The Art of IllustrationSpurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Religion
The Art of Illustration
Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Homiletical illustrations; Preaching
We have done with the solar system, and even with those interlopers
which come to us every now and then from far remote systems, for a
comet, I suppose, is only seen for a month, or a week, and then
sometimes does not reappear for hundreds of years. Where have they gone
all that while? Well, they have gone somewhere, and they are serving the
purpose of the God who made them, I dare say; but, for my own part, I
would not like to be a comet in God's system. I would like to have my
fixed place, and keep on shining for the Lord there. I have lived in
London for a good many years, and I have seen many comets come and go
during that time. Oh, the great lights I have seen rush by! They have
gone off into some unknown sphere, as comets usually do. I have
generally noticed that, when men are going to do so much more than
everybody else, and they are so amazingly pompous over it, their history
is usually pretty accurately described by that simple simile of going up
like a rocket and coming down like a stick.
* * * * *
I do not know whether you can, in imagination, lean over the battlements
of this little solar system, and see what there is beyond it. Do not
narrow your minds, gentlemen, to a few hundred millions of miles! If you
look out for a long way indeed, you will begin to see a star. I should
only be uttering meaningless words if I told you its distance from us;
yet there are others, of those that we are able to see, that are almost
immeasurably farther away. They have taken a deal of trouble to send us
a ray of light such a vast distance, to inform us that they are getting
on very well, and that, though they are at such a distance from us, they
still enjoy themselves as best they can in our absence.
These stars, as the common people look at them, seem to be scattered
about in the heavens, as we say, "anyhow." I always admire that charming
variety; and I am thankful to God that he has not set the stars in
straight lines, like rows of street-lamps. Only think, brethren, how it
would be if we looked up at night, and saw the stars all arranged in
rows, like pins on a paper! Bless the Lord, it is not so! He just took a
handful of bright worlds, and scattered them about the sky, and they
dropped into most beautiful positions, so that people say, "There is the
Great Bear;" and, "That is Charles's Wain," and every countryman knows
the Reaping-hook. Have you not seen it, brethren? Others say, "That is
the Virgin, and that is the Ram, and that is the Bull," and so on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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