Lectures to My Students, Volume 2 — The Art of Illustration · Lecture 4 — Charles H. Spurgeon
DEAR BRETHREN, after my last lecture to you, upon the uses of anecdotes and illustrations, you are probably quite ready to employ them in your discourses; but some of you may ask, “Where can we get them?” At the very beginning of this afternoon’s talk, let me say that nobody need make anecdotes in order to interest a congregation. I have heard of one, who called to see a minister on a Friday, and lie was told by the servant that her master could not be seen, for he was up in his study “making anecdotes.” That kind of work will not do for a Christian minister. I would also bill you beware of the many common anecdotes, which are often repeated, but which I half suspect could not be proved to be matters of fact. Whenever I have the slightest suspicion about the truth of a story, I drop it at once; and I think that everyone else should do the same. So long as the anecdotes are current, and are generally believed, and provided they can be used for a profitable purpose, I believe they may be told, without any affirmation as to their truthfulness being made in a court of justice; but the moment any doubt comes across the mind of the preacher as to ‘whether the tale is at least founded on fact., I think he had better look for something else, for he has the whole world to go to as a storehouse of illustration. If you want to interest your congregation, and keep up their attention, you can find anecdotes and illustrations in many channels, like golden grains glistening amongst the mountain streams. For instance, there is current history. You may take up the daily newspaper, and find illustrations there. In my little shilling book, ‘The Bible and the Newspaper, I have given specimens of how this may be done; and when I was preparing the present lecture, I took up a newspaper to see if I could find an illustration in it, and I soon found one. There was an account of a man at Wandsworth, who was discovered, with a gun and a dog, trespassing on some gentleman’s preserves, and he said that he was only looking for mushrooms! Can you imagine what the gun and the dog had to do with mushrooms? However, the keeper felt in the man’s pocket, and laying hold of something soft, asked, “What is this?” “Oh!” said the poacher, “it is only a rabbit.” When it was suggested to him that the creature’s ears were too long for a rabbit, he said that it was only a leveret, whereas it proved to be a very’ fine and plump hare. The man, then said that he had found the hare lying near some mushrooms, but his intention was to get the mushrooms only! Now, that is a capital illustration. As soon as ever you lay hold of a man, and begin to accuse him of sin, he says, “Sin, sir! Oh, dear no! I was only doing a very proper thing, just what I have a perfect right to do; I was looking for mushrooms, I was not poaching!” You press him a little more closely, and try to bring him to conviction of sin; and then he says, “Well, perhaps it was hardly the thing, it may have been a little amiss; but it was only a rabbit!” When the man cannot any longer deny that he is guilty of sin, he says that it was only a very little one; and it is long before you can get him to admit that sin is exceeding sinful; indeed, no human power can ever produce genuine conviction in the heart of a single sinner; it must be the work of the Holy Spirit.
I also read, in the same newspaper, of a calamitous shipwreck, caused through the lack of lights. You could easily turn that incident to account by using it to illustrate the destruction of souls through the want of a knowledge of Christ. I have no doubt, if you were to take up any of this morning’s daily papers, you would very readily find an abundance of illustrations. Mr. Newman Hall, in addressing us once, said that every Christian minister ought to read regularly his Bible and The Times newspaper! should imagine, from the usual mode of his address, that he does so himself. Whether you read that particular paper, or any other, you should somehow keep yourselves well stored with illustrations taken from the ordinary transactions going on round about you. I pity even a Sundayschool teacher, much more a minister of the gospel, who could not make use of such incidents as the terrible burning of the church at Santiago, the great fire at London Bridge, the entrance into London of the Princess Alexandra, the taking of the census; and, indeed, anything that attracts public attention. There is in all these events an illustration, a simile, an allegory, which may point a moral, and adorn a tale. You may sometimes adapt local history to the illustration of your subject. When a minister is preaching in any particular district, he will often find it best to catch the ears of the people, and engross their attention, by relating some anecdote that relates to the place where they live. Whenever I can, I get the histories of various counties; for, having to go into all sorts of country towns and villages to preach, I find that there is a great deal of useful material to be dug out of even dull, dry, topographical books. They begin, perhaps, with the name of John Smith, laborer the man who keeps the parish register, and winds up the parish clock, and makes mouse-traps, and catches rats, and does fifty other useful things; but if you have the patience to read on, you will find much information that you could get nowhere else, and you will probably meet with many incidents and anecdotes that you can use as illustrations of the truth you are seeking to set forth. Preaching at Winslow, in Buckinghamshire, it would not be at all amiss to introduce the incident of good Benjamin Keach, the pastor of the Baptist church in that town, standing in the pillory in the market-place in the year 1664:, “for writing, printing, and publishing a schismatical book, entitled, The Child’s Instructor; or, a New and Easy Primmer.” I do not think, however, that, if were preaching at Wapping, I should call the people” sinners”, as Rowland Hill is said to have done, when he told them that “Christ could save old sinners, great sinners, yea, even Wapping sinners!” At Craven Chapel, it would ‘be most appropriate to tell the story of Lord Craven, who was packing up his goods to go into the country at the time of the Great Plague of London, when his servant said to him, “My lord, does your God live only in the country?” “No,” replied Lord Craven, “he is here as well as there.” “Well, then,” said the servant, “if! were your lordship, I think I would stop here; you will be as safe in the city as in the country;” and Lord Craven did stop there, relying upon: the good providence of God.