The Art of IllustrationSpurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Religion
The Art of Illustration
Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Homiletical illustrations; Preaching
Here is a story that I should not mind telling on a Sunday for the
benefit of certain people who are good at hearing sermons and attending
prayer-meetings, but who are very bad hands at business. They never work
on Sundays because they never work on any day of the week; they forget
that part of the commandment which says, "Six days shalt thou labor,"
which is just as binding as the other part, "The seventh day is the
sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." To these
people who never labor because they are so heavenly-minded, I would tell
the story of a certain monk, who entered a monastery, but who would not
work in the fields, or the garden, or at making clothes, or anything
else, because, as he told the superior, he was a spiritually-minded
monk. He wondered, when the dinner-hour approached, that there came to
him no summons from the refectory. So he went down to the prior, and
said, "Don't the brethren eat here? Are you not going to have any
dinner?" The prior said, "We do, because we are carnal; but you are so
spiritual that you do not work, and therefore you do not require to eat;
that is why we did not call you. The law of this monastery is, that if
any man will not work, neither shall he eat."
That is a good story of the boy in Italy who had his Testament seized,
and who said to the _gendarme_, "Why do you seize this book? Is it a bad
book?" "Yes," was the answer. "Are you sure the book is bad?" he
inquired; and again the reply was, "Yes." "Then why do you not seize the
Author of it if it is a bad book?" That was a fine piece of sarcasm at
those who had a hatred of the Scriptures, and yet professed to have love
to Christ. That is another good story of our friend the Irishman, who,
when he was asked by the priest what warrant an ignorant man such as he
was had for reading the Bible, said, "Truth, but I have a
search-warrant; for it says, 'Search the Scriptures; for in them ye
think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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