THE

POWER OF ILLUSTRATION

AN ELEMENT OF SUCCESS

IN PREACHING AND TEACHING:

By

JOHN DOWLING, D. D.,

Pastor of the Berean Baptist Church, New-York.

"You have no likes in your sermons. Christ taught that the king-
dom of Heaven was like to leaven hid in meal-like to a grain of
mustard, &c. You tell us what things are, but never what they are
LIKE."-Rev. Robert Hall to a brother minister.

"I have used similitudes."-Sacred Scriptures.

NEW-YORK:

L. COLBY AND COMPANY,

122 NASSAU STREET.

1848.

1857. June. 29. wift of Henry G. Denny Sening

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1647, by

L. COLBY & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.

Transferred to HimZ

Dec. 1919.

PREFACE.

THE substance of the following brief treatise, was delivered in the form of an address before a literary society, consisting of candidates for the gospel ministry, at the anniversary of the New-Hampton Theological Institution, for the year 1847; and subsequently repeated, with such modifications as the circumstances and occasion required, to the congregation under the pastoral care of the author.

In complying with the numerous requests that have been made to him for its publication, the author has been influenced by the opinion expressed by many, that the subject, though comparatively novel, is one of vast importance, not only to the efficiency and useful