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THE PREACHER'S TECHNIQUE Illustration which is only doubtfully relevant to the main theme ought to be rigorously banned. No matter how vivid it may be in itself, if it does not immediately light up the particular truth under discussion, exclude it ruthlessly. Otherwise it will simply distract attention and defeat your purpose. On the other hand, illustrations sparingly and appropriately used can be a vital source of power and illumination. You are describing, let us say, man's search for God, the soul's age-long quest for spiritual reality, and the thrilling moment of supreme discovery. Have you read Madame Curie's Life? Do you remember the moving account of the night of magic when, after years of experimenting, she saw across the darkness of the unlit laboratory the first faint streak of phosphorescent blue, and knew that it was radium? Or suppose you are speaking of the remorse which lashes the guilty soul in the hour of its awakening. There is an unforgettable instance you might adduce the dramatic moment in Saint Joan where the Chaplain, who has stood and watched the end, consenting to the death of the saint, bursts in suddenly upon the Earl of Warwick with the lamentable cry, "I let them do it. If I had known I would have torn her from their hands. O God, take away this sight from me! O Christ, deliver me from this fire that is consuming me! She cried to Thee in the midst of it: Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! She is in Thy bosom; and I am in hell for evermore." Or, once again, your theme may be the companionship of Jesus: you are trying to show the power of that 143