1.G 03. They Assist Argument
They Assist Argument.
Look a little at the result to be accomplished by facile and skilful illustrations. In the first place, they are helpful in all that part of preaching which is naturally based upon pure reasoning, and which is somewhat obscure to minds not trained in philosophical thought. There ought to be in every sermon something that shall task your audience somewhat as it tasked you; otherwise you will not compass some of the noblest themes that lie in the sphere of your duty. But pure ratiocination addresses itself to but a very small class of the community. There are very few men who can follow a close argument from beginning to end; and those who can are trained to it, it being an artificial habit, though, of course, some minds are more apt for it than others. But the theme must be very familiar, and the argument must be largely a statement of facts, for most audiences to understand it. If you go one step beyond this, into philosophy or metaphysics, so called, as you must do sometimes, you will be in danger of leaving half your audience behind you.
Illustrations, while they make it easier for all, are absolutely the only means by which a large part of your audience will be able to understand at all the abstruse processes of reasoning. For a good, compact argument, without illustrations, is very much like the old-fashioned towers that used to be built before artillery was invented; they were built strong, of stone, all the way up above a ladder’s reach without a door or a window-slit. The first apartment was so high that it was safe from scaling, and then came a few windows, and very narrow ones at that. Such were good places for beleaguered men, but they were very poor places to bring up a family in, where there were no windows to let in the light.
Now an illustration is a window in an argument, and lets in light. You may reason without an illustration; but where you are employing a process of pure reasoning and have arrived at a conclusion, if you can then by an illustration flash back light upon what you have said, you will bring into the minds of your audience a realization of your argument that they cannot get in any other way. I have seen an audience, time and again, follow an argument, doubt fully, laboriously, almost suspiciously, and look at one another, as much as to say, “ Is he going right? until the place is arrived at, where the speaker says, “ It is like/ and then they listen eagerly for what it is like; and when some apt illustration is thrown out before them, there is a sense of relief, as though they said, “ Yes, he is right.” If you have cheated them, so much the worse for you; but if your illustrations are as true as your argument, and your argument true as the truth itself, then you have helped them a great deal. So that, as a mere matter of help to reason, illustrations are of vast utility in speaking to an audience.