The Art of Illustration

by C. H. Spurgeon

It is pretty generally admitted that sermons may wisely be adorned with a fair share of illustrations; but anecdotes used to that end are still regarded by the prudes of the pulpit with a measure of suspicion. They will come down low enough to quote an emblem, they will deign to use poetic imagery; but they cannot stoop to tell a simple, homely story. They would probably say in confidence to their younger brethren, "Beware how you lower yourselves and your sacred office by repeating anecdotes, which are best appreciated by the vulgar and uneducated." We would not retort by exhorting all men to abound in stories, for there ought to be discrimination. It is freely admitted that there are useful and admirable styles of oratory which would be disfigured by a rustic tale; and there are honored brethren whose genius would never allow them to relate a story, for it would not appear suitable to their mode of thought. Upon these we would not even by implication hint at a censure; but when we are dealing with others who seem to be somewhat, and are not what they seem, we feel no tenderness; nay, we are even moved to assail their stilted greatness. If they sneer at anecdotes, we smile at them and their sneers, and wish them more sense and less starch. Affectation of intellectual superiority and love of rhetorical splendor have prevented many from setting forth gospel truth in the easiest imaginable manner, namely, by analogies drawn from common events. Because they could not condescend to men of low estate, they have refrained from repeating incidents which would have accurately explained their meaning. Fearing to be thought vulgar, they have lost golden opportunities. As well might David have refused to sling one of the smooth stones at Goliath's brow because he found it in a common brook.

From individuals so lofty in their ideas nothing is likely to flow down to the masses of the people but a glacial eloquence—a river of ice. Dignity is a most poor and despicable consideration unless it be the dignity of turning many to righteousness; and yet divines who have had scarcely enough of real dignity to save themselves from contempt have swollen "huge as high Olympus" through the affectation of it. A young gentleman, after delivering an elaborate discourse, was told that not more than five or six in the congregation had been able to understand him. This he accepted as a tribute to his genius; but I take leave to place him in the same class with another person who was accustomed to shake his head in the most profound manner, that he might make his prelections the more impressive; and this had some effect with the groundlings, until a shrewd Christian woman made the remark that he did shake his head certainly, but that there was nothing in it. Those who are too refined to be simple need to be refined again. Luther has well put it in his "Table Talk": "Cursed are all preachers that in the church aim at high and hard things; and neglecting the saving health of the poor unlearned people, seek their own honor and praise, and therefore try to please one or two great persons. When I preach I sink myself deep down." It may be superfluous to remind you of the oft-quoted passage from George Herbert's "Country Parson," and yet I cannot omit it, because it is so much to my mind: "The Parson also serves himself of the judgments of God, as of those of ancient times, so especially of the late ones; and those most which are nearest to his parish; for people are very attentive at such discourses, and think it behooves them to be so when God is so near them, and even over their heads. Sometimes he tells them stories and sayings of others, according as his text invites him; for them also men heed, and remember better than exhortations; which, though earnest, yet often die with the sermon, especially with country people, which are thick and heavy, and hard to raise to a point of zeal and fervency, and need a mountain of fire to kindle them, but stories and sayings they will well remember."

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.

First, let me mention that grand old preacher, Hugh Latimer, the most English of all our divines, and one whose influence over our land was undoubtedly most powerful. Southey says, "Latimer more than any other man promoted the Reformation by his preaching;" and in this he echoes the more important utterance of Ridley, who wrote from his prison, "I do think that the Lord hath placed old father Latimer to be his standard-bearer in our age and country against his mortal foe, Antichrist." If you have read any of his sermons, you must have been struck with the number of his quaint stories, seasoned with a homely humor which smacks of that Leicestershire farmhouse wherein he was brought up by a father who did yeoman's service, and a mother who milked thirty kine. No doubt we may attribute to these stories the breaking down of pews by the overwhelming rush of the people to hear him, and the general interest which his sermons excited. More of such, preaching, and we should have less fear of the return of popery. The common people heard him gladly, and his lively anecdotes accounted for much of their eager attention. A few of these narratives one could hardly repeat, for the taste of our age has happily improved in delicacy; but others are most admirable and instructive. Here are two of 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.

Let us take a long leap of about a century, and we come to Jeremy Taylor, another bishop, whom I mention immediately after Latimer because he is apparently such a contrast to that homely divine, while yet in very truth he has a measure of likeness to him as to the point now in hand. They both rejoiced in figure and metaphor, and equally delighted in incident and narrative. True, the one would talk of John and William, and the other of Anexagoras and Scipio; but actual scenes were the delight of each. In this respect Jeremy Taylor may be said to be Latimer turned into Latin. Jeremy Taylor is as full of classical allusions as a king's palace is full of rare treasures, and his language is of the lofty order which more becomes a patrician audience than a popular assembly; but when you come to the essence of things, you see that if Latimer is homely, so also Taylor narrates incidents which are homely to him; but his home is among philosophers of Greece and senators of Rome. This being understood, we venture to say that no one used more anecdotes than this splendid poet-preacher. His biographer truly says: "It would be hard to point out a branch of learning or of scientific pursuit to which he does not occasionally allude; or any author of eminence, either ancient or modern, with whom he does not evince himself acquainted. He more than once refers to obscure stories in ancient writers, as if they were of necessity as familiar to all his readers as to himself; as, for instance, he talks of 'poor Attillius Aviola,' and again of 'the Libyan lion that brake loose into his wilderness and killed two Roman boys.'" In all this he is eminently select and classical, and therefore I the more freely introduce him here; for there can be no reason why our anecdotes should all be rustic; we, too, may rifle the treasures of antiquity, and make the heathen contribute to the gospel, even as Hiram of Tyre served under Solomon's direction for the building of the temple of the Lord.