Lectures to my students - Spurgeon - XXVI - Chapter 4 (Where can we find anecdotes and illustrations)

Required reading
Lectures to my students by Charles Spurgeon (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 4 (Where can we find anecdotes and illustrations).

My summary
This week Spurgeon teaches us where to find anecdotes and illustrations.

He suggests using:
(i) current history;
(ii) local history;
(iii) ancient and modern history;
(iv) religious history;
(v) natural history;
(vi) anywhere you can find them;
(vii) teaching of children;
(viii) books in which there is an abundance of metaphor, simile and emblem;
(ix) illustrations even in the words themselves;
(x) the Scriptures to find illustrations;
(xi) the task of making illustrations.

What grabbed me
I appreciated Spurgeon's advice on not using made-up illustrations: '...let me say that nobody need make anecdotes in order to interest a congregation. I have heard of one who called to see a minister on a Friday, and he was told by the servant that her master could not be seen, for he was up in his study "making anecdotes." That kind of work will not do for a Christian minister. I would also bid you beware of the many common anecdotes, which are often repeated, but which I half suspect could not be proved to be matters of fact. Whenever I have the slightest suspicion about the truth of a story, I drop it at once ; and I think that every one else should do the same. So long as the anecdotes are current, and are generally believed, and provided they can be used for a profitable purpose, I believe they may be told, without any affirmation as to their truthfulness being made in a court of justice; but the moment any doubt comes across the mind of the preacher as to whether the tale is at least founded on fact, I think he had better look for something else, for he has the whole world to go to as a storehouse of illustration.'

As ministers of the truth, we should be as truthful as we can.

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 5 (Cyclopaedias of anecdotes and illustrations).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.