ye are the light of the\nworld\"?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next little planet that goes round the sun is THE EARTH. Its\ndistance from the sun varies from about ninety-two to ninety-five\nmillions of miles. Do not be discouraged, gentlemen, in your hopes of\nreaching the sun, because you are nothing like so far away as the\ninhabitants of Saturn; if there are any residents there, they are about\nten times as far from the sun as we are. Still, I do not suppose you\nwill ever take a seat in Sol's fiery chariot; at least not in your\npresent embodied state; it is far too warm a place for you to be at home\nthere. The earth is somewhat larger than Venus, and it takes much longer\nto go round the sun; it is twelve months on its journey, or, speaking\nexactly, 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 10 seconds. This world is a\nslow-going concern; and I am afraid it is less to the glory of God than\nany other world that he has made. I have not seen it from a distance;\nbut I should suspect that it never shines anything like so brightly as\nVenus; for, through sin, a cloud of darkness has enveloped it. I suppose\nthat, in the millennial days, the curtain will be drawn back, and a\nlight will be thrown upon the earth, and that it will then shine to the\nglory of God like its sister stars that have never lost their pristine\nbrightness. I think there have been some curtains drawn up already;\nevery sermon, full of Christ, that we preach, rolls away some of the\nmists and fogs from the surface of the planet; at any rate, morally and\nspiritually, if not naturally.\n\nStill, brethren, though the earth travels slowly, when compared with\nMercury and Venus, yet, as Galileo said, it does move, and at a pretty\ngood rate, too. I dare say, if you were to walk for twenty minutes, and\nyou knew nothing about the speed at which the earth is traveling, you\nwould be surprised if I assured you that you had in that short space of\ntime gone more than 20,000 miles; but it would be a fact. This book,\nwhich has already given us much useful information, says: \"It is a truly\nastonishing thought that, 'awake, asleep, at home, abroad,' we are\nconstantly carried round with the terrestrial mass, at the rate of\neleven miles a minute, and are, at the same time, traveling with it in\nspace with a velocity of sixty-six thousand miles an hour. Thus, during\nthe twenty minutes consumed in walking a mile from our thresholds, we\nare silently conveyed more than twenty thousand miles from one portion\nof space to another; and, during a night of eight hours' rest, or\ntossing to and fro, we are unconsciously translated through an extent\nequal to twice the distance of the lunar world.\"\n\nWe do not take any notice of this movement, and so it is that little\nthings, which are near and tangible, often seem more notable than great\nthings which are more remote. This world impresses many men with far\ngreater force than the world to come has ever done, because they look\nonly upon the things that are seen and temporal. \"But,\" perhaps you say,\n\"we do not feel ourselves moving.\" No, but you are moving, although you\nare not conscious of it. So, I think that, sometimes, when a believer in\nChrist does not feel himself advancing in divine things, he need not\nfret on that account; I am not certain that those who imagine themselves\nto be growing spiritually are really doing so. Perhaps they are only\ngrowing a cancer somewhere; and its deadly fibers make them fancy there\nis a growth within them. Alas! so there is; but it is a growth unto\ndestruction.\n\nWhen a man thinks that he is a full-grown Christian, he reminds me of a\npoor boy whom I used to see. He had such a splendid head for his body\nthat he had often to lay it on a pillow, for it was too weighty for his\nshoulders to carry, and his mother told me that, when he tried to stand\nup, he often tumbled down, over-balanced by his heavy head. There are\nsome people who appear to grow very fast, but they have water on the\nbrain, and are out of due proportion; but he who truly grows in grace\ndoes not say, \"Dear me! I can feel that I am growing; bless the Lord!\nLet's sing a hymn, 'I'm a-growing! I'm a-growing!'\" I have sometimes\nfelt that I was growing smaller, brethren; I think that is very\npossible, and a good thing, too. If we are very great in our own\nestimation, it is because we have a number of cancers, or foul\ngatherings, that need to be lanced, so as to let out the bad matter that\ncauses us to boast of our bigness.\n\nIt is a good thing that we do not feel ourselves moving, for, as I\nbefore reminded you, we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet I know that we\nare moving, and I am persuaded that I shall return, as nearly as the\nearth's revolution permits, to this exact spot this day twelve-month. If\nthey are looking down at me from Saturn, they will spy me out somewhere\nnear this same place, unless the Lord should come in the meantime, or he\nshould call me up to be with him.\n\nIf we did feel the world move, it would probably be because there was\nsome obstruction in the heavenly road; but we go on so softly, and\ngently, and quietly that we do not perceive it. I believe that growth in\ngrace is very much after the same fashion. A babe grows, and yet does\nnot know that he grows; the seed unconsciously grows in the earth, and\nso we are developing in the divine life until we come to the fulness of\nthe stature of men in Christ Jesus.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWaiting upon the earth is THE MOON. In addition to her duty as one of\nthe planets revolving round the sun, she has the task of attending upon\nthe earth, doing much useful service for it, and at night lighting it\nwith her great reflector-lamp, according to the allowance of oil she has\navailable for shedding her beams upon us. The moon also operates upon\nthe earth by her powers of attraction; and as the water is the more\nmobile part of our planet, the moon draws it toward herself, so making\nthe tides; and those tides help to keep the whole world in healthful\nmotion; they are a sort of life-blood to it.\n\nThe moon undergoes eclipse, sometimes very frequently, and a great deal\nmore often than the sun; and this phenomenon has occasioned much terror.\nAmong some tribes, an eclipse of the moon is an occasion for the\ngreatest possible grief. Sir R. Schomberg thus describes a total lunar\neclipse in San Domingo: \"I stood alone upon the flat roof of the house\nwhich I inhabited, watching the progress of the eclipse. I pictured in\nimagination the lively and extraordinary scene which I once witnessed\nin the interior of Guiana, among the untutored and superstitious\nIndians, how they rushed out of their huts when the first news of the\neclipse came, gibbered in their tongue, and, with violent\ngesticulations, threw up their clenched fists toward the moon. When, as\non this occasion, the disk was perfectly eclipsed, they broke out in\nmoanings, and sullenly squatted upon the ground, hiding their faces\nbetween their hands. The females remained, during this strange scene,\nwithin their huts. When, shining like a sparkling diamond, the first\nportion of the moon, that had disencumbered itself from the shadow,\nbecame visible, all eyes were turned toward it. They spoke to each other\nwith subdued voices; but their observations became louder and louder,\nand they quitted their stooping position as the light increased. When\nthe bright disk announced that the monster which wanted to stifle the\nQueen of Night had been overcome, the great joy of the Indians was\nexpressed in that peculiar whoop which, in the stillness of the night,\nmay be heard for a great distance.\"\n\nWant of faith causes the most extraordinary fear, and produces the most\nridiculous action. A man who believes that the moon, though temporarily\nhidden, will shine forth again, looks upon an eclipse as a curious\nphenomenon worthy of his attention, and full of interest; but the man\nwho really fears that God is blowing out the light of the moon, and that\nhe shall never see its bright rays any more, feels in a state of\nterrible distress. Perhaps he will act as the Hindus and some of the\nAfricans do during an eclipse: they beat old drums, and blow bullocks'\nhorns, and make all manner of frightful noises, to cause the dragon who\nis supposed to have swallowed the moon to vomit it up again. That is\ntheir theory of an eclipse, and they act accordingly; but once know the\ntruth, and know especially the glorious truth that \"all things work\ntogether for good to them that love God, to them that are the called\naccording to his purpose,\" and we shall not be afraid of any dragon\nswallowing the moon, nor of anything else that the fears of men have\nmade them imagine. If we are ignorant of the truth, every event that\noccurs, which may be readily enough accounted for from God's point of\nview, may cause the utmost terror, and drive us, perhaps, into the\nwildest follies.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next planet to the earth is MARS; fiery Mars, generally shining with\na ruddy light. It used to be thought that the color of Mars's \"blood-red\nshield\" was caused by the absorption of the solar rays; but this idea\nhas been refuted, and it is now believed to be due to the color of its\nsoil. According to the former idea, an angry man, who is like Mars, the\ngod of war, must be one who has absorbed all other colors for his own\nuse, and only shows the red rays to others; while the more modern\nnotion, that the soil of the planet gives it its distinctive color,\nteaches us that, where there is a fiery nature, there will be a warlike\nexhibition of it unless it is restrained by grace. Mars is about\n140,000,000 miles from the sun; it is much smaller than our earth, its\nequatorial diameter being 4363 miles. Traveling at the rate of 53,600\nmiles an hour, it takes 687 days to complete its revolution round the\nsun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBetween the orbits of Mars and Jupiter there is a wide zone, in which,\nfor many centuries, no planets were visible; but the astronomers said\nwithin themselves, \"There must surely be something or other between Mars\nand Jupiter.\" They could not find any great planets; but as telescopes\nbecame larger and more powerful, they observed that there was a great\nnumber of ASTEROIDS or PLANETOIDS, as some term them. I do not know how\nmany there are, for they are like some of our brethren's families, they\nare daily increasing. Some hundreds of them have already been\ndiscovered; and by the aid of telescopic photography, we may expect to\nhear of the finding of many more. The first asteroid was identified on\nthe first day of the present century, and was named Ceres. Many of them\nhave been called by female mythological names, I suppose because they\nare the smaller planets, and it is considered gallant to give them\nladies' names. They appear to vary from about 20 to 200 miles in\ndiameter; and many have thought that they are the fragments of some\nplanet that once revolved between Mars and Jupiter, but that has been\nblown up, and gone to pieces in a general wreck.\n\nThose meteoric stones, which sometimes fall to the earth, but which much\nmore frequently, at certain seasons of the year, are seen shooting\nacross the midnight sky, may also be fragments of the aforesaid world\nwhich has perished. At all events, since the fathers fell asleep, all\nthings have not continued as they were; there have been changes in the\nstarry world to let men know that other changes will yet come. These\nblocks of meteoric matter are flying through space, and when they get\nwithin the range of our atmosphere, there is an opposing medium, they\nhave to drive through it at an enormous rapidity, and so they become\nburning hot, and thus they become visible. And, in like manner, I\nbelieve that there are plenty of good men in the world who are invisible\ntill they get to be opposed, and being opposed, and having the love of\nGod driving them on with tremendous momentum, they become red-hot with\nholy fervor, they overcome all opposition, and then they become visible\nto the eye of mankind. For my part, I rather like to pass through an\nopposing medium. I think that we all want to travel in that kind of\natmosphere just to give us the sacred friction that will fully develop\nthe powers with which we have been intrusted. If God has given us force,\nit is not at all a bad thing for us to be put where there is opposition,\nbecause we shall not be stopped by it, but shall by that very process be\nmade to shine all the brighter as lights in the world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBeyond the space which is occupied by the asteroids is the magnificent\nplanet, JUPITER, the brightest star which we see, except Venus; and yet\nhe is very, very far away. His mean distance from the sun is about\n475,000,000 miles; that is, more than five times as far off as we are.\nEven here, we are so far away that we do not often see the sun; but\nJupiter is five times as far from the sun, and it takes him 4333 days,\nor nearly twelve of our years, to go round the great luminary,\ntraveling at a speed of 27,180 miles an hour. The reason why Jupiter is\nso bright is, partly, because of his great size, for he is nearly 90,000\nmiles in diameter, while the earth is less than 8,000, and it may be\npartly because he is better constituted for reflecting, or else, at that\ndistance, his magnitude would not avail him. And brethren, if you and I\nare put in difficult positions, where we seem to be unable to shine to\nthe glory of God, we must ask the Lord specially to constitute us so\nthat we can better reflect his brightness, and so produce as good an\neffect as our brethren who are placed in more favorable positions.\n\nJupiter is attended by four moons.[3] These satellites were discovered\nsoon after the invention of the telescope; yet there were several\npersons who would not believe in their existence, and one of our\nexcellent friends, the Jesuits, of course, was strongest in his\ndetermination that he never would, by any process, be convinced of that\nwhich others knew to be a fact. He was asked to look through a telescope\nin order to see that it was really so; but he declined because he said\nthat, perhaps, if he did so, he would be obliged to believe it; and as\nhe had no desire to do so, he refused to look. Are there not some who\nact thus toward the truths of revelation? Some time after, the Jesuit\nfell under the anger of good Kepler, and being convinced that he was in\nthe wrong, he went to the astronomer and begged his pardon. Kepler told\nhim that he would forgive him, but he would have to inflict a penance\nupon him. \"What will it be?\" he inquired. \"Why,\" said Kepler, \"you must\nlook through that telescope.\" That was the direst punishment the Jesuit\ncould possibly receive; for, when he looked through the instrument, he\nwas obliged to say that he did see what he had formerly denied, and he\nwas obliged to express his conviction of the truth of the astronomer's\nteaching. So, sometimes, to make a man see the truth is a very severe\npenalty to him. If he does not want to see it, it is a good thing to\ncompel him to look at it. There are a great many brethren, who are not\nJesuits, and who yet are not anxious to know the whole truth; but I hope\nthat you and I, brethren, will always desire to learn all that the Lord\nhas revealed in his Word.\n\n  [3] In 1892 a fifth satellite was discovered through the great\n  telescope at the Lick Observatory in California.\n\nThis was the argument of Sizzi, an astronomer of some note, who tried to\nprove that Jupiter's moons could not exist. I wonder whether you can see\nthe flaw in it: \"There are seven windows given to animals in the\ndomicile of the head, through which the air is admitted to the\ntabernacle of the body, to enlighten, to warm, and to nourish it; which\nwindows are the principal parts of the microcosm, or little world, two\nnostrils, two eyes, two ears, and one mouth. So, in the heavens, as in a\nmicrocosm, or great world, there are two favorable stars, Jupiter and\nVenus; two unpropitious, Mars and Saturn; two luminaries, the sun and\nthe moon; and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent, from which, and\nfrom many other phenomena of nature, such as the seven metals, etc.,\nwhich it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets\nis necessarily seven. Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the\nnaked eye, and therefore can exercise no influence over the earth, and\ntherefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist. Besides, as well\nthe Jews and other ancient nations, as modern Europeans, have adopted\nthe division of the week into seven days, and have named them from the\nseven planets. Now, if we increase the number of the planets, this whole\nsystem falls to the ground.\"\n\nI think, brethren, that I have heard the same kind of argument advanced\nmany times with reference to spiritual matters; that is, an argument\nfrom theory against fact; but facts will always overturn theories all\nthe world over, only that, sometimes, it takes a good while before the\nfacts can be absolutely proved.\n\nIt is a singular thing, and another instance of the power and wisdom of\nGod, that though the satellites of Jupiter are constantly being\neclipsed, as is natural enough from their rapid revolutions around him,\nyet they are never all eclipsed at one time. One moon may be eclipsed,\nand perhaps another, or even three out of the four; but there is always\none left shining; and, in like manner, God never takes away all the\ncomfort of his people at once, there is always some ray of light to\ncheer them.\n\nThere is a great deal more to be learned from Jupiter; but having\nintroduced you to him, I will leave you to examine him for yourselves,\nand to get all you can out of him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFar, far beyond Jupiter is SATURN. That respectable planet has been very\nmuch slandered, but I am happy to inform you that he does not deserve\nsuch treatment. He is nearly 900,000,000 miles from the sun. I wonder\nwhether any brother here, with a large mind, has any idea of what a\nmillion is; I do not suppose that he has, and I am sure that I have not.\nIt takes a vast deal of thinking to comprehend what a million means; but\nto realize what is meant by a million miles is altogether beyond one's\nmental grasp. A million pins would be something enormous; but a million\nmiles! And here we are talking of nine hundred millions of miles; well,\nI give up all thought of understanding what that is so long as I am in\nthis finite state. Why, when you speak of nine hundred millions, you\nmight as well say nine hundred billions at once; for the one term is\nalmost as incomprehensible as the other; and yet, please to recollect\nthat this vast space is to our great God only a mere hand's-breadth\ncompared with the immeasurable universe that he has created.\n\nI said that Saturn had been greatly slandered, and so he has. You know\nthat we have, in our English language, the word \"saturnine,\" as a very\nuncomplimentary description of certain individuals. When a man is\npraised for being very hearty and genial, he is said to be jovial, in\nallusion to Jove, or Jupiter, the brightly shining planet; but a person\nof an opposite temperament is called saturnine, because it is supposed\nthat Saturn is a dull planet, dreadfully dreary, and that his influences\nare malignant and baneful. If you have read some of the astrological\nbooks which I have had the pleasure of studying, you have there been\ntold that, if you had been born under the influence of Saturn, you\nmight almost as well have been born under the influence of Satan, for it\nwill come to about the same thing in the end. He is supposed to be a\nvery slow sort of individual, his symbol is the hieroglyphic of lead;\nbut he is really a very light and buoyant personage. His diameter is\nabout nine times as great as that of the earth, and while in volume he\nis equal to 746 worlds as large as ours, his weight is equal to only 92\nsuch globes. The densities of the planets appear to diminish according\nto their distance from the sun, not in regular proportion, but still\nvery largely so; and there seems to be no reason why those which are\nmost remote, and travel slowly, should be made so dense as those which\nare nearer the central orb, and revolve more quickly around him.\n\nThis useful volume, from which I have already given you several\nextracts, says: \"Instead, therefore, of sinking like lead in the mighty\nwaters, he would float upon the liquid, if an ocean could be found\nsufficiently capacious to receive him. John Goad, the well-known\nastro-meteorologist, declared the planet not to be such a 'plumbeous,\nblue-nosed fellow' as all antiquity had believed and the world still\nsupposed. But it was the work of others to prove it. For six thousand\nyears or so Saturn concealed his personal features, interesting family,\nand strange appurtenances--the magnificent out-buildings of his\nhouse--from the knowledge of mankind. But he was caught at last by a\nlittle tube, pointed at him from a slope of the Apennines, the holder of\nwhich, in invading his privacy, cared not to ask leave, and deemed it no\nintrusion.\" When that \"little tube\" was turned upon him he was found to\nbe a most beautiful planet, one of the most varied and most marvelous of\nall the planetary worlds.\n\nTake that as an illustration of the falseness of slander, and of how\nsome persons are very much bemired and bespattered because people do not\nknow them. This planet, which was so despised, turned out to be a very\nbeautiful object indeed; and, instead of being very dull, and what the\nword saturnine usually means, he is bright and glorious. Saturn also has\nno less than eight satellites to attend him; and, in addition, he has\nthree magnificent rings, of which Tennyson has sung:\n\n  Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade\n  Sleeps on his luminous rings.\n\nSaturn has only about a hundredth part of the light from the sun as\ncompared with what we receive; and yet, I suppose, the atmosphere might\nbe so arranged that he might have as much solar light as we have; but\neven if the atmosphere is of the same kind as ours, Saturn would still\nhave as much light as we have in an ordinary London fog. I am speaking,\nof course, of the light from the sun; but then we cannot tell what\nilluminating power the Lord may have put in the planet himself; and\nbeside that, he has his eight moons, and his three shining rings, which\nhave a brilliance that we cannot either imagine or describe. What must\nit be to see a marvelous arch of light rising to a height of 37,570\nmiles above the planet, and having the enormous span of 170,000 miles!\nIf you were at the equator of Saturn, you would only see the rings as a\nnarrow band of light; but if you could journey toward the poles, you\nwould see above you a tremendous arch, blazing with light, like some of\nthe vast reflectors that you see hung up in large buildings where they\ncannot get sufficient sunlight. The reflector helps to gather up the\nrays of light, and throw them where they are needed; and I have no doubt\nthat these rings act like reflectors to Saturn. It must be a wonderful\nworld to live in if there are inhabitants there; they get compensations\nwhich fully make up for their disadvantages in being so far away from\nthe sun. So is it in the spiritual world, what the Lord withholds in\none direction he makes up in another; and those who are far removed from\nthe means of grace and Christian privileges have an inward light and\njoy, which others, with greater apparent advantages, might almost envy.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nJourneying again in the heavens, far, far beyond Saturn, we come to\nURANUS, or HERSCHEL, as it is sometimes called, after the astronomer who\ndiscovered it in 1781. The mean distance of Uranus from the sun is\nbelieved to be about 1,754,000,000 miles; I give you the figures, but\nneither you nor I can have the slightest conception of the distance they\nrepresent. To an observer standing on Uranus, the sun would probably\nappear only as a faraway speck of light; yet the planet revolves around\nthe sun at about 15,000 miles an hour, and occupies about eighty-four of\nour years in completing one journey. Uranus is said to be equal in\nvolume to seventy-three or seventy-four earths, and to be attended by\nfour moons. I do not know much about Uranus, therefore I do not intend\nto say much about him.\n\nThat may serve as an illustration of the lesson that a man had better\nsay as little as possible concerning anything of which he knows only a\nlittle; and that is a lesson which many people need to learn. For\ninstance, there are probably more works on the Book of Revelation than\nupon any other part of the Scriptures, and, with the exception of just a\nfew, they are not worth the paper on which they are printed. Then, next\nto the Book of Revelation, in this respect, is the Book of Daniel; and\nbecause it is so difficult to explain, many men have written upon it,\nbut as a rule the result of their writing has been that they have only\nconfuted and contradicted one another. Let us, brethren, preach what we\nknow, and say nothing of that of which we are ignorant.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have gone a long way, in imagination, in traveling to the planet\nUranus; but we have not yet completed our afternoon's journey. It was\nobserved by certain astronomers that the orbit of Uranus sometimes\ndeviated from the course they had marked in their chart of the heavens;\nand this convinced them that there was another planetary body, not then\ndiscovered, which was exerting an unseen but powerful influence upon\nUranus.\n\nThis fact, that these huge worlds, with so many millions of miles of\nspace between them, do retard or accelerate one another's movements, is\nto me a beautiful illustration of the influence that you and I have upon\nour fellowmen. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we either impede a\nman's progress in the path that leads to God, or else we quicken his\nmarch along the heavenward way. \"None of us liveth to himself.\"\n\nThe astronomers came to the conclusion that there must be another\nplanet, previously unknown to them, that was disturbing the motion of\nUranus. Unknown to each other, an Englishman, Mr. Adams, of Cambridge,\nand a Frenchman, M. Leverrier, set to work to find out the position in\nwhich they expected the heavenly body to be discovered, and their\ncalculations brought them to almost identical results. When the\ntelescopes were pointed to that part of the heavens where the\nmathematical astronomers believed the planet would be found, it was at\nonce discovered, shining with a pale and yellow light, and we now know\nit by the name of NEPTUNE.\n\nThe volume before me thus speaks of the two methods of finding a planet,\nthe one worker using the most powerful telescope, and the other making\nmathematical calculations: \"To detect a planet by the eye, or to track\nit to its place by the mind, are acts as incommensurable as those of\nmuscular and intellectual power. Recumbent on his easy-chair, the\npractical astronomer has but to look through the cleft in his revolving\ncupola in order to trace the pilgrim star in its course; or, by the\napplication of magnifying power, to expand its tiny disk, and thus\ntransfer it from among its sidereal companions to the planetary domains.\nThe physical astronomer, on the contrary, has no such auxiliaries: he\ncalculates at noon, when the stars disappear under a meridian sun; he\ncomputes at midnight, when clouds and darkness shroud the heavens; and\nfrom within that cerebral dome which has no opening heavenward, and no\ninstrument but the eye of reason, he sees in the disturbing agencies of\nan unseen planet, upon a planet by him equally unseen, the existence of\nthe disturbing agent, and from the nature and amount of its action he\ncomputes its magnitude and indicates its place.\"\n\nWhat a grand thing is reason! Far above the mere senses, and then faith\nis high above reason; only, in the case of the mathematical astronomer\nof whom we are thinking, reason was a kind of faith. He argued: \"God's\nlaws are so-and-so and so-and-so. This planet Uranus is being disturbed,\nsome other planet must have disturbed it, so I will search and find out\nwhere he is;\" and when his intricate calculations were completed, he put\nhis finger on Neptune as readily as a detective lays his hand on a\nburglar, and a great deal sooner; indeed, it seems to me that it is\noften easier to find a star than to catch a thief.\n\nNeptune had long been shining before he was discovered and named; and\nyou and I, brethren, may remain unknown for years, and possibly the\nworld may never discover us; but I trust that our influence, like that\nof Neptune, will be felt and recognized, whether we are seen of men or\nonly shine in solitary splendor to the glory of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWell, we have traveled in thought as far as Neptune, which is about\n2,748,000,000 miles from the sun; and, standing there, we look over into\nspace, and there are myriads, and myriads, and myriads of miles in which\nthere appear to be no more planets belonging to the solar system. There\nmay be others that have not been discovered yet; but, as far as we know,\nbeyond Neptune there is a great gulf fixed.\n\nThere are, however, what I may call \"leapers\" in the system, which,\nwithout the use of a pole, are able to cross this gulf; they are THE\nCOMETS. These comets are, as a rule, so thin--a mere filmy mass of\nvapor--that when they come flashing into our system, and rushing out\nagain, as they do, they never disturb the motion of a planet. And there\nare some terrestrial comets about, that I know, that go to various\ntowns, and blaze away for a time; but they have no power to disturb the\nplanets revolving there in their regular course. The power of a man does\nnot consist in rushing to and fro, like a comet, but in steadily shining\nyear after year, like a fixed star. The astronomer Halley says: \"If you\nwere to condense a comet down to the thickness of the ordinary\natmosphere, it would not fill a square inch of space.\" So thin is a\ncomet that you might look through five thousand miles of it, and see\njust as easily as if it were not there. It is well to be transparent,\nbrethren; but I hope you will be more substantial than most of the\ncomets of which we have heard.\n\nComets come with great regularity, though they seem to be very\nirregular. Halley prophesied that the comet of 1682, of which little had\nbeen previously known, would return at regular intervals of about\nseventy-five years. He knew that he would not live to see its\nreappearance; but he expressed the hope that when it did return his\nprophecy might be remembered. Various astronomers were looking out for\nit, and they hoped it might arrive at the time foretold, because,\notherwise, ignorant people would not believe in astronomy. But the comet\ncame back all right; so their minds were set at rest, and Halley's\nprediction was verified.\n\nAmong the stories concerning comet-watching, there is one that contains\nan illustration and a lesson also. \"Messier, who had acquired the name\nof 'the comet-hunter,' from the number he discovered, was particularly\nanxious upon the occasion. Of great simplicity of character, his zeal\nafter comets was often displayed in the oddest manner. While attending\nthe death-bed of his wife, and necessarily absent from his observatory,\nthe discovery of one was snatched from him by Montaigne de Limoges. This\nwas a grievous blow. A visitor began to offer him consolation on account\nof his recent bereavement, when Messier, thinking only of the comet,\nanswered, 'I had discovered twelve; alas, to be robbed of the thirteenth\nby that Montaigne!' But instantly recollecting himself, he exclaimed,\n'Ah! cette pauvre femme!' and went on deploring wife and comet\ntogether.\" He evidently lived so much in the heavens that he forgot his\nwife; and if science can sometimes carry a man away from all the trials\nof this mortal life, surely our heavenly life ought to lift us up above\nall the distractions and cares that afflict us.\n\nThe return of a comet is frequently announced with great certainty. This\nparagraph appeared in a newspaper: \"On the whole, it may be considered\nas tolerably certain that the comet will become visible in every part of\nEurope about the latter end of August, or the beginning of September\nnext. It will most probably be distinguishable by the naked eye, like a\nstar of the first magnitude, but with a duller light than that of a\nplanet, and surrounded with a pale nebulosity, which will slightly\nimpair its splendor. On the night of the 7th of October the comet will\napproach the well-known constellation of the Great Bear; and between\nthat and the 11th it will pass directly through the seven conspicuous\nstars of that constellation. Toward the close of November the comet will\nplunge among the rays of the sun and disappear, and not issue from them,\non the other side, until the end of December. This prospectus of the\nmovements of a body, invisible at the time, millions of miles away, is\nnearly as definite as the early advertisements of coaching between\nLondon and Edinburgh. Let us now place the observations of the eye\nalongside the anticipations of science, and we shall find that science\nhas proved almost absolutely correct.\"\n\nJust think of the calculations, gentlemen, that were necessary; for,\nthough a comet does not interfere with the course of a planet, a planet\ninterferes very considerably with the course of a comet; so that, in\ntheir calculations, the astronomers had to recollect the track in which\nthe comet would have to travel. Thinking of him as a way-worn traveler,\nwe remember that he will have to go by Neptune's bright abode, and\nNeptune will be sure to give him a cup of tea; then he will journey on\nas far as Uranus, and put up for the night there; in the morning he will\npay an early visit to Saturn, and he will stay there for breakfast; he\nwill dine with Jupiter; by and by he will reach Mars, and there will be\nsure to be a row there; and he will be glad when he gets to Venus, and,\nof course, he will be detained by her charms. You will, therefore, very\nreadily see, gentlemen, that the calculations as to the return of a\ncomet are extremely difficult, and yet the astronomers do estimate the\ntime to a nicety. This science is a very marvelous one, not only for\nwhat it reveals, but for the talent which it brings out, and the lessons\nit continually teaches us about the wonderful works of our great Father.\n\nWe have done with the solar system, and even with those interlopers\nwhich come to us every now and then from far remote systems, for a\ncomet, I suppose, is only seen for a month, or a week, and then\nsometimes does not reappear for hundreds of years. Where have they gone\nall that while? Well, they have gone somewhere, and they are serving the\npurpose of the God who made them, I dare say; but, for my own part, I\nwould not like to be a comet in God's system. I would like to have my\nfixed place, and keep on shining for the Lord there. I have lived in\nLondon for a good many years, and I have seen many comets come and go\nduring that time. Oh, the great lights I have seen rush by! They have\ngone off into some unknown sphere, as comets usually do. I have\ngenerally noticed that, when men are going to do so much more than\neverybody else, and they are so amazingly pompous over it, their history\nis usually pretty accurately described by that simple simile of going up\nlike a rocket and coming down like a stick.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI do not know whether you can, in imagination, lean over the battlements\nof this little solar system, and see what there is beyond it. Do not\nnarrow your minds, gentlemen, to a few hundred millions of miles! If you\nlook out for a long way indeed, you will begin to see a star. I should\nonly be uttering meaningless words if I told you its distance from us;\nyet there are others, of those that we are able to see, that are almost\nimmeasurably farther away. They have taken a deal of trouble to send us\na ray of light such a vast distance, to inform us that they are getting\non very well, and that, though they are at such a distance from us, they\nstill enjoy themselves as best they can in our absence.\n\nThese stars, as the common people look at them, seem to be scattered\nabout in the heavens, as we say, \"anyhow.\" I always admire that charming\nvariety; and I am thankful to God that he has not set the stars in\nstraight lines, like rows of street-lamps. Only think, brethren, how it\nwould be if we looked up at night, and saw the stars all arranged in\nrows, like pins on a paper! Bless the Lord, it is not so! He just took a\nhandful of bright worlds, and scattered them about the sky, and they\ndropped into most beautiful positions, so that people say, \"There is the\nGreat Bear;\" and, \"That is Charles's Wain,\" and every countryman knows\nthe Reaping-hook. Have you not seen it, brethren? Others say, \"That is\nthe Virgin, and that is the Ram, and that is the Bull,\" and so on.\n\nI think that naming of the various constellations is very like a good\ndeal of mystical preaching that there is nowadays. The preachers say,\n\"That is so-and-so, and that is so-and-so.\" Well, perhaps it is so; but\nI do not see it. You may imagine anything you like in the constellations\nof the heavens. I have pictured a fortress in the fire, and watched it\nbeing built up, and seen little soldiers come and pull it all down. You\ncan see anything in the fire, and in the sky, and in the Bible, if you\nlike to look for it in that way; you do not see it in reality, it is\nonly a freak of your imagination. There are no bulls and bears in the\nheavens. There may be a virgin, but she is not to be worshiped as the\nRomanists teach. I hope you all know the pole-star; you ought also to\nknow the pointers; they point to the pole-star, and that is just what we\nought to do, to direct the poor slaves of sin and Satan to the true Star\nof liberty, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.\n\nThen there are the Pleiades; almost anybody can tell you where they are.\nThey are a cluster of apparently little stars, but they are intensely\nbright. They teach me that, if I am a very little man, I must try to be\nvery bright; if I cannot be like Aldebaran, or some of the brightest\ngems of the sky, I must be as bright as I can in my own particular\nsphere, and be as useful there as if I were a star of the first\nmagnitude. Then, on the other side of the globe, they look up to the\nSouthern Cross. I dare say one of our brethren from Australia will give\nyou a private lecture upon that constellation. It is very beautiful to\nthink of the Cross being the guide of the mariner; it is the best guide\nany one can have, either this side of the tropics or the other.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBesides the stars, there are vast luminous bodies which are called\nNEBUL\u00c6. In some parts of the heavens there are enormous masses of\nlight-matter; they were supposed by some to be the material out of which\nworlds were made. These were the lumps of mortar, out of which,\naccording to the old atheistic theory, worlds grew by some singular\nprocess of evolution; but when Herschel turned his telescope upon them,\nhe very soon put the nose of that theory out of joint, for he discovered\nthat these nebul\u00e6 were simply enormous masses of stars, such myriads\nupon myriads of miles away that, to our sight, they looked just like a\nlittle dust of light.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are many wonderful things to be learned about the stars, to which\nI hope you will give your earnest attention as you have the opportunity.\nAmong the rest is this fact, that some stars have ceased to be visible\nto us. Tycho Brah\u00e9 said that on one occasion he found a number of\nvillagers looking up at the sky; and on asking them why they were gazing\nat the heavens, they told him that a new star had suddenly appeared. It\nshone brightly for a few months, and then vanished. Many times a starry\nworld has seemed to turn red, as if it were on fire; it has apparently\nburned, and blazed away, and then disappeared. Kepler, writing\nconcerning such a phenomenon, says: \"What it may portend is hard to\ndetermine; and thus much only is certain, that it comes to tell mankind\neither nothing at all, or high and weighty news, quite beyond human\nsense and understanding.\" In allusion to the opinions of some, who\nexplained the novel object by the Epicurean doctrine of a fortuitous\ncombination of atoms, he remarks, with characteristic oddity, yet good\nsense, \"I will tell these disputants--my opponents--not my opinion, but\nmy wife's. Yesterday, when weary with writing, and my mind quite dusty\nwith considering these atoms, I was called to supper, and a salad that I\nhad asked for was set before me. 'It seems, then,' said I aloud, 'that\nif pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water,\nvinegar, and oil, and slices of egg, had been flying about in the air\nfrom all eternity, it might at last happen, by chance, that there would\ncome a salad.' 'Yes,' says my wife, 'but not one so nice or well\ndressed as this which I have made for you.'\"\n\nSo I should think; and if the fortuitous combination of atoms could not\nmake a salad, it is not very likely that they could make a world. I once\nasked a man who said that the world was a fortuitous concourse of atoms,\n\"Have you ever chanced to have no money, and to be away where you knew\nnobody who would give you a dinner?\" He replied, \"Yes, I have.\" \"Well,\nthen,\" said I, \"did it ever happen to you that a fortuitous concourse of\natoms made a leg of mutton for you, with some nice boiled turnips, and\ncaper sauce, for your dinner?\" \"No,\" he said, \"it has not.\" \"Well,\" I\nanswered, \"a leg of mutton, at any rate, even with turnips and caper\nsauce included, is an easier thing to make than one of these worlds,\nlike Jupiter or Venus.\"\n\nWe are told, in the Word of God, that one star differeth from another\nstar in glory; yet one that is small may give more light to us than a\nlarger star which is farther away. Some stars are what is called\nvariable, they appear larger at one time than another. Algol, in the\nhead of Medusa, is of this kind. We are told that \"the star, at the\nbrightest, appears of the second magnitude, and remains so for about two\ndays, fourteen hours. Its light then diminishes, and so rapidly that in\nthree and a half hours it is reduced to the fourth magnitude. It wears\nthis aspect rather more than fifteen minutes, then increases, and in\nthree and a half hours more resumes its former appearance.\" I am afraid\nthat many of us are variable stars; if we do sometimes wax dim, it will\nbe well if we regain our brightness as quickly as Algol does. Then there\nare thousands of double stars. I hope that you will each get a wife who\nwill always shine with you, and never eclipse you, for a double star may\nbe very bright at one time, and sometimes be eclipsed altogether. There\nare also triple stars, or systems, and quadruple systems, and there are,\nin some cases, hundreds or thousands all spinning round one another, and\naround their central luminaries. Wonderful combinations of glory and\nbeauty may be seen in the stellar sky; and some of these stars are red,\nsome blue, some yellow; all the colors of the rainbow are represented in\nthem. It would be very wonderful to live in one of them, and to look\nacross the sky, and see all the glories of the heavens that God has\nmade. On the whole, however, for the present, I am quite content to\nabide upon this little planet, especially as I am not able to change it\nfor another home, until God so wills it.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY-SCHOOL AS AN INSTITUTION, What Shall We Do With The.--By George\nLansing Taylor, D. D. Fourth edition. Square 16mo, cloth, 30 cents.\nPaper, 20 cents.\n\nTHE CENTRAL METHODIST says: \"This is the clearest and most vigorous\nprotestation of the whole Sunday-School question in a nutshell we have\nseen. It is a work that ought to be in the hands of all preachers, since\nits practical treatment of the difficulties of our present system, and\nthe proper remedy to be applied make it valuable to them.\"\n\n\nPREACHER'S MAGAZINE, THE.--Edited by Revs. Mark Guy Pearse and Arthur E.\nGregory. Published Monthly, $1.50 per year. Single copy, 15 cents. No\nfree samples. Bound volumes, net $2.50. Cloth covers, for binding net,\n35 cents.\n\nREV. C. H. SPURGEON says: \"This unpretentious magazine is as good as the\nvery best of its homiletical compeers. It goes straight to the point,\nmaking no big pretences of learning and eloquence, it goes in for\npractical suggestions, which will be really useful to men who are\nlaboring to win souls. Although we are by this time able to run alone,\nand make sermons without the aid of homiletics, yet we like such\nmagazines as these, and feel helped by looking them through. Each number\nis a capital return for the money.\"\n\n\nGREAT THOUGHTS OF THE BIBLE.--By Rev. John Reid. 12mo. cloth, 318 pp.\n$1.50.\n\nThe author has just gone far enough in the subject not to be tiresome,\nbelieving that compact thought is the want of the hour.\n\nTHE NEW YORK CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE says: \"It is a book that has come to\nstay because there are elements of power in it.\"\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN AT WORK says: \"It is a book which will not only add to the\nintelligence of the Christian, but invigorate and strengthen him in the\nperformance of all Christian duties.\"\n\n\nNATURE AND THE BIBLE; A Course of Lectures on the Morse Foundation of\nthe Union Theological Seminary.--By J. W. Dawson, LL. D. 12mo. cloth,\n258 pp. Illustrated. $1.75.\n\nTHE INTERIOR says: \"Professor Dawson discusses his topic from the\nvarious standpoints of a student of nature, not from the single\nstandpoint which has mostly been occupied by theologians. The book is\nnot a _partisan_ publication. It will be found by those opposed to be\nperfectly candid and fair, admitting difficulties in their full force,\nand not seeking to evade, misinterpret, or exaggerate any fact or\nargument.\"\n\n\nCONCESSIONS OF \"LIBERALISTS\" TO ORTHODOXY.--By Daniel Dorchester, D. D.\n12mo. cloth, 344 pp. $1.50.\n\nThe book is worthy all commendation for the extensive research shown by\nthe author and the presentation of the three cardinal topics: The Deity\nof Christ, the Atonement, and Endless Punishment.\n\nTHE WESTERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE says: \"A book that should be in every\nminister's library. The doctor's style is singularly pure and candid,\nand the diction and dignity, scholarship and research is manifest in\nevery page.\"\n\n\nGOSPEL OF COMMON SENSE, THE, As contained In the Canonical Epistle of\nJames--By Charles F. Deems, D. D., LL. D. 12mo. cloth, 320 pp. $1.50.\n\nJOSEPH COOK says: \"Dr. Deems eminent common sense never appeared more\nprofitable than in his fresh, incisive and most timely discussion of St.\nJames' Epistle as the Gospel of Common Sense. The book is at once\npopular and scholarly, broad and deep, radical and conservative.\"\n\nTHEODORE L. CUYLER, D. D. says: \"The style of the book is racy and most\nreadable. It ought to be read at every fireside in the land. May the\nHoly Spirit attend and bless the circulation of this capital volume.\"","title":"The Art of Illustration","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47649}