1.G 16. The Habit of Illustrating

The Habit of Illustrating. In regard to the gift of illustrating, and the education of it, it is the same as with all other things.

Some men are born mathematicians; and whatever they do, that will be the strongest impulse in their intellectual natures. Other men are a little less endowed in that direction, and others still less; but almost everybody has enough of the arithmetical faculty on which to build an education. It is so also in poetry and in music. You are educable. In regard to illustration, you will find persons who are instinctively given to it Many of you will find it natural to you. But do not be discouraged, even when it is natural, if you do not at once succeed. Why should you succeed before you learn the rudiments of your art? Why should you be able to run before you can walk? Practise by yourselves to imaginary audiences; make illustrations, and use them; train yourselves to it. If once or twice on every Sabbath-day you can make a fitting illustration, and see that you have gained ground by it, take courage, and you will improve day by day and year by year.

I can say, for your encouragement, that while illustrations are as natural to me as breathing, I use fifty now to one in the early years of my ministry. For the first six or eight years, perhaps, they were comparatively few, and far apart. But I developed a tendency that was latent in me, and educated myself in that respect; and that, too, by study and practice, by hard thought, and by a great many trials, both with the pen, and extemporaneously by myself, when I was walking here and there. What ever I have gained in that direction is largely the result of education. You need not, therefore, be discouraged if it does not come to you immediately.

You cannot be men at once in these things. This world is God’s anvil, and whatever is fit for the battle has been beaten out on that anvil, and it has felt the fire before it has felt the blow. So that whatever you would get in this world that is worth having, you must work for. Do not be cast down. Be brave, industrious, disinterested, simple, and truehearted. Whatever God means to give you for your usefulness will certainly come to you.