Gems of Illustration - preface
THE London Times, in 1860, said "Dr. Guthrie is the most
eloquent orator in Europe."
The celebrated Dr. Candlish, in an address to
the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, in May, 1862, said "Dr.
Guthrie’s genius has long since placed him at the head of all the gifted
and popular preachers of our day."
The late Dr. James N. Alexander, one of
the most fastidious of critics, tells us that he pushed into Dr. Guthrie’s
church through a crowd that nearly tore his coat from his shoulders in the
struggle. He says : "I listened to him for fifty minutes; but they passed like
nothing. There was an overflowing unction of passion and compassion which would
carry home even one of my sermons. Conceive what it was with Guthrie’s
exuberant diction and poetic imagery!”
Dr. Guthrie’s sermons,
like the addresses of most of the great masters of eloquence in all ages,
abounded in picturesque similes and, indeed, few have equalled him either in
the number or in the beauty and force of the illustrations employed. There is
the same exuberance of graphic similitudes in the books which he wrote after
the state of his health compelled him to restrict his pulpit labours and the
numerous volumes which bear his name form a perfect storehouse of anecdotes,
comparisons, cxamples and incidents.
This book contains what we conceive to
be the choicest of illustrations arranged under the subjects which they
illustrate. It has been well said that arguments are the pillars and buttresses
which support the building, but illustrations are the windows wInch let in the
light. There was abundance of light when Dr. Guthrie preached or wrote, and it
would be well if ministers, and religious teachers generally, imitated him. We
commend to them not only his example but his testimony.
He says "By
awakening and gratifying the imagination, the truth finds its way more readily
to the heart, and makes a deeper impression on the memory. The story, like a
float, keeps it from sinking; like a nail, fastens it in the mind; like the
feathers of an arrow, makes it strike, and, like the barb, makes it stick"