Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal
signs=.
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
original.
A few typographical errors have been corrected.
THE
ART OF ILLUSTRATION
BY
C. H. SPURGEON
NEW-YORK
WILBUR B. KETCHAM
2 COOPER UNION
Copyright, 1894,
By WILBUR B. KETCHAM.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
The lectures in this volume were originally delivered to the students of
the Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England. It is
the first of his unfinished books to be published, and one to which he
had himself given the title, "The Art of Illustration."
Of the five lectures included in this volume, the first two were revised
during Mr. Spurgeon's lifetime. Two were partially revised by him before
being redelivered to a later company of students than those who had
heard them for the first time.
The remaining lecture was printed substantially as it was taken by the
reporter; only such verbal corrections having been made as were
absolutely necessary to insure accuracy of statement. Mr. Spurgeon has
said of his lectures to his students: "I am as much at home with my
young brethren as in the bosom of my family, and therefore speak
without restraint. I do not offer that which has cost me nothing, for I
have done my best, and taken abundant pains. Therefore, with clear
conscience, I place my work at the service of my brethren, especially
hoping to have a careful reading from young preachers, whose profiting
has been my principal aim."
W. B. K.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING 7
LECTURE II.
ANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT 32
LECTURE III.
THE USES OF ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 57
LECTURE IV.
WHERE CAN WE FIND ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS? 103
LECTURE V.
THE SCIENCES AS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATION--ASTRONOMY 137
LECTURE I.
ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING.
The topic now before us is the use of illustrations in our sermons.
Perhaps we shall best subserve our purpose by working out an
illustration in the present address; for there is no better way of
teaching the art of pottery than by making a pot. Quaint Thomas Fuller
says, "Reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon; but
similitudes are the windows which give the best lights." The comparison
is happy and suggestive, and we will build up our discourse under its
direction.
The chief reason for the construction of windows in a house is, as
Fuller says, _to let in light_. Parables, similes, and metaphors have
that effect; and hence we use them to _illustrate_ our subject, or, in
other words, to "_brighten it with light_," for that is Dr. Johnson's
literal rendering of the word _illustrate_. Often when didactic speech
fails to enlighten our hearers we may make them see our meaning by
opening a window and letting in the pleasant light of analogy. Our
Saviour, who is the light of the world, took care to fill his speech
with similitudes, so that the common people heard him gladly; his
example stamps with high authority the practice of illuminating heavenly
instruction with comparisons and similes. To every preacher of
righteousness as well as to Noah, wisdom gives the command, "A window
shalt thou make in the ark." You may build up laborious definitions and
explanations and yet leave your hearers in the dark as to your meaning;
but a thoroughly suitable metaphor will wonderfully clear the sense. The
pictures in an illustrated paper give us a far better idea of the
scenery which they represent than could be conveyed to us by the best
descriptive letterpress; and it is much the same with scriptural
teaching: abstract truth comes before us so much more vividly when a
concrete example is given, or the doctrine itself is clothed in
figurative language. There should, if possible, be at least one good
metaphor in the shortest address; as Ezekiel, in his vision of the
temple, saw that even to the little chambers there were windows suitable
to their size. If we are faithful to the spirit of the gospel we labor
to make things plain: it is our study to be simple and to be understood
by the most illiterate of our hearers; let us, then, set forth many a
metaphor and parable before the people. He wrote wisely who said, "The
world below me is a glass in which I may see the world above. The works
of God are the shepherd's calendar and the plowman's alphabet." Having
nothing to conceal, we have no ambition to be obscure. Lycophron
declared that he would hang himself upon a tree if he found a person who
could understand his poem entitled "The Prophecy of Cassandra." Happily
no one arose to drive him to such a misuse of timber. We think we could
find brethren in the ministry who might safely run the same risk in
connection with their sermons. Still have we among us those who are like
Heraclitus, who was called "the Dark Doctor" because his language was
beyond all comprehension. Certain mystical discourses are so dense that
if light were admitted into them it would be extinguished like a torch
in the Grotta del Cane: they are made up of the palpably obscure and the
inexplicably involved, and all hope of understanding them may be
abandoned. This style of oratory we do not cultivate. We are of the same
mind as Joshua Shute, who said: "That sermon has most learning in it
that has most plainness. Hence it is that a great scholar was wont to
say, 'Lord, give me learning enough, that I may preach plain enough.'"
Windows greatly add to the pleasure and agreeableness of a habitation,
and so do _illustrations make a sermon pleasurable and interesting_. A
building without windows would be a prison rather than a house, for it
would be quite dark, and no one would care to take it upon lease; and,
in the same way, a discourse without a parable is prosy and dull, and
involves a grievous weariness of the flesh. The preacher in Solomon's
Ecclesiastes "sought to find out acceptable words," or, as the Hebrew
has it, "words of delight": surely, figures and comparisons are
delectable to our hearers. Let us not deny them the salt of parable with
the meat of doctrine. Our congregations hear us with pleasure when we
give them a fair measure of imagery: when an anecdote is being told they
rest, take breath, and give play to their imaginations, and thus prepare
themselves for the sterner work which lies before them in listening to
our profounder expositions. Riding in a third-class carriage some years
ago in the eastern counties, we had been for a long time without a lamp;
and when a traveler lighted a candle, it was pleasant to see how all
eyes turned that way, and rejoiced in the light: such is frequently the
effect of an apt simile in the midst of a sermon; it lights up the whole
matter, and gladdens every heart. Even the little children open their
eyes and ears, and a smile brightens up their faces as we tell a story;
for they, too, rejoice in the light which streams in through our
windows. We dare say they often wish that the sermon were all
illustrations, even as the boy desired to have a cake made all of plums;
but that must not be: there is a happy medium, and we must keep to it by
making our discourse pleasant hearing, but not a mere pastime. No reason
exists why the preaching of the gospel should be a miserable operation
either to the speaker or to the hearer. Pleasantly profitable let all
our sermons be. A house must not have thick walls without openings,
neither must a discourse be all made up of solid slabs of doctrine
without a window of comparison or a lattice of poetry; if so, our
hearers will gradually forsake us, and prefer to stay at home and read
their favorite authors, whose lively tropes and vivid images afford more
pleasure to their minds.
Every architect will tell you that he looks upon his windows as _an
opportunity for introducing ornament into his design_. A pile may be
massive, but it cannot be pleasing if it is not broken up with windows
and other details. The palace of the popes at Avignon is an immense
structure; but the external windows are so few that it has all the
aspect of a colossal prison, and suggests nothing of what a palace
should be. Sermons need to be broken up, varied, decorated, and
enlivened; and nothing can do this so well as the introduction of types,
emblems, and instances. Of course, ornament is not the main point to be
considered; but still many little excellences go to make up perfection,
and this is one of the many, and therefore it should not be overlooked.
When Wisdom built her house she hewed out her seven pillars, for glory
and for beauty, as well as for the support of the structure; and shall
we think that any rough hovel is good enough for the beauty of holiness
to dwell in? Certainly a gracious discourse is none the better for being
bereft of every grace of language. Meretricious ornament we deprecate,
but an appropriate beauty of speech we cultivate. Truth is a king's
daughter, and her raiment should be of wrought gold; her house is a
palace, and it should be adorned with "windows of agate and gates of
carbuncle."
_Illustrations tend to enliven an audience and quicken attention._
Windows, when they will open--which, alas! is not often the case in our
places of worship--are a great blessing by refreshing and reviving the
audience with a little pure air, and arousing the poor mortals who are
rendered sleepy by the stagnant atmosphere. A window should, according
to its name, be a wind-door, through which a breath of air may visit the
audience; even so, an original figure, a noble image, a quaint
comparison, a rich allegory, should open upon our hearers a breeze of
happy thought, which will pass over them like life-giving breath,
arousing them from their apathy, and quickening their faculties to
receive the truth. Those who are accustomed to the soporific
sermonizings of certain dignified divines would marvel greatly if they
could see the enthusiasm and lively delight with which congregations
listen to speech through which there flows a quiet current of happy,
natural illustration. Arid as a desert are many volumes of discourses
which are to be met with upon the booksellers' dust-covered shelves; but
if in the course of a thousand paragraphs they contain a single simile,
it is as an oasis in the Sahara, and serves to keep the reader's soul
alive. In fashioning a discourse think little of the bookworm, which
will be sure of its portion of meat however dry your doctrine, but have
pity upon those hungering ones immediately around you who must find life
through your sermon or they will never find it at all. If some of your
hearers sleep on they will of necessity wake up in eternal perdition,
for they hear no other helpful voice.
While we thus commend illustrations for necessary uses, it must be
remembered that they are not the strength of a sermon any more than a
window is the strength of a house; and for this reason, among others,
_they should not be too numerous_. Too many openings for light may
seriously detract from the stability of a building. We have known
sermons so full of metaphors that they became weak, and we had almost
said _crazy_, structures. Sermons must not be nosegays of flowers, but
sheaves of wheat. Very beautiful sermons are generally very useless
ones. To aim at elegance is to court failure. It is possible to have too
much of a good thing: a glass house is not the most comfortable of
abodes, and besides other objectionable qualities it has the great fault
of being sadly tempting to stone-throwers. When a critical adversary
attacks our metaphors he generally makes short work of them. To friendly
minds images are arguments, but to opponents they are opportunities for
attack; the enemy climbs up by the window. Comparisons are swords with
two edges which cut both ways; and frequently what seems a sharp and
telling illustration may be wittily turned against you, so as to cause
a laugh at your expense: therefore do not rely upon your metaphors and
parables. Even a second-rate man may defend himself from a superior mind
if he can dexterously turn his assailant's gun upon himself. Here is an
instance which concerns myself, and I give it for that reason, since
these lectures have all along been autobiographical. I give a cutting
from one of our religious papers: "Mr. Beecher was neatly tripped up in
'The Sword and the Trowel.' In his 'Lectures on Preaching' he asserts
that Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded 'in spite of his Calvinism'; adding the
remark that 'the camel does not travel any better, nor is it any more
useful, because of the hump on its back.' The illustration is not a
felicitous one, for Mr. Spurgeon thus retorts: 'Naturalists assure us
the camel's hump is of great importance in the eyes of the Arabs, who
judge of the condition of their beasts by the size, shape, and firmness
of their humps. The camel feeds upon his hump when he traverses the
wilderness, so that in proportion as the animal travels over the sandy
wastes, and suffers from privation and fatigue, the mass diminishes; and
he is not fit for a long journey till the hump has regained its
proportions. Calvinism, then, is the spiritual meat which enables a man
to labor on in the ways of Christian service; and, though ridiculed as
a hump by those who are only lookers-on, those who traverse the weary
paths of a wilderness experience know too well its value to be willing
to part with it, even if a Beecher's splendid talents could be given in
exchange.'"
Illustrate, by all means, but do not let the sermon be all
illustrations, or it will be only suitable for an assembly of
simpletons. A volume is all the better for engravings, but a scrap-book
which is all woodcuts is usually intended for the use of little
children. Our house should be built up with the substantial masonry of
doctrine, upon the deep foundation of inspiration; its pillars should be
of solid scriptural argument, and every stone of truth should be
carefully laid in its place; and then the windows should be ranged in
due order, "three rows" if we will: "light against light," like the
house of the forest of Lebanon. But a house is not erected for the sake
of the windows, nor may a sermon be arranged with the view of fitting in
a favorite apologue. A window is merely a convenience subordinate to the
entire design, and so is the best illustration. We shall be foolish
indeed if we compose a discourse to display a metaphor; as foolish as if
an architect should build a cathedral with the view of exhibiting a
stained-glass window. We are not sent into the world to build a Crystal
Palace in which to set out works of art and elegancies of fashion; but
as wise master-builders we are to edify a spiritual house for the divine
inhabiting. Our building is intended to last, and is meant for every-day
use, and hence it must not be all crystal and color. We miss our way
altogether, as gospel ministers, if we aim at flash and finery.
It is impossible to lay down a rule as to how much adornment shall be
found in each discourse: every man must judge for himself in that
matter. True taste in dress could not be readily defined, yet every one
knows what it is; and there is a literary and spiritual taste which
should be displayed in the measuring out of tropes and figures in every
public speech. "_Ne quid nimis_" is a good caution: do not be too eager
to garnish and adorn. Some men seem never to have enough of metaphors:
each one of their sentences must be a flower. They compass sea and land
to find a fresh piece of colored glass for their windows, and they break
down the walls of their discourses to let in superfluous ornaments, till
their productions rather resemble a fantastic grotto than a house to
dwell in. They are grievously in error if they think that thus they
manifest their own wisdom, or benefit their hearers. I could almost
wish for a return of the window-tax if it would check these poetical
brethren. The law, I believe, allowed eight windows free from duty, and
we might also exempt "a few, that is eight" metaphors from criticism;
but more than that ought to pay heavily. Flowers upon the table at a
banquet are well enough; but as nobody can live upon bouquets, they will
become objects of contempt if they are set before us in lieu of
substantial viands. The difference between a little salt with your meat
and being compelled to empty the salt-cellar is clear to all; and we
could wish that those who pour out so many symbols, emblems, figures,
and devices would remember that nausea in oratory is not more agreeable
than in food. Enough is as good as a feast; and too many pretty things
may be a greater evil than none at all.
It is a suggestive fact that the tendency to abound in metaphor and
illustration becomes weaker as men grow older and wiser. Perhaps this
may, in a measure, be ascribed to the decay of their imagination; but it
also occurs at the same time as the ripening of their understanding.
Some may have to use fewer figures of necessity, because they do not
come to them as aforetime; but this is not always the case. I know that
men who still possess great facility in imagery find it less needful to
employ that faculty now than in their earlier days, for they have the
ear of the people, and they are solemnly resolved to fill that ear with
instruction as condensed as they can make it. When you begin with a
people who have not heard the gospel, and whose attention you have to
win, you can hardly go too far in the use of figure and metaphor. Our
Lord Jesus Christ used very much of it; indeed, "without a parable spake
he not unto them"; because they were not educated up to the point at
which they could profitably hear pure didactic truth. It is noticeable
that after the Holy Ghost had been given, fewer parables were used, and
the saints were more plainly taught of God. When Paul spoke or wrote to
the churches in his epistles he employed few parables, because he
addressed those who were advanced in grace and willing to learn. As
Christian minds made progress the style of their teachers became less
figurative, and more plainly doctrinal. We seldom see engravings in the
classics of the college; these are reserved for the spelling-books of
the dame-school. This should teach us wisdom, and suggest that we are to
be bound by no hard and fast rules, but should use more or less of any
mode of teaching according to our own condition and that of our people.
_Illustrations should really cast light upon the subject in hand_,
otherwise they are sham windows, and all shams are an abomination. When
the window-tax was still in force many people in country houses closed
half their lights by plastering them up, and then they had the plaster
painted to look like panes; so that there was still the appearance of a
window, though no sunlight could enter. Well do I remember the dark
rooms in my grandfather's parsonage, and my wonder that men should have
to pay for the light of the sun. Blind windows are fit emblems of
illustrations which illustrate nothing, and need themselves to be
explained. Grandiloquence is never more characteristic than in its
figures; there it disports itself in a very carnival of bombast. We
could quote several fine specimens of sublime spread-eagleism and
magnificent nonsense.
A piece of high-flown oratory sheds light upon nothing, and does not in
the faintest degree enable us to understand the reasons. The object of
language of this kind is not to instruct the hearer, but to dazzle him,
and, if possible, to impress him with the idea that his minister is a
wonderful orator. He who condescends to use clap-trap of any kind
deserves to be debarred the pulpit for the term of his natural life. Let
your figures of speech really represent and explain your meaning, or
else they are dumb idols, which ought not to be set up in the house of
the Lord.
* * * * *
It may be well to note that _illustrations should not be too prominent_,
or, to pursue our figure, they should not be painted windows, attracting
attention to themselves rather than letting in the clear light of day. I
am not pronouncing any judgment upon windows adorned with "glass of
various colors which shine like meadows decked in the flowers of
spring"; I am looking only to my illustration. Our figures are meant not
so much to be seen as to be seen through. If you take the hearer's mind
away from the subject by exciting his admiration of your own skill in
imagery, you are doing evil rather than good. I saw in one of our
exhibitions a portrait of a king; but the artist had surrounded his
majesty with a bower of flowers so exquisitely painted that every one's
eye was taken away from the royal figure. All the resources of the
painter's art had been lavished upon the accessories, and the result was
that the portrait, which should have been all in all, had fallen into a
secondary place. This was surely an error in portrait-painting, even
though it might be a success in art. We have to set forth Christ before
the people, "evidently crucified among them," and the loveliest emblem
or the most charming image which calls the mind away from our divine
subject is to be conscientiously forsworn. Jesus must be all in all: his
gospel must be the beginning and end of all our discoursing; parable and
poesy must be under his feet, and eloquence must wait upon him as his
servant. Never by any possibility must the minister's speech become a
rival to his subject; that were to dishonor Christ, and not to glorify
him. Hence the caution that the illustrations be not too conspicuous.
Out of this last observation comes the further remark that
_illustrations are best when they are natural and grow out of the
subject_. They should be like those well-arranged windows which are
evidently part of the plan of a structure, and not inserted as an
afterthought, or for mere adornment. The cathedral of Milan inspires my
mind with extreme admiration; it always appears to me as if it must have
grown out of the earth like a colossal tree, or rather like a forest of
marble. From its base to its loftiest pinnacle every detail is a natural
outgrowth, a portion of a well-developed whole, essential to the main
idea; indeed, part and parcel of it. Such should a sermon be; its
exordium, divisions, arguments, appeals, and metaphors should all spring
out of itself; nothing should be out of living relation to the rest; it
should seem as if nothing could be added without being an excrescence,
and nothing taken away without inflicting damage. There should be
flowers in a sermon, but the bulk of them should be the flowers of the
soil; not dainty exotics, evidently imported with much care from a
distant land, but the natural upspringing of a life natural to the holy
ground on which the preacher stands. Figures of speech should be
congruous with the matter of the discourse; a rose upon an oak would be
out of place, and a lily springing from a poplar would be unnatural:
everything should be of a piece and have a manifest relationship to the
rest. Occasionally a little barbaric splendor may be allowed, after the
manner of Thomas Adams and Jeremy Taylor and other masters in Israel,
who adorn truth with rare gems and gold of Ophir, fetched from far. Yet
I would have you note what Dr. Hamilton says of Taylor, for it is a
warning to those who aim at winning the ear of the multitude: "Thoughts,
epithets, incidents, images came trooping round with irrepressible
profusion, and they were all so apt and beautiful that it was hard to
send any of them away. And so he tried to find a place and use for
all--for 'flowers and wings of butterflies,' as well as 'wheat'; and if
he could not fabricate links of his logical chain out of 'the little
rings of the vine' and 'the locks of a new-weaned boy,' he could at
least decorate his subject with exquisite adornments. The passages from
his loved Austin and Chrysostom, and not less beloved Seneca and
Plutarch, the scholar knows how to pardon. The squirrel is not more
tempted to carry nuts to his hoard than the bookish author is tempted to
transfer to his own pages fine passages from his favorite authors. Alas!
he little knows how flat and meaningless they are to those who have not
traversed the same walks, and shared the delight with which he found
great spoil. To him each polished shell recalls its autumnal tale of
woods, and groves, and sunshine showering through the yellow leaves; but
to the quaint collection 'the general public' very much prefer a pint of
filberts from a huckster's barrow." No illustrations are half so telling
as those which are taken from familiar objects. Many fair flowers grow
in foreign lands, but those are dearest to the heart which bloom at our
own cottage door.
_Elaboration into minute points is not commendable_ when we are using
figures. The best light comes in through the clearest glass: too much
paint keeps out the sun. God's altar of old was to be made of earth, or
of unhewn stone, "for," said the Word, "if thou lift up thy tool upon
it, thou hast polluted it" (Ex. xx. 25). A labored, artificial style,
upon which the graver's tool has left abundant marks, is more consistent
with human pleadings in courts of law, or in the forum, or in the
senate, than with prophetic utterances delivered in the name of God and
for the promotion of his glory. Our Lord's parables were as simple as
tales for children, and as naturally beautiful as the lilies which
sprang up in the valleys where he taught the people. He borrowed no
legend from the Talmud, nor fairy tale from Persia, neither fetched he
his emblems from beyond the sea; but he dwelt among his own people, and
talked of common things in homely style, as never man spake before, and
yet as any observant man should speak. His parables were like himself
and his surroundings, and were never strained, fantastic, pedantic, or
artificial. Let us imitate him, for we shall never find a model more
complete, or more suitable for the present age. Opening our eyes, we
shall discover abundant imagery all around. As it is written, "The word
is nigh thee," so also is the analogy of that word near at hand:
"All things around me, whate'er they be,
That I meet as the chance may come.
Have a voice and a speech in them all--
Birds that hover and bees that hum;
The beast of the field or the stall;
The trees, leaves, rushes, and grasses;
The rivulet running away;
The bird of the air as it passes,
Or the mountains that motionless stay;
And yet those immovable masses
Keep changing, as dreams do, all day." [1]
[1] Slightly altered from "Fables in Song," by Robert Lord Lytton.
There will be little need to borrow from the recondite mysteries of
human art, nor to go deep into the theories of science; for in nature
golden illustrations lie upon the surface, and the purest is that which
is uppermost and most readily discerned. Of natural history in all its
branches we may well say, "The gold of that land is good": the
illustrations furnished by every-day phenomena seen by the plowman and
the wagoner are the very best which earth can yield. An illustration is
not like a prophet, for it has most honor in its own country; and those
who have oftenest seen the object are those who are most gratified by
the figure drawn from it.
I trust that it is scarcely necessary to add that _illustrations must
never be low or mean_. They may not be high-flown, but they should
always be in good taste. They may be homely, and yet chastely beautiful;
but rough and coarse they should never be. A house is dishonored by
having dirty windows, cobwebbed and begrimed, patched with brown paper,
or stuffed up with rags: such windows are the insignia of a hovel rather
than a house. About our illustrations there must never be even the
slightest trace of anything that would shock the most delicate modesty.
We like not that window out of which Jezebel is looking. Like the bells
upon the horses, our lightest expressions must be holiness unto the
Lord. Of that which suggests the groveling and the base we may say with
the Apostle, "Let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints."
All our windows should open toward Jerusalem, and none toward Sodom. We
will gather our flowers always and only from Emmanuel's land, and Jesus
himself shall be their savor and sweetness, so that when he lingers at
the lattice to hear us speak of himself he may say, "Thy lips, O my
spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue."
That which grows beyond the border of purity and good repute must never
be bound up in our garlands, nor placed among the decorations of our
discourses. That which would be exceedingly clever and telling in a
stump orator's speech, or in a cheap-jack's harangue, would be
disgusting from a minister of the gospel. Time was when we could have
found far too many specimens of censurable coarseness, but it would be
ungenerous to mention them now that such things are on all hands
condemned.
Gentlemen, take care that your windows are not broken, or even cracked:
in other words, _guard against confused metaphors and limping
illustrations_. Sir Boyle Roche is generally credited with some of the
finest specimens of metaphorical conglomerate. We should imagine that
the passage is mythical in which he is represented as saying, "I smell a
rat; I see it floating in the air; I'll nip it in the bud." Minor
blunderings are frequent enough in the speech of our own countrymen. An
excellent temperance advocate exclaimed, "Comrades, let us be up and
doing! Let us take our axes on our shoulders, and plow the waste places
till the good ship Temperance sails gaily over the land." We well
remember, years ago, hearing a fervent Irish clergyman exclaim,
"Garibaldi, sir, he is far too great a man to play second fiddle to
such a wretched luminary as Victor Emmanuel." It was at a public
meeting, and therefore we were bound to be proper; but it would have
been a great relief to our soul if we might have indulged in a hearty
laugh at the spectacle of Garibaldi with a fiddle, playing to a
luminary; for a certain nursery rhyme jingled in our ears, and sorely
tried our gravity. A poetic friend thus encouragingly addresses us:
"March on, however rough the road,
Though foes obstruct thy way,
Deaf to _the barking curs that would_
_Ensnare thy feet astray_."
The other evening a brother expressed his desire that we might "all be
winners of souls, and bring the Lord's blood-bought jewels to cast their
crowns at his feet." The words had such a pious ring about them that the
audience did not observe the fractured state of the expression. One of
your own number hoped "that every student might be enabled to sound the
gospel trumpet with such a clear and certain sound _that the blind might
see_." Perhaps he meant that they should open their eyes with
astonishment at the terrific blast; but the figure would have been more
congruous if he had said "that the deaf should hear." A Scotch writer,
in referring to a proposal to use an organ in divine service, says:
"Nothing will _stem this avalanche_ of will-worship and gross sin but
the _falling back on the Word of God_."
The _Daily News_, in reviewing a book written by an eminent minister,
complained that his metaphors were apt to be a little unmanageable, as
when he spoke of something which had remained a secret until a strangely
potent key was inserted among the hidden wards of the parental heart,
and a rude wrench flung wide the floodgates and set free the imprisoned
stream. However, there is no wonder that ordinary mortals commit
blunders in figurative speech, when even his late Infallible Holiness
Pius IX. said of Mr. Gladstone that he "had suddenly come forward like a
viper assailing the bark of St. Peter." A viper assailing a bark is
rather too much for the most accommodating imagination, although some
minds are ready for any marvels.
One of those reviews which reckon themselves to be the cream of the
cream took pains to inform us that the Dean of Chichester, being the
select preacher at St. Mary's, Oxford, "seized the opportunity to smite
the Ritualists hip and thigh, _with great volubility and vivacity_."
Samson smote his foes with a great slaughter; but language is flexible.
These blunders are to be quoted by the page: I have given enough to let
you see how readily the pitchers of metaphor may be cracked, and
rendered unfit to carry our meaning. The ablest speaker may occasionally
err in this direction; it is not a very serious matter, and yet, like a
dead fly, it may spoil sweet ointment. A few brethren of my acquaintance
are always off the lines; they muddle up every figure they touch, and as
soon as they approach a metaphor we look for an accident. It might be
wisdom on their part to shun all figures of speech till they know how to
use them; for it is a great pity when illustrations are so confused as
both to darken the sense and create diversion. Muddled metaphors are
muddles indeed; let us give the people good illustrations or none at
all.
LECTURE II.
ANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT.
It is pretty generally admitted that sermons may wisely be adorned with
a fair share of illustrations; but anecdotes used to that end are still
regarded by the prudes of the pulpit with a measure of suspicion. They
will come down low enough to quote an emblem, they will deign to use
poetic imagery; but they cannot stoop to tell a simple, homely story.
They would probably say in confidence to their younger brethren, "Beware
how you lower yourselves and your sacred office by repeating anecdotes,
which are best appreciated by the vulgar and uneducated." We would not
retort by exhorting all men to abound in stories, for there ought to be
discrimination. It is freely admitted that there are useful and
admirable styles of oratory which would be disfigured by a rustic tale;
and there are honored brethren whose genius would never allow them to
relate a story, for it would not appear suitable to their mode of
thought. Upon these we would not even by implication hint at a censure;
but when we are dealing with others who seem to be somewhat, and are not
what they seem, we feel no tenderness; nay, we are even moved to assail
their stilted greatness. If they sneer at anecdotes, we smile at _them_
and their sneers, and wish them more sense and less starch. Affectation
of intellectual superiority and love of rhetorical splendor have
prevented many from setting forth gospel truth in the easiest imaginable
manner, namely, by analogies drawn from common events. Because they
could not condescend to men of low estate, they have refrained from
repeating incidents which would have accurately explained their meaning.
Fearing to be thought vulgar, they have lost golden opportunities. As
well might David have refused to sling one of the smooth stones at
Goliath's brow because he found it in a common brook.
From individuals so lofty in their ideas nothing is likely to flow down
to the masses of the people but a glacial eloquence--a river of ice.
Dignity is a most poor and despicable consideration unless it be the
dignity of turning many to righteousness; and yet divines who have had
scarcely enough of real dignity to save themselves from contempt have
swollen "huge as high Olympus" through the affectation of it. A young
gentleman, after delivering an elaborate discourse, was told that not
more than five or six in the congregation had been able to understand
him. This he accepted as a tribute to his genius; but I take leave to
place him in the same class with another person who was accustomed to
shake his head in the most profound manner, that he might make his
prelections the more impressive; and this had some effect with the
groundlings, until a shrewd Christian woman made the remark that he did
shake his head certainly, but that _there was nothing in it_. Those who
are too refined to be simple need to be refined again. Luther has well
put it in his "Table Talk": "Cursed are all preachers that in the church
aim at high and hard things; and neglecting the saving health of the
poor unlearned people, seek their own honor and praise, and therefore
try to please one or two great persons. _When I preach I sink myself
deep down._" It may be superfluous to remind you of the oft-quoted
passage from George Herbert's "Country Parson," and yet I cannot omit
it, because it is so much to my mind: "The Parson also serves himself of
the judgments of God, as of those of ancient times, so especially of the
late ones; and those most which are nearest to his parish; for people
are very attentive at such discourses, and think it behooves them to be
so when God is so near them, and even over their heads. Sometimes he
tells them stories and sayings of others, according as his text invites
him; for them also men heed, and remember better than exhortations;
which, though earnest, yet often die with the sermon, especially with
country people, which are thick and heavy, and hard to raise to a point
of zeal and fervency, and need a mountain of fire to kindle them, but
stories and sayings they will well remember."
It ought never to be forgotten that the great God himself, when he would
instruct men, employs histories and biographies. Our Bible contains
doctrines, promises, and precepts; but these are not left alone--the
whole book is vivified and illustrated by marvelous records of things
said and done by God and by men. He who is taught of God values the
sacred histories, and knows that in them there is a special fulness and
forcibleness of instruction. Teachers of Scripture cannot do better than
instruct their fellows after the manner of the Scriptures.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the great teacher of teachers, did not disdain
the use of anecdotes. To my mind it seems clear that certain of his
parables were facts and, consequently, anecdotes. May not the story of
the Prodigal Son have been a literal truth? Were there not actual
instances of an enemy sowing tares among the wheat? May not the rich
fool who said, "Take thine ease," have been a photograph taken from
life? Did not Dives and Lazarus actually figure on the stage of history?
Certainly the story of those who were crushed by the fall of the tower
of Siloam, and the sad tragedy of the Galileans, "whose blood Pilate had
mingled with their sacrifices," were matters of current Jewish gossip,
and our Lord turned both of them to good account. What HE did we need
not be ashamed to do. That we may do it with all wisdom and prudence let
us seek the guidance of the Divine Spirit which rested upon him so
continually.
I shall make up this present address by quoting the examples of great
preachers, beginning with the era of the Reformation, and following on
without any very rigid chronological order down to our own day. Examples
are more powerful than precepts; hence I quote them.
First, let me mention that grand old preacher, _Hugh Latimer_, the most
English of all our divines, and one whose influence over our land was
undoubtedly most powerful. Southey says, "Latimer more than any other
man promoted the Reformation by his preaching;" and in this he echoes
the more important utterance of Ridley, who wrote from his prison, "I do
think that the Lord hath placed old father Latimer to be his
standard-bearer in our age and country against his mortal foe,
Antichrist." If you have read any of his sermons, you must have been
struck with the number of his quaint stories, seasoned with a homely
humor which smacks of that Leicestershire farmhouse wherein he was
brought up by a father who did yeoman's service, and a mother who milked
thirty kine. No doubt we may attribute to these stories the breaking
down of pews by the overwhelming rush of the people to hear him, and the
general interest which his sermons excited. More of such, preaching, and
we should have less fear of the return of popery. The common people
heard him gladly, and his lively anecdotes accounted for much of their
eager attention. A few of these narratives one could hardly repeat, for
the taste of our age has happily improved in delicacy; but others are
most admirable and instructive. Here are two of them:
THE FRIAR'S MAN AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.--I will tell you now a
pretty story of a friar, to refresh you withal. A limiter of the
Gray Friars in the time of his limitation preached many times, and
had but one sermon at all times; which sermon was of the Ten
Commandments. And because this friar had preached this sermon so
often, one that heard it before told the friar's servant that his
master was called "Friar John Ten Commandments"; wherefore the
servant showed the friar his master thereof, and advised him to
preach of some other matters; for it grieved the servant to hear
his master derided. Now, the friar made answer saying, "Belike,
then, thou canst say the Ten Commandments well, seeing thou hast
heard them so many a time." "Yea," said the servant, "I warrant
you." "Let me hear them," saith the master. Then he began: "Pride,
covetousness, lechery," and so numbered the deadly sins for the Ten
Commandments. And so there be many at this time which be weary of
the old gospel. They would fain hear some new things, they think
themselves so perfect in the old, when they be no more skilful than
this servant was in his Ten Commandments.
SAINT ANTHONY AND THE COBBLER.--We read a pretty story of Saint
Anthony, which, being in the wilderness, led there a very hard and
straight life, insomuch as none at that time did the like, to whom
came a voice from heaven saying, "Anthony, thou art not so perfect
as is a cobbler that dwelleth at Alexandria." Anthony hearing this
rose up forthwith and took his staff and went till he came to
Alexandria, where he found the cobbler. The cobbler was astonished
to see so reverend a father to come into his house. Then Anthony
said unto him, "Come and tell me thy whole conversation and how
thou spendest thy time." "Sir," said the cobbler, "as for me, good
works I have none, for my life is but simple and slender. I am but
a poor cobbler. In the morning when I arise I pray for the whole
city wherein I dwell, especially for all such neighbors and poor
friends as I have. After, I set me at my labor, where I spend the
whole day in getting of my living, and keep me from all falsehood,
for I hate nothing so much as I do deceitfulness. Wherefore, when I
make to any man a promise I keep it and do it truly, and so spend
my time poorly with my wife and children, whom I teach and
instruct, as far as my wit will serve me, to fear and dread God.
This is the sum of my simple life."
In this story you see how God loveth those that follow their
vocation and live uprightly without any falsehood in their dealing.
This Anthony was a great and holy man, yet this cobbler was as much
esteemed before God as he.
Let us take a long leap of about a century, and we come to _Jeremy
Taylor_, another bishop, whom I mention immediately after _Latimer_
because he is apparently such a contrast to that homely divine, while
yet in very truth he has a measure of likeness to him as to the point
now in hand. They both rejoiced in figure and metaphor, and equally
delighted in incident and narrative. True, the one would talk of John
and William, and the other of Anexagoras and Scipio; but actual scenes
were the delight of each. In this respect Jeremy Taylor may be said to
be Latimer turned into Latin. Jeremy Taylor is as full of classical
allusions as a king's palace is full of rare treasures, and his language
is of the lofty order which more becomes a patrician audience than a
popular assembly; but when you come to the essence of things, you see
that if Latimer is homely, so also Taylor narrates incidents which are
_homely to him_; but his home is among philosophers of Greece and
senators of Rome. This being understood, we venture to say that no one
used more anecdotes than this splendid poet-preacher. His biographer
truly says: "It would be hard to point out a branch of learning or of
scientific pursuit to which he does not occasionally allude; or any
author of eminence, either ancient or modern, with whom he does not
evince himself acquainted. He more than once refers to obscure stories
in ancient writers, as if they were of necessity as familiar to all his
readers as to himself; as, for instance, he talks of 'poor Attillius
Aviola,' and again of 'the Libyan lion that brake loose into his
wilderness and killed two Roman boys.'" In all this he is eminently
select and classical, and therefore I the more freely introduce him
here; for there can be no reason why our anecdotes should all be rustic;
we, too, may rifle the treasures of antiquity, and make the heathen
contribute to the gospel, even as Hiram of Tyre served under Solomon's
direction for the building of the temple of the Lord.
I am no admirer of Taylor's style in other respects, and his teaching
seems to be at times semi-popish; but in this place I have only to deal
with him upon one particular, and of that matter he is an admirable
example. He lavishes classic stories even as an Asiatic queen bedecks
herself with countless pearls. Out of a sermon I extract the following,
which may suffice for our purpose:
STUDENTS PROGRESSING BACKWARD.--Menedemus was wont to say "that the
young boys that went to Athens the first year were wise men, the
second year philosophers, the third orators, and the fourth were
but plebeians, and understood nothing but their own ignorance." And
just so it happens to some in the progresses of religion. At first
they are violent and active, and then they satiate all the
appetites of religion; and that which is left is that they were
soon weary and sat down in displeasure, and return to the world and
dwell in the business of pride or money; and by this time they
understand that their religion is declined, and passed from the
heats and follies of youth to the coldness and infirmities of old
age.
DIOGENES AND THE YOUNG MAN.--Diogenes once spied a young man coming
out of a tavern or place of entertainment, who, perceiving himself
observed by the philosopher, with some confusion stepped back
again, that he might, if possible, preserve his fame with that
severe person. But Diogenes told him, "_Quanto magis intraveris,
tanto magis eris in caupona_" ("The more you go back the longer you
are in the place where you are ashamed to be seen"). He that
conceals his sin still retains that which he counts his shame and
burden.
No examples will have greater weight with you than those taken from
among the Puritans, in whose steps it is our desire to walk, though,
alas! we follow with feeble feet. Certain of them abounded in anecdotes
and stories. _Thomas Brooks_ is a signal instance of the wise and
wealthy use of holy fancy. I put him first, because I reckon him to be
the first in the special art which is now under consideration. He hath
dust of gold; for even in the margins of his books there are sentences
of exceeding preciousness, and hints at classic stories. His style is
clear and full; he never so exceeds in illustration as to lose sight of
his doctrine. His floods of metaphor never drown his meaning, but float
it upon their surface. If you have never read his works I almost envy
you the joy of entering for the first time upon his "Unsearchable
Riches," trying his "Precious Remedies," tasting his "Apples of Gold,"
communing with his "Mute Christian," and enjoying his other masterly
writings. Let me give you a taste of his quality in the way of
anecdotes. Here are two brief ones; but he so abounds with them that you
may readily cull scores of better ones for yourselves.
MR. WELCH WEEPING.--A soul under special manifestations of love
weeps that it can love Christ no more. Mr. Welch, a Suffolk
minister, weeping at table, and being asked the reason of it,
answered it was because he could love Christ no more. The true
lovers of Christ can never rise high enough in their love to
Christ. They count a little love to be no love, great love to be
but little, strong love to be but weak, and the highest love to be
infinitely below the worth of Christ, the beauty and glory of
Christ, the fulness, sweetness, and goodness of Christ. The top of
their misery in this life is that they love so little though they
are so much beloved.
SUBMISSIVE SILENCE.--Such was the silence of Philip the Second,
King of Spain, that when his Invincible Armada, that had been three
years a-fitting, was lost, he gave command that all over Spain they
should give thanks to God and the saints that it was no more
grievous.