self. Whenever he finds anything (fact, figure, verse, &c.) that seems to him fitted for effective use in a sermon, let him copy or cut it out. Let him not trust to memory: let him store up the treasure in his Note-book, and then he may reasonably hope to find it when it is wanted.

Long experience in this kind of work leads the Compiler to recommend the method he has himself followed, and which Mr. Moody was also led to adopt, that of arranging all the excerpts in large envelopes, such as lawyers use. This method has many advantages; but it has its disadvantages also, such as that, to carry it out effectively, a large cupboard with pigeon-holes is necessary. A simple and an excellent method is, to have a large manuscript book for each letter of the alphabet, copying, e.g., into the book lettered A all that refers to topics commencing with that letter, "Affliction," "Amusements," &c.

Whichever method is adopted, let the copyist write only on one side of the page. Paper is cheap, and a neglect of this counsel will lead to many inconveniences and regrets.

Next, let the student insert in his Bible a reference against the passage of which each extract is illustrative. Thus, e.g., when he comes to preach upon John iii. 16, he may find written against that text A 97, which will remind him that in the envelope thus numbered, or on page 97 of the MS. volume lettered A, he will find something that will be helpful to him in dealing with it.

All this involves considerable labour, but the compensations for it are abundant. This is one of the methods by which the student may attain to a ministry of which the interest, the power, and the usefulness will grow to the very end.

HOMILETIC ENCYCLOPÆDIA

OF

Illustrations in Theology and Morals.

INTRODUCTORY READINGS.

I. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ILLUSTRATION IN TEACHING. (1.) THE importance of illustration for the purpose of enforcing truth is so obvious, that it seems a work of supererogation to say one word con cerning it. . . . A man may often find materials to enliven a discourse which might otherwise have proved very dull, or to fasten on the conscience a truth or a warning, which otherwise would have fallen on the ear unnoticed, and glided past the mind unfelt. It is not enough that truth be pointed, like a straight smooth piece of steel; it needs side points, as a dart, that it may not draw out, when it effects an entrance. Anecdotes and illustrations may not only illustrate a point, and make an audience see and feel the argument, but they may themselves add to the argument; they may at once be a part of the reasoning, and an elucidation of it. Indeed, a just figure always adds power to a chain of logic, and increases the amount of truth conveyed. It is also of great use in relieving the attention, as a stopping-place where the mind is rested, and prepared to resume the reasoning without fatigue, without loss. Almost any expedient, which decorum permits, may be justified, in order to awake and fix the attention of an audience. Such attention, however, cannot be kept but by truth worth illustrating.

relation of what took place in the life of such or such a person, an entire change comes on the whole congregation. Every countenance is lighted up with expectation, every mind is on the alert. Even if the minister says, "We will suppose a case for the purpose of illustration," even then the attention of the hearers is at once aroused. The presentation of actual facts, or cases of interest in point, is so attractive, that if real incidents are not at hand, it were better to suppose them than leave the subject without such illustration, in instances where it admits of it.

Accordingly, in the Scriptures and in discourses of our blessed Lord, it is evident that suppositions are made, and fables are related, to illustrate and enforce truth, to give it life and action. This constituted a powerful charm in our Saviour's preaching, even for those who cared nothing for the spiritual lessons He was enforcing. The beauty and exceeding aptness of His cases and illustrations may have caught many a careless soul when the bare dry truth would have failed to touch the heart. The truth that a man is miserable who layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God, might have been stated in ever so forcible language without reaching the conscience of the hearers. Dr. Abercrombie speaks of the importance of But when our Lord proceeded to say, The illustrations and analogies for assisting and ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentraining the memory of children. The same dis-tifully," with the solemn close of the epilogue, cipline is equally necessary for the hearers of "Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be resermons. Although they may have forgotten the quired of thee!" what conscience could remain text, the subject, and almost the whole design of unmoved? The hearers of our blessed Lord were the preacher, they will not unfrequently carry so deeply interested and absorbed in such narraaway the illustrations, and everything in the train tives, that sometimes they seem to have forgotof thoughts lying immediately in their neighbour- ten that they were merely illustrations; and inhood. And, indeed, a single illustration will terrupted Him, carried away by their feelings, or sometimes flash the meaning of a whole sermon desiring the thread of the narrative to unwind upon the minds that otherwise would have de- difierently, as in the case when they broke in parted scarcely knowing the application of a upon one of His parables with the declaration,

sentence.

Every one must have observed the effect of the introduction of such lights and illustrations upon an audience. The whole assembly may have appeared up to the point uninterested, listless, even oppressed with stupor; but the moment the preacher says, "I will illustrate this point by a

"

Lord, he hath ten pounds already!" One can see the company, their interest, their eagerness, and the truth taking hold upon them; we can hear their exclamations, as if a drama of real life were enacting before them. And it was life, taken out of the form of abstract, and dramatised for their life, their instruction. -Cheever.

(2.) The revealing the Word by similitudes is very useful and profitable; for it conduces much to make truth go to a man's heart before he is aware, and to impress it upon his memory. Many remember the simile, and so the truth which it conveyed. It is reported of the Marquis Galeacias, a nobleman of great estates, and near of kin to the Pope, that once coming but to hear Peter Martyr preach, by a mere simile that he used, God smote his heart, and made it the means of his conversion. The simile was thus: Peter Martyr in his discourse had occasion to say, Men may think very hardly of God and His people, but this is because they do not know Him; as suppose a man a great way off sees a company of excellent dancers, the musicians are playing, and there is exact art in all they do. At the distance he regards them as a company of madmen, but (added he) as he draws nearer and nearer to them, and hears the melodious sound, and observes the art that they use, then he is much taken and affected. So it is with you. You are a great way off, and look from a great distance upon the ways of God, and so you think His people mad; but could you come to observe what excellency is in them, it would take captive your hearts. God blessed such a similitude as this to that great man's heart, so that though his

wife and children lay imploring at his feet, yet he
came to Geneva, and there continued all his
days. But we should take some heed here.
1. Similes should be brought from things
known.

2. We must not urge similes too far, we must
take heed of a luxuriant, wanton wit.
3. And they must be very natural, plain, and
proper, or else man will appear in them rather.
than God.
-Burroughs, 1599-1648.

(3.) Nothing strikes the mind of man so powerfully as instances and examples. They make a truth not only intelligible but even palpable, sliddows of sense, and by the most familiar as well ing it into the understanding through the winas most unquestionable perceptions of the eye. -South, 1633-1716.

(4.) A proverb or parable being once unfolded, by reason of its affinity with the fancy, the more sweetly insinuates itself into that, and is from thence with the greater advantage transmitted to the understanding. In this state we are not able to behold truth in its own native beauty and lustre; but while we are veiled with mortality, truth must veil itself too, that it may the more freely converse with us.

-John Smith, 1618-1652.

II. OUR LORD'S METHOD OF TEACHING.

(5.) With matter divine and manner human, our Lord descended to the level of the humblest of the crowd, lowering Himself to their understandings, and winning His way into their hearts by borrowing His topics from familiar circumstances and the scenes around Him. Be it a boat, a plank, a rope, a beggar's rags, an imperial robe, we would seize on anything to save a drowning man; and in His anxiety to save poor sinners, to rouse their fears, their love, their interest, to make them understand and feel the truth, our Lord pressed everything-art and nature, earth and heaven-into His service. Creatures of habit, the servants if not the slaves of form, we invariably select our text from some book of the Sacred Scriptures. He took a wider, freer range; and, instead of keeping to the unvarying routine of text and sermon with formal divisions, it were well, perhaps, that we sometimes ventured to follow His example; for may it not be to the naturalness of their addresses and their striking out from the beaten path of texts and sermons, to their plain speaking and home-thrusts, to their direct appeals and homespun arguments, that our street and lay preachers owe perhaps not a little of their power? Illustrating the words of the great English dramatist

"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything,"

our Lord found many a topic of discourse in the scenes around Him; even the humblest objects shone in His hands, as I have seen a fragment of broken glass or earthenware, as it caught the sunbeam, light up, flashing like a diamond. With the stone of Jacob's Well for a pulpit, and its water for a text, He preached salvation to the Samaritan woman. A little child, which He takes from its mother's side, and holds up blushing in His arms before the astonished audience, is His text for a sermon on humility. A husbandman on a neighbouring height between him and the sky, who strides with long and measured steps over the field he sows, supplies a text from which He discourses on the gospel and its effects on different classes of hearers. In a woman baking; in two women who sit by some cottage door grinding at the mill; in an old, strong fortalice perched on a rock, whence it looks across the brawling torrent to the ruined and roofless gable of a house swept away by mountain floods-Jesus found texts. From the birds that sung above His head, and the lilies that blossomed at His feet, He discoursed on the care of God-these His text and Providence His theme. -Guthrie.

III. THE FIGURES OF THE BIBLE.

(6.) The figures of the Bible are not mere graceful ornaments-arabesques to grace a border, or fairy frescoes, that give mere beauty to a chamber or saloon. They are language.

Human speech articulate is marvellous beyond all our thought; but human words are not sufficient even for human thoughts and feelings. All high and grand emotions scorn the tongue, that lies as helpless in the mouth as would be artillery to express the sound and grandeur of mountain

thunders in tropical storms. All deep griefs, and for the most part, tender and exquisite affections, are voiceless.

Then it is, if any speech is attempted, that nature yields another language, and figures, word-pictures, and illustrations, if they do not express, at least vividly suggest truths far beyond the reach of words or the compass of sentences such as men frame for the common use of life.

The Bible stands far beyond all other books

(3)

in this use of the language of nature. The great globe is but an alphabet, and every object upon it is a letter; and, from beginning to end of the Bible, these sublime letters are used to set forth in hieroglyphic the truths of immortality. And there is this nobility in the use of natural objects for moral teaching, that to the end of time, and to all people, of how different soever language, the symbol used is the same. Artificial hieroglyphics differ with age and nation. The Oriental cities had their special characters-the Egyptian his-the Aztec his; and they differ one from

another, so that one could not have read the written signs of the other. But the sun, the mountain, the ocean, the storm, the rain, the snow, the winds, lions and eagles, the sparrow and the dove, the lily and the rose, grass, earth. stones, and dirt, are the same in all ages, in all latitudes, to all people. And those truths that are expressed in the figures drawn from the natural world have relationships, and they are the most universal of any in the Bible, and the most frequent. -Beecher.

IV. THE DELIGHT OF THE HUMAN MIND IN METAPHOR. (7.) Deep in our nature there exists a tendency that sky opens and lets through the sunshine, to seek amongst all interesting objects points of we say that it is smiling, and when that dull resemblance, and when some intuition keener countenance opens and lets out the soul, we say than our own reveals that resemblance, we bow that it is shining; and in the metaphor we feel to its truths or acclaim to its beauty. For in- that we have given a new animation to the sun, stance, when human life is compared to the a new glory to "the human face divine." course of a river-cradled in the moss-fringed fountain, tripping gaily through its free and babbling infancy, swelling into proud and impetuous youth, burdened with the great ships in its sober and utilitarian manhood, and then merging in the ocean of eternity-who is there that does not see the resemblance, and in seeing it find his mind richer by at least one bright thought? There may be little resemblance betwixt a clouded sky and the human countenance; and yet when

This tendency to metaphor, and the universal delight in parables, comparisons, and figures of speech, are no mere freaks of man's fancy. They have their foundation in the mind and method of Deity, whose thoughts are all in harmony, and whose works and ways are all connected with one another; so that what we call the imagination of the poet, if his reading be correct, is really the logic of Omniscience. -Hamilton, 1814-1867.

V. - HOMELY ILLUSTRATIONS ARE NOT TO BE SHRUNK FROM OR DESPISED.

(8.) God's ministers must use plain and familiar expressions for the better convincing of their people both of their sin and misery. The prophet here (Hosea xiii.) uses similitudes from a travailing woman, from the east wind; and the Lord, by way of aggravation of their sins, tells them that He had spoken to them by His prophets, and had "multiplied visions," and given them much preaching, yea, and the better to convince them, He had "used similitudes by the ministry of His prophets" (Hosea xii. 10). This is an excellent way of preaching and prevailing; it both notably illustrates the truth, and insinuates itself into men's affections. Galeacius Caraciolus, an Italian marquis, and nephew to a pope, was converted by an apt similitude which he heard from Peter Martyr. Nathan caught David with a parable, and out of his own mouth condemned him. Christ, who spake as never man spake, whose words were full of power and authority, yet, the better to work upon His hearers, frequently used parables, from the sower, from leaven, from mustard seed, flowers, feasts, from a treasure, &c.; and the Apostle Paul fetches similitudes from runners and wrestlers.

Plain preaching is the best teaching; it is the best way to convince and convert men; and if plain, familiar preaching will not work, certainly by dark, mysterious preaching it will never be effected. This made Paul, that he had rather speak five words in a known tongue to edify others, than ten thousand in an unknown tongue. That is the best preaching which sets forth things to the life, and makes them as plain as if they were written with a sunbeam.

-Thomas Hall, 1659. (9.) Let ministers wisely and soberly use this

their liberty in teaching, for the edification of their hearers, whom, if they be of the weaker sort, let them not trouble with profound matters which they are not able to understand, but let us be content to use plain similitudes and homebred comparisons, fetched from leaven, from the meal-tub, or other domestical business; knowing therein we do no other than Jesus Christ, our great Doctor and Master, Himself did.

-Nehemiah Rogers, 1594-1660.

(10.) About three years before the death of Rowland Hill, two gentlemen entered Surrey Chapel. They had long been friends, and one of them was shortly to leave this country for India. He was living "without hope and without God in the world.' His companion was a decided and consistent Christian, and earnestly desired his friend's salvation. This pious friend, as the time drew near for the young man's departure, begged of him to grant him one especial favour, namely, to spend with him his four last Sabbath evenings, and to accompany him to the sanctuary. The request was complied with, and many prayers ascended to God that the sermons might lead the wanderer to the Saviour. The first, second, and third sermons were heard, but no impressions were produced. When the last Sabbath arrived, the Christian felt increased anxiety for his friend's soul. He took him to Surrey Chapel to hear good Rowland Hill, and secretly prayed that the preacher might be in a solemn state of mind, and not be permitted to indulge in eccentric remarks.

The venerable preacher gave out his text: "We are not ignorant of his devices;" and immediately told the following tale :-"Many years since I met

a drove of pigs in one of the streets of a large town, and, to my surprise, they were not driven, but quietly followed their leader. This singular fact excited my curiosity, and I pursued the swine, until they all quietly entered the butchery. I then asked the man how he succeeded in getting the poor, stupid, stubborn pigs so willingly to follow him, when he told me the secret; he had a basket of beans under his arm, and kept dropping them as he proceeded, and so secured his object. Ah! my dear hearers, the devil has got his basket of beans, and he knows how to suit his temptations to every sinner. He drops them by the way; the poor sinner is thus led captive by the devil at his own will, and if the grace of God prevent not, he will get him at last into his butchery, and there he will keep him for ever. Oh, it is because we are not ignorant of

his devices' that we are anxious this evening to guard you against them!"

The Christian friend deeply mourned over this tale about the pigs, and feared it would excite a smile but not produce conviction in the mind of his unbelieving companion. After the service was over they left the chapel, and all was silence for a season. "What a singular statement we had to-night about the pigs, and yet how striking and convincing it was!" remarked the young man. His mind was impressed, and he could not forget the basket of beans, the butchery, and the final loss of the sinner's soul. He left this country, but has since corresponded with his friend, and continues to refer to this sermon as having produced a beneficial, and it is hoped an abiding, impression on his mind. -Memoir of Krwland Hill.

VI. WHENCE THEY ARE TO BE OBTAINED.

Take

(11.) "Where shall I gather illustrations for my | the child Let Greek mythology alone. class?" On the source from which they are drawn God's illustrations, scattered on every hand, in the depends, in a great measure, their value. Good fields, the gardens, the lanes. Look at the flowers, bank-notes come from the banker, not from the the grass, all nature, and pray God to open your counterfeiter. No one has any right to have counter- eyes. An excellent help is to have a Bible with a feits, so no teacher has a right to use spurious illus-wide margin, in which to note down, as you find trations. Convey the truth by the simplest illustrations possible, and with the least circumlocution. Instead of relying on encyclopædias, &c., go into the streets with open eyes; pick up the dead, broken branch which lies at your feet, and convert it into an illustration of a blameless Christian life. Be wide awake, be discriminating; or, if the expres-cise. sion may be allowed, possess sanctified gumption. No teacher has a right to go to his class without an illustration to enforce the truth. The Saviour preached the gospel in the trees, in the fields, in the roads. Why not we? An illustration is to be used to gain attention, and to carry home the truth. Employ such as are within the comprehension of

them, such illustrations as bear upon any particular passage. After a while you will have a book which money cannot buy. Use always the best material you can find, and, if possible, that drawn from your own experience. Do not labour to find great things. Take the little things. Be plain, consistent, conIf your lesson is about Zaccheus, climbing into the scyamore tree, do not picture the scyamore of the Mississippi Valley, with its smooth trunk, but remember the Palestine sycamore. Never use an illustration simply for its own sake; ever keep in mind the great object, and let the truth follow the way into the mind and heart which the illustra tion has opened.

VII.-MISTAKES AGAINST WHICH WE NEED TO BE ON OUR GUARD.

(12.) Illustrations have been compared to the | barbs that fix the arrow in the target. But it is to be remembered that barbs alone are useless. An archer would be poorly off if he had nothing in his quiver but arrow-heads or feathers. For an illustration to be useful or successful, there must be something to be illustrated. A sermon made up of anecdotes and flowers is quite as deficient as a sermon of the driest abstractions. -Cheever.

(13.) Illustrations, however beautiful, are dangerous if not employed with care. They may gratify without conveying instruction. When in excess, they become a mere diorama of illustration, leaving gratified curiosity and weariness behind. Superior elocution can do much, but a heavy weight of adornment will enfeeble the strongest. A multiplication of beauties neither helps the beautiful nor the useful. The choicest tulip-bed in richest bloom loses its attractions if strewed over with buttercups and daisies, and occasionally the tree covered with blossom fails to produce the richest fruit.—Anon.

(14.) As I was once endeavouring to explain to a class of children the nature of faith, I told the

familiar story of a child on shipboard, from whom a pet monkey snatches his cap and darts with it up into the rigging. The little fellow makes after him, climbing higher and higher, till at last the sailors, to their horror, see him far up at a point where he is growing dizzy. He is just about to pitch headlong to the deck. His father, called up from the cabin, shouts to him to leap out into the water as his only hope. The child hesitates, but finally, trusting his father's wisdom, makes the tremendous leap, and is brought up by the sailors safely. One little hearer in the class, as I was rendering the story as vividly as possible, seemed much im.pressed, and sat deeply thinking while I tried to make the application. The truth seemed to have taken hold of him. "A hopeful case," I thought. At last, when he could hold down the ferment in him no longer, and I turned to hear his question, he asked, breathlessly, "Well-but-what became of the monkey?" It was, in his teacher, the old blunder repeated, of making the illustration more impressive than the illustrated truth.

-G. B. Willcox.

(15.) I think the question in every instance should be, Does it help? Does that mode of putting it