1.G 12. Necessity of Variety

Necessity of Variety. But to continue illustrations for any considerable time, you must draw them from various sources. To do this you must study the natural world, the different phases of human society, and the life of the household, in moral colours. These are inexhaustible sources from which to draw the needful instruction.

If you are preaching to pedants, you may properly enough illustrate by the ancient classics; but if you are preaching to common people you must not confine yourself to that course, although it is allowable, once in a while, to use some illustration drawn from the heroes of ancient history and mythology. But what may be called scholarly illustrations are not generally good for the common people. They may serve to impress the more ignorant with a sense of your knowledge, but that is not what you are called to preach for. That would be a poor business. In the development of this faculty of illustration it is necessary to know the philosophy of it. All illustrations, to be apt, should touch your people where their level is. I do not know that this art can be learned; but I may suggest that it is a good thing, in looking over an audience, to cultivate the habit of seeing illustrations in them. If I see a seaman sitting among my audience, I do not say, “ I will use him as a figure/ and apply it person ally; “but out of him jumps an illustration from the sea, and it comes to seek me out. If there be a watchmaker present that I happen to recognize, my next illustration will very likely be from horology; though he will be utterly unconscious of the use I have made of him. Then I see a school-mistress, and my next illustration will be out of school-teaching. Thus, where your audience is known to you, the illustration ought not simply to meet your wants as a speaker, but it should meet the wants of your congregation it should be a help to them.