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 heads when a preacher, saying, "It is like," has led his hearers into the fields where they had toiled during the previous week? Often have we seen a mining congregation captured _en bloc_ when some brother miner, speaking in native doric from the wagon at a camp meeting, has taken them "doon the pit," or "in bye." We have watched the faces of sea-going men gleam with a new interest as the preacher drew a simile, or caught a metaphor from the mighty deep. Only, in using such illustrations as these, let the user be quite certain that he is _accurate_. One mistake about the farm, the mine, the sea, and all is over! With accuracy as a quality constantly present, those illustrations are most effective whose material is most homely and familiar. Things startling, novel and foreign, may arouse interest and excite wonder, but it will probably be at the expense of that realisation of truth which was sought to be created. Jesus said "Like unto leaven," "Like to a grain of mustard seed," "Behold a sower went forth to sow," "Consider the lilies of the field." His hearers saw these things every day. Perhaps they were in view as He spoke. Finally, the less hackneyed our illustrations are, the better. If this were more generally remembered we would miss, and that with a sense of relief, a few grey-headed similes which, having haunted our youth, threaten to haunt also our age; and which have assailed us so often as to create the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt. In how many Sunday school addresses--and a Sunday school address is preaching in a way--in how many such addresses have we seen the twig bent; in how many the giant oak which none can train? How often have we heard of that boy in Holland who saved his country by the simple expedient of pushing his finger into a hole in the dyke through which the dammed-up waters had begun to escape? There is that other lad, too, who has come down in history by reason of his insane resolve to climb "one niche the higher"--how often have we been told his thrilling story? These two