ng them at times.
Sometimes an illustration, intended to light up a subject, rather takes
away the thought of a congregation from that subject than otherwise.
Sometimes, again, the illustration may be found to carry other
suggestions than were intended. The lad, to whom the wisdom of early
rising was sought to be illustrated by the good fortune of the early
bird in securing the first worm, drew precisely the opposite moral,
holding that the fate of the worm taught the wisdom of remaining in bed
until a later hour. Then an illustration may be even less clear than
the argument to be illustrated. We have heard scientific illustrations
of this character, from which the hearer derived a supplementary dose
of mystification rather than an elucidation of the problem with which
he was already manfully grappling. An illustration may be too
pathetic, and people may weep from the wrong cause, an event which
often occurs in church. It is one thing to shed tears over a touching
story and another to shed them from penitence. An illustration should
not be more sublime than the lesson to be taught lest there follow a
swift descent with loss of reverence by the way. There is a place for
humour in the pulpit, if it be natural to the preacher and flow
spontaneously, but a humorous illustration requires to be very
carefully chosen, lest, instead of the healthy and holy laughter often
so fatal to anger and meanness and pride, you have the guffaw in which
blessing is lost in excess. Other reflections as to illustrations are
the following:--First, the illustration, if a story, ought at least to
contain the element of probability. No preacher can _always_ satisfy
himself as to the literal truth of a story he may hear and wish to use,
but he can, at least, consider whether the event recounted was
possible. We have heard stories from the pulpit which were so hard to
swallow as to leave no room for the moral. We have heard illustrations
in sermons which have led to criticisms wherein the strength of the
preacher's imagination has not been passed over unrecognised. Further,
an illustration derives power from being drawn from sources familiar to
those to whom it is addressed. In some confessions regarding his early
ministry, Henry Ward Beecher enforces this very lesson in telling of
his failure to impress the people until he turned for his illustrations
to fields well known to them. Who has not seen a farm-labouring
audience lift their