Read Ebook: The Book of Ballads Eleventh Edition 1870 by Aytoun William Edmondstoune Martin Theodore Sir Crowquill Alfred Illustrator Doyle Richard Illustrator Leech John Illustrator

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ANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT 32

THE SCIENCES AS SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATION--ASTRONOMY 137

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.

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.

"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."

Slightly altered from "Fables in Song," by Robert Lord Lytton.

ANECDOTES FROM THE PULPIT.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THE HUSBAND AND HIS WITTY WIFE.--The husband told his wife that he had one ill quality--he was given to be angry without cause. She wittily replied that she would keep him from that fault, for she would give him cause enough. It is the folly of some that they will be offended without cause, to whom the world promises that they shall have causes enough--"In the world ye shall have tribulation."

BIRD SAFE IN A MAN'S BOSOM.--A heathen could say when a bird flew into his bosom, "I will not betray thee unto thine enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me." How much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy when it takes sanctuary in his name, saying, "Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust; either thou must pardon it, or I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into the bosom of thy love for Christ's sake; castle me in the arms of thy everlasting strength. It is in thy power to save me from or give me up into the hands of my enemy. I have no confidence in myself or any other. Into thy hands I commit my cause, my life, and rely on thee." This dependence of a soul undoubtedly will awaken the almighty power of God for such a one's defense. He hath sworn the greatest oath that can come out of his blessed lips, even by himself, that such as "flee for refuge" to hope in him shall have "strong consolation" .

THE PRINCE WITH HIS FAMILY IN DANGER.--Suppose a king's son should get out of a besieged city where he hath left his wife and children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die by sword or famine, if supply come not the sooner. Could this prince, when arrived at his father's house, please himself with the delights of the court and forget the distress of his family? or rather would he not come post to his father, having their cries and groans always in his ears, and before he ate or drank do his errand to his father, and entreat him if he ever loved him that he would send all the force of his kingdom to raise the siege rather than any of his dear relations should perish? Surely, sirs, though Christ be in the top of his preferment and out of the storm in regard of his own person, yet his children, left behind in the midst of sin's, Satan's, and the world's batteries, are in his heart, and shall not be forgotten a moment by him. The care he takes in our business appeared in the speedy despatch he made of his spirit to his apostles' supply, which, as soon almost as he was warm in his seat at his Father's right hand, he sent, to the incomparable comfort of his apostles and us that to this day--yea, to the end of the world--do or shall believe on him.

PROVIDENCE IN CONVERSION.--A scrap of paper accidentally coming to view hath been used as an occasion of conversion. This was the case of a minister of Wales who had two livings but took little care of either. He, being at a fair, bought something at a peddler's standing, and rent off a leaf of Mr. Perkins' catechism to wrap it in, and reading a line or two of it, God sent it home so as it did the work.

The marriage of a godly man into a carnal family hath been ordered by Providence for the conversion and salvation of many therein. Thus we read in the life of that renowned English worthy, Mr. John Bruen, that in his second match it was agreed that he should have one year's diet in his mother-in-law's house. During his abode there that year, saith Mr. Clark, the Lord was pleased by his means graciously to work upon her soul, as also upon his wife's sister and half-sister, their brothers, Mr. William and Mr. Thomas Fox, with one or two of the servants in that family.

Not only the reading of a book or hearing of a minister, but--which is most remarkable--the very mistake or forgetfulness of a minister hath been improved by Providence for this end and purpose. Augustine, once preaching to his congregation, forgot the argument which he first proposed, and fell upon the errors of the Manichees beside his first intention, by which discourse he converted one Firmus, his auditor, who fell down at his feet weeping and confessing he had lived a Manichee many years. Another I knew who, going to preach, took up another Bible than that he had designed, in which, not only missing his notes but the chapter also in which his text lay, was put to some loss thereby. But after a short pause he resolved to speak about any other Scripture that might be presented to him, and accordingly read the text, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise" ; and though he had nothing prepared, yet the Lord helped him to speak both methodically and pertinently from it, by which discourse a gracious change was wrought upon one in the congregation, who hath since given good evidence of a sound conversion, and acknowledged this sermon to be the first and only means thereof.

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE MILKMAID.--Queen Elizabeth envied the milkmaid when she was in prison, but had she known the glorious reign which she was to have for forty-four years she would not have repined at the poor happiness of so mean a person. Christians are too prone to envy the husks which wandering sinners fill themselves with here below; but would they set before them their glorious hopes of a heaven, how they must reign with Christ forever and ever, they would see little reason for their repining.

HEDGEHOG AND CONIES.--The Fabulist tells a story of the hedgehog that came to the cony-burrows in stormy weather and desired harbor, promising that he would be a quiet guest; but when once he had gotten entertainment he did set up his prickles, and did never leave till he had thrust the poor conies out of their burrows. So covetousness, though it hath many fair pleas to insinuate and wind itself into the heart, yet as soon as you have let it in, this thorn will never cease pricking till it hath choked all good beginnings and thrust all religion out of your hearts.

THE TWO CHAPLAINS.--You cannot do without the grace of God when you come to die. There was a nobleman that kept a deistical chaplain and his lady a Christian one. When he was dying he says to his chaplain, "I liked you very well when I was in health, but it is my lady's chaplain I must have when I am sick."

NEVER SATISFIED.--My dear hearers, there is not a single soul of you all that is satisfied in your station. Is not the language of your hearts when apprentices. We think we shall do very well when journeymen; when journeymen, that we shall do very well when masters; when single, that we shall do well when married? And, to be sure, you think you shall do well when you keep a carriage. I have heard of one who began low. He first wanted a house; then, says he, "I want two, then four, then six." And when he had them he said, "I think I want nothing else." "Yes," says his friend, "you will soon want another thing; that is a hearse-and-six to carry you to your grave." And that made him tremble.

Fearing that the quotation of any more examples might prove tedious, I would only remind you that such men as Berridge, Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, Christmas Evans, William Jay, and others who have but lately departed from us, owed much of their attractiveness to the way in which they aroused their audiences, and flashed truth into their faces by well-chosen anecdotes. Time calls upon me to have done, and how can I come to a better close than by mentioning one living man, who, above all others, has in two continents stirred the masses of the people? I refer to D. L. Moody. This admirable brother has a great aversion to the printing of his sermons; and well he may have, for he is incessantly preaching, and has no time allowed him for the preparation of fresh discourses; and therefore it would be great unwisdom on his part to print at once those addresses with which he is working through a campaign. We hope, however, that when he has done with a sermon he will never suffer it to die out, but give it to the church and to the world through the press. Our esteemed brother has a lively, telling style, and he thinks it wise frequently to fasten a nail with the hammer of anecdote. Here are three extracts from the little book entitled "Arrows and Anecdotes by D. L. Moody."

THE IDIOT'S MOTHER.--I know a mother who has an idiot child. For it she gave up all society--almost everything--and devoted her whole life to it. "And now," said she, "for fourteen years I have tended it and loved it, and it does not even know me. Oh, it is breaking my heart!" Oh, how the Lord must say this of hundreds here! Jesus comes here, and goes from seat to seat asking if there is a place for him. Oh, will not some of you take him into your hearts?

SURGEON AND PATIENT.--When I was in Belfast I knew a doctor who had a friend, a leading surgeon there, and he told me that the surgeon's custom was, before performing any operation, to say to the patient, "Take a good look at the wound and then fix your eyes on me, and don't take them off till I get through the operation." I thought at the time that was a good illustration. Sinner, take a good look at the wound to-night, and then fix your eyes on Christ and don't take them off. It is better to look at the remedy than at the wound.

THE ROLL-CALL.--A soldier lay on his dying couch during our last war, and they heard him say, "Here!" They asked him what he wanted, and he put up his hand and said, "Hush! They are calling the roll of heaven, and I am answering to my name." And presently he whispered, "Here!" and he was gone.

Windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing.

Keep you the due proportion of things lest I do worse than lose my labor, by becoming the cause of your presenting to the people strings of anecdotes instead of sound doctrines, for that would be as evil a thing as if you offered to hungry men flowers instead of bread, and gave to the naked gauze of gossamer instead of woolen cloth.

We want to win attention at the commencement of the service, and to hold it till the close. With this aim, many methods may be tried; but possibly none will succeed better than the introduction of an interesting story. This sets Hodge listening, and although he will miss the fresh air of the fields, and begin to feel drowsy in your stuffy chapel, another tale will stir him to renewed attention. If he hears some narrative in connection with his village or county, you will have him "all there," and you may then hope to do him good.

The anecdote in the sermon answers the purpose of an engraving in a book. Everybody knows that people are attracted by volumes with pictures in them; and that, when a child gets a book, although it may pass over the letterpress without observation, it is quite sure to pause over the woodcuts. Let us not be too great to use a method which many have found successful. We must have attention. In some audiences we cannot get it if we begin with solid instruction; they are not desirous of being taught, and consequently they are not in a condition to receive the truth if we set it before them nakedly. Now for a bunch of flowers to attract these people to our table, for afterward we can feed them with the food they so much need. Just as the Salvation Army goes trumpeting and drumming through the streets to draw the people into the barracks, so may an earnest man spend the first few minutes with an unprepared congregation in waking the folks up, and enticing them to enter the inner chamber of the truth. Even this awakening prelude must have in it that which is worthy of the occasion; but if it is not up to your usual average in weight of doctrine, it may not only be excused, but commended, if it prepares the audience to receive that which is to follow. Ground-bait may catch no fish; but it answers its purpose if it brings them near the bait and the hook.

A congregation which has been well instructed, and is mainly made up of established believers, will not need to be addressed in the same style as an audience gathered fresh from the world, or a meeting of dull, formal church-goers. Your common sense will teach you to suit your manner to your audience. It is possible to maintain profound and long-continued attention without the use of an illustration; I have frequently done so in the Tabernacle when it has been mainly filled with church-members; but when my own people are away, and strangers fill their places, I bring out all my store of stories, similes, and parables.

We cannot afford in these days to lose any opportunity of getting hold of the public ear. We must use every occasion that comes in our way, and every tool that is likely to help us in our work; and we must rouse up all our faculties, and put forth all our energies, if that by any means we may get the people to heed that which they are so slow to regard, the great story of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. We shall need to read much, and to study hard, or else we shall not be able to influence our day and generation for good. I believe that the greatest industry is necessary to make a thoroughly efficient preacher, and the best natural ability, too; and it is my firm conviction that, when you have the best natural ability, you must supplement it with the greatest imaginable industry, if you are really to do much service for God among this crooked and perverse generation.

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."

Our Lord's teaching was amazingly lifelike and vivid; it was the setting out of truth before the eye, not as a flat picture, but as in a stereoscope, making it stand up, with all its lines and angles of beauty in lifelike reality. That was a fine living sermon when he took a little child, and set him in the midst of the disciples; and that was another powerful discourse when he preached about abstaining from carking cares, and stooped down and plucked a lily and said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." I can readily suppose that some ravens were flying just over his head, and that he pointed to them, and said, "Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them." There was a lifelikeness; you see, a vividness, about the whole thing. We cannot always literally imitate our Lord, as we have mostly to preach in places of worship. It is a blessing that we have so many houses of prayer, and I thank God that there are so many of them springing up all around us; yet I should praise the Lord still more if half the ministers who preach in our various buildings were made to turn out of them, and to speak for their Master in the highways and byways, and anywhere that the people would go to listen to them. We are to go out into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature--not to stop in our chapels waiting for every creature to come in to hear what we have to say. A sportsman who should sit at his parlor window, with his gun loaded all ready for shooting partridges, would probably not make up a very heavy bag of game. No; he must put on his buskins, and tramp off over the fields, and then he will get a shot at the birds he is seeking. So must we do, brethren; we must always have our buskins ready for field work, and be ever on the watch for opportunities of going out among the souls of men, that we may bring them back as trophies of the power of the gospel we have to proclaim.

I should not recommend any of you to be so lifelike in your ministry as that notable French priest, who, addressing his congregation, said, "As to the Magdalenes and those who commit the sins of the flesh, such persons are very common; they abound even in this church; and I am going to throw this mass-book at a woman who is a Magdalene," whereupon all the women in the place bent down their heads. So the priest said, "No, surely you are not all Magdalenes; I hardly thought that was the case; but you see how your sin finds you out!" Nor should I even recommend you to follow the example of the clergyman, who, when a collection was to be made for lighting and warming the church, after he had preached some time, blew out the candles on both sides of the pulpit, saying that the collection was for the lights and the fires, and he did not require any light, for he did not read his sermon, "but," he added, "when Roger gives out the psalm presently, you will want a light to see your books; so the candles are for yourselves. And as for the stove, I do not need its heat, for my exercise in preaching is sufficient to keep me warm; therefore you see that the collection is wholly for yourselves on this occasion. Nobody can say that the clergy are collecting for themselves this time, for on this Sunday it is wholly for your own selves." I thought the man was a fool for making such remarks, though I find that his conduct has been referred to as being a very excellent instance of boldness in preaching.

You probably recollect the instance of Whitefield depicting the blind man, with his dog, walking on the brink of a precipice, and his foot almost slipping over the edge. The preacher's description was so graphic, and the illustration so vivid and lifelike, that Lord Chesterfield sprang up and exclaimed, "Good God, he's gone!" but Whitefield answered, "No, my lord, he is not quite gone; let us hope that he may yet be saved." Then he went on to speak of the blind man as being led by his reason, which is only like a dog, showing that a man led only by reason is ready to fall into hell. How vividly one would see the love of money set forth in the story told by our venerable friend, Mr. Rogers, of a man who, when he lay a-dying, would put his money in his mouth because he loved it so and wanted to take some of it with him! How strikingly is the non-utility of worldly wealth, as a comfort to us in our last days, brought before us by the narrative in which good Jeremiah Burroughes speaks of a miser who had his money-bags laid near his hand on his dying-bed! He kept taking them up, and saying, "Must I leave you? Must I leave you? Have I lived all these years for you, and now must I leave you?" And so he died. There is a tale told of another, who had many pains in his death, and especially the great pain of a disturbed conscience. He also had his money-bags brought, one by one, with his mortgages, and bonds, and deeds, and putting them near his heart, he sighed, and said, "These won't do; these won't do; these won't do; take them away! What poor things they all are when I most need comfort in my dying moments!"

How distinctly love to Christ is brought out in the story of John Lambert, fastened to the stake, and burning to death, yet clapping his hands as he was burning, and crying out, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" until his nether extremities were burned, and he fell from the chains into the fire, still exclaiming in the midst of the flames, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" How clearly the truth stands out before you when you hear such stories as these! You can realize it almost as well as if the incident happened before your eyes. How well you can see the folly of misunderstanding between Christians in Mr. Jay's story of two men who were walking from opposite directions on a foggy night! Each saw what he thought was a terrible monster moving toward him, and making his heart beat with terror; as they came nearer to each other, they found that the dreadful monsters were brothers. So, men of different denominations are often afraid of one another; but when they get close to each other, and know each other's hearts, they find out that they are brethren after all. The story of the negro and his master well illustrates the need of beginning at the beginning in heavenly things, and not meddling with the deeper points of our holy religion till we have learned its elements thoroughly. A poor negro was laboring hard to bring his master to a knowledge of the truth, and was urging him to exercise faith in Christ, when he excused himself because he could not understand the doctrine of election. "Ah! Massa," said the negro, "don't you know what comes before de Epistle to de Romans? You must read de Book de right way; de doctrine ob election is in Romans, and dere is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, first. You are only in Matthew yet; dat is about repentance; and when you get to John, you will read where de Lord Jesus Christ said dat God so loved de world, dat he gave his only begotten Son, dat whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but hab everlasting life." So, brethren, you can say to your hearers, "You will do better by reading the four Gospels first than by beginning to read in Romans; first study Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then you can go on to the Epistles."

What a capital exposition of the fifth commandment was that which was given by Corporal Trim, when he was asked, "What dost thou mean by honoring thy father and thy mother?" and he answered, "Please, your honor, it is allowing them a shilling a week out of my pay when they grow old." That was an admirable explanation of the meaning of the text. Then, if you are trying to show how we are to be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, there is a story of a woman who, when asked by the minister what he had said on Sunday, replied that she did not remember the sermon; but it had touched her conscience, for when she got home she burned her bushel, which was short measure. There is another story which also goes to show that the gospel may be useful even to hearers who forget what they have heard. A woman is called upon by her minister on the Monday, and he finds her washing wool in a sieve, holding it under the pump. He asks her, "How did you enjoy last Sabbath's discourses?" and she says that they did her much good. "Well, what was the text?" She does not recollect. "What was the subject?" "Ah, sir, it is quite gone from me!" says the poor woman. Does she remember any of the remarks that were made? No, they are all gone. "Well, then, Mary," says the minister, "it could not have done you much good." Oh! but it had done her a great deal of good; and she explained it to him by saying, "I will tell you, sir, how it is; I put this wool in the sieve under the pump, I pump on it, and all the water runs through the sieve, but then it washes the wool. So it is with your sermon; it comes into my heart, and then it runs right through my poor memory, which is like a sieve, but it washes em clean, sir." You might talk for a long while about the cleansing and sanctifying power of the Word, and it would not make such an impression upon your hearers as that simple story would.

What finer exposition of the text, "Weep with them that weep," can you have than this pretty anecdote? "Mother," said little Annie, "I cannot make out why poor Widow Brown likes me to go in to see her; she says I do comfort her so; but, mother, I cannot say anything to comfort her, and as soon as she begins crying, I put my arms round her neck, and I cry too, and she says that that comforts her." And so it does; that is the very essence of the comfort, the sympathy, the fellow-feeling that moved the little girl to weep with the weeping widow. Mr. Hervey thus illustrates the great truth of the different appearance of sin to the eye of God and the eye of man. He says that you may take a small insect, and with the tiniest needle make a puncture in it so minute that you can scarcely see it with the naked eye; but when you look at it through a microscope, you see an enormous rent, out of which there flows a purple stream, making the creature seem to you as though it had been smitten with the ax that killeth an ox. It is but a defect of our vision that we cannot see things correctly; but the microscope reveals them as they really are. Thus you may explain to your hearers how God's microscopic eye sees sin in its true aspects. Suppose that you wanted to set forth the character of Caleb, who followed the Lord fully; it would greatly help many of your people if you said that the name Caleb signifies a dog, and then showed how a dog follows his master. There is his owner on horseback, riding along the miry roads; but the dog keeps as close to him as he can, no matter how much mud and dirt are splashed upon him, and not heeding the kicks he might get from the horse's heels. Even so should we follow the Lord. If you wish to exemplify the shortness of time, you might bring in the poor seamstress, with her little piece of candle, stitching away to get her work done before the light went out.

Many preachers find the greatest difficulty in getting suitable metaphors to set forth simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a capital anecdote of an idiot who was asked by the minister, who was trying to instruct him, whether he had a soul. To the utter consternation of his kind teacher, he replied, "No, I have no soul." The preacher said he was greatly surprised, after he had been taught for years, that he did not know better than that; but the poor fellow thus explained himself, "I had a soul once, but I lost it; and Jesus Christ came and found it, and now I let him keep it, for it is his, it does not belong to me any longer." That is a fine picture of the way of salvation by simple faith in the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the smallest child in the congregation might be able to understand it through the story of the poor idiot.

I have heard of some persons who have had objections to labor for the conversion of their children, on the ground that God would save his own without any effort on our part. I remember making one man wince who held this view, by telling him of a father who would never teach his child to pray, or have him instructed even as to the meaning of prayer. He thought it was wrong, and that such work ought to be left to God's Holy Spirit. The boy fell down and broke his leg, and had to have it taken off; and all the while the surgeon was amputating it the boy was cursing and swearing in the most frightful manner. The good surgeon said to the father, "You see, you would not teach your boy to pray, but the devil evidently had no objection to teach him to swear." That is the mischief of it; if we do not try our best to bring our children to Christ, there is another who will do his worst to drag them down to hell. A mother once said to her sick son, who was about to die, and was in a dreadful state of mind, "My boy, I am sorry you are in such trouble; I am sure I never taught you any hurt." "No, mother," he answered, "but you never taught me any good; and therefore there was room for all sorts of evil to get into me." All these stories will be to many people the very best kind of argument that you could possibly use with them. You bring to them facts, and these facts reach their conscience, even though it is embedded in several inches of callousness.

I do not know of any reasoning that would explain the need of submission to the will of God better than the telling of the story, which Mr. Gilpin gives us in his Life, of his being called in to pray with a woman whose boy was very ill. The good man asked that God would, if it were his will, restore the dear child to life and health, when the mother interrupted him, and said, "No, I cannot agree to such a prayer as that; I cannot put it in that shape; it must be God's will to restore him. I cannot bear that my child should die; pray that he may live whether it is God's will or not." He answered, "Woman, I cannot pray that prayer, but it is answered; your child will recover, but you will live to rue the day that you made such a request." Twenty years after, there was a woman carried away in a fainting fit from under a drop at Tyburn, for her son had lived long enough to bring himself to the gallows by his crimes. The mother's wicked prayer had been heard, and God had answered it. So, if you want to prove the power of the gospel, do not go on expending words to no purpose, but tell the stories of cases you have met with that illustrate the truth you are enforcing, for such anecdotes will convince your hearers as no other kind of reasoning can. I think that is clear enough to every one of you.

Anecdotes are useful, also, because they often appeal very forcibly to human nature. In order to rebuke those who profane the Sabbath, tell the story of the gentleman who had seven sovereigns, and who met with a poor fellow, to whom he gave six out of the seven, and then the wicked wretch turned round and robbed him of the seventh. How clearly that sets forth the ingratitude of our sinful race in depriving God of that one day out of the seven which he has set apart for his own service! This story appeals to nature, too. Two or three boys come round one of their companions, and they say to him, "Let us go and get some cherries out of your father's garden." "No," he replies, "I cannot steal, and my father does not wish those cherries to be picked." "Oh, but then your father is so kind, and he never beats you!" "Ah, I know that is true!" answers the boy, "and that is the very reason why I would not steal his cherries." This would show that the grace and goodness of God do not lead his children to licentiousness; but, on the contrary, they restrain them from sin. This story, also, appeals to human nature, and shows that the fathers of the church are not always to be depended upon as fountains of authority. A nobleman had heard of a certain very old man, who lived in a village, and he sought out and found him, and ascertained that he was seventy years of age. He was talking with him, supposing him to be the oldest inhabitant, when the man said, "Oh, no, sir, I am not the oldest; I am not the father of the village; there is an older one--my father--who is still alive." So, I have heard of some who have said that they turned away from "the fathers" of the church to the very old fathers, that is, away from what are commonly called "the patristic fathers," back to the apostles, who are the true fathers and grandfathers of the Christian Church.

Sometimes anecdotes have force in them on account of their appealing to the sense of the ludicrous. Of course, I must be very careful here, for it is a sort of tradition of the fathers that it is wrong to laugh on Sundays. The eleventh commandment is, that we are to love one another, and then, according to some people, the twelfth is, "Thou shalt pull a long face on Sunday." I must confess that I would rather hear people laugh than I would see them asleep in the house of God; and I would rather get the truth into them through the medium of ridicule than I would have the truth neglected, or leave the people to perish through lack of reception of the truth. I do believe in my heart that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two, for I may weep, and be murmuring, and repining, and thinking all sorts of bitter thoughts against God; while, at another time, I may laugh the laugh of sarcasm against sin, and so evince a holy earnestness in the defense of the truth. I do not know why ridicule is to be given up to Satan as a weapon to be used against us, and not to be employed by us as a weapon against him. I will venture to affirm that the Reformation owed almost as much to the sense of the ridiculous in human nature as to anything else, and that those humorous squibs and caricatures that were issued by the friends of Luther, did more to open the eyes of Germany to the abominations of the priesthood than the more solid and ponderous arguments against Romanism. I know no reason why we should not, on suitable occasions, try the same style of reasoning. "It is a dangerous weapon," it will be said, "and many men will cut their fingers with it." Well, that is their own lookout; but I do not know why we should be so particular about their cutting their fingers, if they can, at the same time, cut the throat of sin, and do serious damage to the great adversary of souls.

Here is a story that I should not mind telling on a Sunday for the benefit of certain people who are good at hearing sermons and attending prayer-meetings, but who are very bad hands at business. They never work on Sundays because they never work on any day of the week; they forget that part of the commandment which says, "Six days shalt thou labor," which is just as binding as the other part, "The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." To these people who never labor because they are so heavenly-minded, I would tell the story of a certain monk, who entered a monastery, but who would not work in the fields, or the garden, or at making clothes, or anything else, because, as he told the superior, he was a spiritually-minded monk. He wondered, when the dinner-hour approached, that there came to him no summons from the refectory. So he went down to the prior, and said, "Don't the brethren eat here? Are you not going to have any dinner?" The prior said, "We do, because we are carnal; but you are so spiritual that you do not work, and therefore you do not require to eat; that is why we did not call you. The law of this monastery is, that if any man will not work, neither shall he eat."

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