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Home›Traditions›Traditional

Traditional Illustrations

The orthodox, historical consensus of biblical interpretation.

Key question: “What is the most widely accepted and historically grounded understanding of this text?”

25,889 sermon illustrations through the Traditional lens

Poetry

The Little Black Boy

My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but oh my soul is white! White as an angel is the English child, But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

Universal

William Blake

241 words

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Poetry

Joy and Peace in Believing

Sometimes a light surprises The Christian while he sings; It is the Lord who rises With healing on His wings; When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again A season of clear shining, To cheer it after rain.

Universal

William Cowper

130 words

Poetry

Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?

Why are we by all creatures waited on? Why do the prodigal elements supply Life and food to me, being more pure than I, Simple, and further from corruption? Why brook'st thou, ignorant horse, subjection?

Lines Written Beneath an Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow

Spot of my youth!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

252 words

Poetry

Hope

And said I that all hope was fled, That sorrow and despair were mine, That each enthusiast wish was dead, Had sank beneath pale Misery's shrine.-- Seest thou the sunbeam's yellow glow, That robes with liquid streams of light; Yon distant Mountain's craggy brow.

Easter

Rise, heart, thy lord is risen. Sing his praise Without delays, Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him may'st rise: That, as his death calcined thee to dust, His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just.

To Mary Who Died in This Opinion

Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow Struggling in thine haggard eye: Firmness dare to borrow From the wreck of destiny; For the ray morn's bloom revealing Can never boast so bright an hue As that which mocks concealing, And sheds its loveliest light on you.

Firwood

The fir trees taper into twigs and wear The rich blue green of summer all the year, Softening the roughest tempest almost calm And offering shelter ever still and warm To the small path that towels underneath, Where loudest winds--almost...

A Word for the Hour

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten.

Universal

John Greenleaf Whittier

197 words

Poetry

Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor'd youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Stanzas Written in Passing the Ambracian Gulf

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen, Full beams the moon on Actium's coast: And on these waves, for Egypt's queen, The ancient world was won and lost.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

137 words

Poetry

Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici

She left me at the silent time When the moon had ceased to climb The azure path of Heaven's steep, And like an albatross asleep, Balanced on her wings of light, Hovered in the purple night, Ere she sought her...

Prayer

Great God, I ask for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.

The Solitary

Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude To live alone, an isolated thing? To see the busy beings round thee spring, And care for none; in thy calm solitude, A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude To Zephyr's passing wing?

Matilda Gathering Flowers

FROM THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE, CANTO 28, LINES 1-51.

Sonnet 112: Your love and pity doth the impression fill

Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state

If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.

Farewell to the Farm

The coach is at the door at last; The eager children, mounting fast And kissing hands, in chorus sing: Good-bye, good-bye, to everything! To house and garden, field and lawn, The meadow-gates we swang upon, To pump and stable, tree...

Universal

Robert Louis Stevenson

Short78 words

Poetry

The Fox

The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh His dog among the bushes barking high; The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout, He found a weary fox and beat him out. The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him...

Stanzas Composed During a Thunderstorm

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast, Where Pindus' mountains rise, And angry clouds are pouring fast The vengeance of the skies. Our guides are gone, our hope is lost, And lightnings, as they play, But show where rocks our...

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

414 words

Poetry

Sonnet 32: If thou survive my well-contented day

If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bett'ring of the time, And...

To a Lady

had my Fate been join'd with thine, As once this pledge appear'd a token, These follies had not, then, been mine, For, then, my peace had not been broken.

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

308 words

Poetry

Song of Saul Before His Last Battle

Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, Heed not the corse, though a King's, in your path: Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Universal

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Short91 words

Poetry

Sunday Dip

The morning road is thronged with merry boys Who seek the water for their Sunday joys; They run to seek the shallow pit, and wade And dance about the water in the shade.

Universal

John Clare

100 words