been made by the first telescope, and he uses this extraordinary language: "Fearing the fate of our master Copernicus, who, altho he has earned immortal fame among a few, yet, by an infinite number, so only can the number of fools be measured, is hissed and derided." It was a peril in the seventeenth century even to say what those starry heavens are. They have no relation at all to the objects that we see. That little group of the Pleiades, which look like fireflies hung in a net in the sky, in which a very keen eye can perceive seven distinct stars, is really a group of between 400 and 500 suns, many of them larger than our own. And that genial sun himself, whose light we love, which gives to our planet its life, its warmth and its joy—if we could approach it would terrify us the more we approached it—a mighty mass of incandescent matter so awful that the imagination dare hardly entertain the reality of what it is. It may be said, however, that while these distant objects of the universe possibly mislead us, our eyes at any rate can trust the things which are close at hand. But that is quite a delusion, too. The matter which is close at hand, and which our fathers thirty years ago treated as the one certainty in the world, is a complete illusion. I took up in my hand some time ago a few grains of dried mud from a river-bed. To all appearance they were like grains of gun-*powder, but they were put under the microscope, and there to my amazement every one of these tiny grains was a shell, as beautiful and as perfect in form as a nautilus sailing upon the sea. Not only does the matter we see delude us, but the delusion is greater from the fact of what we do not see. Now, the physicist seriously tells us he is using the strict language of science, and not the language of a fairy tale, when he says that all the matter we touch, including our own bodies, is made up of molecules, and the molecule is made up of atoms, an atom far too minute for the eye to see; and yet that atom, of which all matter is built up, is itself composed of electrons, so minute that they dart with inconceivable velocity from end to end of that tiny atom like a mouse in a great cathedral—such is the proportion of the electron to the atom.—Robert F. Horton, The Christian World Pulpit.
(1512)
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CANDLES
Mr. Spurgeon had occasion, some time ago, says the Hartford Courant, to speak to a company of theological students on the importance of using illustrations in preaching.
A student observed that they found it difficult
to get illustrations, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon
remarked that illustrations enough might be
found in a tallow candle. This was regarded
as an extravagance of speech, whereupon the
great preacher prepared a lecture to show
what might be illustrated by candles. In delivering
his lecture he used candles of various
sizes and colors, together with lanterns and
other suitable apparatus. A nicely japanned
but shut-up box filled with fine unused candles
illustrated an idle and spiritless church.
Several colossal and highly-colored but unlit
candles were shown, and with them a tiny
rushlight shining as best it could. The big,
handsome, unlit candles might be archbishops
or doctors of divinity, or other persons
of culture without piety, and the bright
rushlight might be some poor boy in a workshop
whose life is beautiful. Mr. Spurgeon
showed an unlighted candle in a splendid
silver candlestick, and then a brightly burning
one stuck in a ginger-beer bottle. He
showed what a few people might do by combining
their good efforts, by exhibiting the
combined light of twelve candles. The
folly of trying to light a candle with the extinguisher
still on was shown, and the dark-*lantern
illustrated the care of people who
make no effort to let their light shine before
men. The lecturer then placed a candle
under a bushel, and afterward placed the
bushel-measure under the candle—the point
of which was obvious. In snuffing a candle
he extinguished it, and remarked that Christians
often did a like mischief by unwise rebukes
and criticisms. The folly of burning
the candle at both ends was illustrated. The
last illustration was a number of lighted candles
of various hues placed together on one
stand, representing the Church's true diversity
in unity, all the different branches burning
from one stem, and for one purpose.
Some one in the audience asked if the "dips"
did not give the best light, whereupon Mr.
Spurgeon said he was not sure of that, and
thought many of the "dips" would be the
better for another dipping.
The man of genius can find illustrations
in common things—sermons in
stones or in candles. Every preacher
should work these mines of natural analogies.
(1513)
ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING
A good illustration is the most powerful
"motor" ever invented; it will drag a whole
congregation which has drifted into infinite
