[1] See my _Homiletic Encyclopædia of Illustrations in
Theology and Morals,_ Nos. 2288-2301.
[2] As for example, _conscience,_ the awakening of which Henry
Smith has thus depicted:--"There is a warning conscience
and a gnawing conscience. The warning comes before sin; the
gnawing conscience follows after sin. The warning
conscience is often lulled asleep, but the gnawing
conscience wakes her again. If there be any hell in this
world, they who feel the worm of conscience gnawing on
their hearts may truly say that they have felt the torments
of hell. Who can express that man's horror but himself?
Nay, what horrors are those which he cannot express
himself! Sorrows are met in his soul as at a feast; and
fear, thought, and anguish divide the soul between them.
All the furies of hell leap upon his heart like a stage.
Thought calls to Fear; Fear whistles to Horror; Horror
beckons to Despair, and says, Come, and help me to torment
this sinner. One says that she comes from this sin, and
another says that she comes from that sin. So he goes
through a thousand deaths, and cannot die. Irons are laid
upon his body like a prisoner. All his lights are put out
at once. He has no soul fit to be comforted. Thus he lives
as it were upon the rack, and says that he bears the world
upon his shoulders, and that no man suffers that which he
suffers. So let him lie, says God, without ease, until he
confess and repent and call for mercy."