Then you might easily make an illustration out of that romantic story, which may or may not be true, of Queen Eleanor sucking the poison out of her husband’s wounded arm. Many of us, I trust, would be willing, as it were, to suck out all the slander and venom from the arm of Christ’s church, and to bear any amount of suffering ourselves, so long as the church itself might escape and live. Would not any one of you, my brethren, gladly put his lips to the envenomed wounds of the church today, and suffer even unto death, sooner than let the doctrines of Christ be impugned, and the cause of God be dishonored?
What a fine field of illustration lies open to you in religious history! It is difficult to tell where to begin digging in this mine of precious treasure. The story of Luther and the Jew might be used to set forth the evil of sin, and how to avoid it. A Jew was seeking an opportunity of stabbing the Reformer; but Luther received a portrait of the would-be murderer, so that, wherever he went, he was on his guard against the assassin. Using this fact himself as an illustration, Luther said: “God knows that there are sins that would destroy us, and he has therefore given us portraits of them in his Word, so that, wherever we see them, we may say, ‘That is a sin that would stab me; I must beware of that evil thing, and keep out of its way.’ ”
Stout Hugh Latimer, in that famous story of an incident in his trial before several bishops, brings out very clearly the omnipresence and omniscience of God, and the care that we ought to exercise in the presence of One who can read our most secret thoughts and imaginations. He says: “I was once in examination before five or six bishops, where I had much trouble; thrice every week I came to examinations, and many traps and snares were laid to get something. … At last I was brought forth to be examined in a chamber hung with arras, where I was wont to be examined; but now at this time the chamber was somewhat altered. For whereas, before, there was wont always to be a fire in the chimney, now the fire was taken away, and arras hung over the chimney, and the table stood near the fireplace. There was, among the bishops who examined me, one with whom I had been very familiar, and took him for my great friend, an aged man, and he sat next to the table’s end. Then, among all other questions, he put forth a very subtle and crafty one, and such a one, indeed, as I could not think so great danger in. And when I should make answer, ‘I pray you, Mr. Latimer,’ said one, ‘speak out; I am very thick of hearing, and there may be many that sit far off.’ I marveled at this, that I was bid to speak out, and began to suspect, and give an ear to the chimney; and there I heard a pen writing in the chimney behind the cloth. They had appointed one there to write all mine answers, for they made sure that I should not start from them; and there was no starting from them. God was my good Lord, and gave me answer, else I could never have escaped.” Preaching, some years afterward, Latimer himself told the story, and applied the illustration. “My hearer,” said he, “there is a recording pen always at work behind the arras, taking down all thou sayest, and noting all thou doest: therefore be thou careful that thy words and acts are worthy of record in God’s Book of Remembrance.”
You might aptly illustrate the doctrine of God’s special providential care of his servants by relating the story of John Knox, who, one evening, refused to sit in his usual seat, though he did not know any particular reason for so acting. No one was allowed to occupy that chair, and during the evening a shot came in through the window, and struck a candlestick that stood immediately opposite where John Knox would have been sitting if he had taken his accustomed place. There is also the case of the godly minister, who, in escaping from his persecutors, went into a hayloft, and hid himself in the hay. The soldiers went into the place, pricking and thrusting with their swords and bayonets, and the good man even felt the cold steel touch the sole of his foot, and the scratch which was made remained for years: yet his enemies did not discover him. Afterward a hen came and laid an egg every day hard by the place where he was hidden, and so he was sustained as well as preserved until it was safe for him to leave his hiding-place. It was either the same minister, or one of his persecuted brethren, who was providentially protected by such a humble agent as a spider. This is the story as I have read
