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Show Perhaps no public speaker ever excelled Mr. Spurgeon in profuseness of anecdotal illustration in "discourses." His sermons and addresses teem with anecdotes, which are usually very much to the point. To his students last year he told a good story, to show the need of preachers being attractive. "When I was in Arran quite recently," said he, "I heard of a minister who preached in a certain church, and at the close of the service was strongly urged by the ruling elder to promise a future supply of similar discourses, the collection after his sermon having been unusually large. "Dear me," said the minister, with becoming pride, "what might your ordinary collection amount to?" "Last Sunday it was two pence half penny!" "What is it today then?" asked the minister, expecting to hear a large sum named. "Eight pence half penny," was the reply. "Woe is me," moaned the minister within himself, "for I gave the six pence myself!" We may excuse the foreigner if, speaking our language, he occasionally mispronounces an ambiguous word, however oddly it may sound. Dr. Chalmers once entertained a distinguished guest from Switzerland, whom he asked if he would be helped to "kippered salmon." The foreign cleric asked the meaning of the uncouth word "kippered," and was told that it meant "preserved." Soon after the Switzer made use of this newly acquired expression in a public prayer when he offered a petition that a distinguished divine might long be "kippered to the free Church of Scotland." Here is another example of a possible misconstruction of language. "I fear," said a country curate to his flock, "when I explained to you in my last charity sermon that philanthropy was the love of our species, you must have misunderstood me to say "specie," which may account for the smallness of our collection. You will prove, I hope, by your present contribution that you are no longer laboring under the same mistake." |