Illustrative teaching is not merely entertaining or amusing the children with stories and anecdotes, but may comprise them incidentally. Explanation appeals to the understanding, while illustration appeals to the observation of the young. Says one writer: "It is by illustration alone, which appeals to their observation, that ideas are conveyed to children's minds." Anecdotes and stories are generally too long for Sunday-school teaching, and the danger is that they will overshadow the truth. Illustrative teaching should be employed in the Sabbath-school to make divine truth glow and become plainer, clearer, and better understood--nothing else. It must never displace the lesson, but be held in strict subordination to it. Illustrations of divine truths are very useful--in fact, indispensable; but dangerous, unless well guarded so as never to withdraw attention from the Bible. This was one of our divine Saviour's chosen modes of teaching, as we see in the beautiful parable of the sower, and, in fact, in almost all of His inimitable parables. Mankind, as well as children, delight in this form of instruction. Says Mr. Groser, in his excellent work on this subject: "Children have a passion for details and revel in analogies. Mark their fondness for _stories_, however frivolous; _word-pictures_, however meagre, and _comparisons_, however commonplace." Tupper says: "Principles and rules are repulsive to a child, but happy illustration winneth him. In vain shalt thou preach of industry and prudence till he learn of the bee and ant. Dimly will he think of his soul, till the acorn and the chrysalis have taught him. He will fear God in thunder and worship His loveliness in flowers. And parables shall charm his heart, while doctrines seem dead mystery." Illustration is something laid alongside of--parallel--for comparison, and should be short, obvious, and appropriate. There must always be something to illustrate. For instance: If we were teaching, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes," etc., we could illustrate the danger and influence of little evils or sins by saying: Chemists tell us that a single grain of iodine will color 7000 times its weight in water; so a little sin may discolor and destroy a good character. A ruined man once said: "It was that ten minutes on the street-corner, reading a bad book, that destroyed my whole life." "It was that penny I stole when a very young boy," said an old man, "that sent me four times to prison, and confined me twenty-eight years out of sixty of my life, and all for stealing less than thirty-eight dollars."