The Art of Illustration

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.

I have sometimes told anecdotes in the pulpit, and very delicate and particular people have expressed their regret and horror that I should say such things; but when I have found that God has blessed some of the illustrations I have used, I have often thought of the story of the man with a halberd, who was attacked by a nobleman’s dog, and, of course, in defending himself, he killed the animal. The nobleman was very angry, and asked the man how he dared to kill the dog; and the man replied that if he had not killed it the dog would have bitten him and torn him in pieces. “Well,” said the nobleman, “but you should not have struck it on the head with the halberd; why did you not hit it with the handle?” “My lord,” answered the man, “so I would if it had tried to bite me with its tail.” So, when I have to deal with sin, some people say, “Why don’t you address it delicately? Why don’t you speak to it in courtly language?” And I answer, “So I would if it would bite me with its tail; but as long as ever I find that it deals roughly with me, I will deal roughly with it; and any kind of weapon that will help to slay the monster, I shall not find unfitted to my hand.”

We cannot afford in these days to lose any opportunity of getting hold of the public ear.

The fool in Scotland who got into the pulpit before the preacher arrived was requested by the minister to come down. “Nay, nay,” answered the man, “you come up, too, for it will take both of us to move this stiff-necked generation.” It will certainly take all the wisdom that we can obtain to move the people among whom our lot is cast; and if we do not use every lawful means of interesting the minds of our hearers, we shall find that they will be like a certain other congregation, in which the people were all asleep except one poor idiot. The minister woke them up, and tried to reprove them by saying, “There, you were all asleep except poor Jock the idiot;” but his rebuke was cut short by Jock, who exclaimed, “And if I had not been an idiot, I should have been asleep too.”

I recollect using, with very considerable effect in a sermon, an incident that occurred in my own garden. There was a dog which was in the habit of coming through the fence and scratching in my flower beds, to the manifest spoiling of the gardener’s toil and temper. Walking in the garden one Saturday afternoon, and preparing my sermon for the following day, I saw the four-footed creature⁠—rather a scurvy specimen, by the by⁠—and having a walking-stick in my hand, I threw it at him with all my might, at the same time giving him some good advice about going home. Now, what should my canine friend do but turn round, pick up the stick in his mouth, and bring it, and lay it down at my feet, wagging his tail all the while in expectation of my thanks and kind words? Of course, you do not suppose that I kicked him, or threw the stick at him any more. I felt quite ashamed of myself, and I told him that he was welcome to stay as long as he liked, and to come as often as he pleased. There was an instance of the power of nonresistance, submission, patience, and trust, in overcoming even righteous anger. I used that illustration in preaching the next day, and I did not feel that I had at all degraded myself by telling the story.