Made for Gospel Ministry

creatures without feeling compelled to do it. I thought of going to a Sunday school to teach. On a certain day, someone called—asked me—begged me— prayed me to take his class. I could not refuse to go. And there I was held hand and foot by the superintendent and was compelled to go on. I was asked to address the children. I thought I could not, but no one else was there to do it, so I stood up and stammered out a few words. And I recollect the first occasion on which I attempted to preach to the people—I am sure I had no wish to do it—but there was no one else in the place. And should the congregation go away without a single word of warning or address? How could I allow it? I felt forced to address them. And so it has been with whatever I have laid my hand to. I have always felt a kind of impulse which I could not resist, but, moreover felt placed by Providence in such a position that I had no wish to avoid the duty and if I had

desired it, could not have helped myself. ¹ S purgeon entered enthusiastically into every opportunity for service to Christ that he could. He distributed tracts joyfully and consistently while still at Newmarket. He had seventy people that he regularly visited, taking his Saturdays for this visitation as well as tract distribution. He explained to his mother, "I do not give a tract, and go away; but I sit down, and endeavour to

draw their attention to spiritual realities." ² He immediately became earnest about the salvation of his siblings. When Sarah expressed her faith in Christ, Spurgeon wrote, "I am so glad that Sarah, too, is called, that two of us in one household at one time should thus openly profess the Saviour's name." When he thought about the others, he considered what delight would accrue if "God should prove that they are redeemed ones included in the covenant of grace!" He closed his letter with greeting to all of them with the expressed hope, "May they become members of the church in our house!" ³

Teaching Truth is the Fountain of Christian Life

Spurgeon's comments about calling and the covenant of grace remind us that his theology quickly fell into the lines of the Puritan divines that he had been reading. He knew that the saving gospel embodied the depths of the divine character and manifest the glory of the eternal purpose of God. Soon after his conversion he revisited the chapel where he heard the saving exhortation, "Look!" and sought comfort in his struggle with indwelling sin. The minister preached on a promising and suitable text from Romans 7, but, in Spurgeon's opinion, failed miserably. He took up his hat and left the chapel and concluded that Methodist theology was of "very little use for the children of God." It was like the parish pound, "a good place to put sheep in when they have strayed, but

there is no food inside." ⁴ His own sense of indebtedness to sovereign grace seemed to confirm the truthfulness of what he had read so often prior to the experience of God's call.

At sixteen years of age he contemplated the trials of faith brought on by the subtle and destructive powers of indwelling sin. "I know that I am perfectly dead without Him," he observed; "it is His work; I am confident that He will accomplish it, and that I shall see the face of my Beloved in His own house in glory." Such preserving grace that supports faith "is far more than any of us deserve; all beyond hell is mercy, but this is a mighty one. Were it not all of sovereign, electing, almighty grace, I, for one, could never hope to be saved.

God says, 'You shall,' and not all the devils in hell, let loose upon a real Christian, can stop the workings of God's sovereign grace, for in due time the

Christian cries, 'I will.'" ⁵ At Cambridge, Spurgeon involved himself in Sunday School work. He

remarked that he had rather have the degree SST than BA or MA. ⁶ "I teach in the Sunday-school all the afternoon," he wrote his mother, adding, "Mr. Leeding takes the morning work." A couple of weeks later he wrote, "I have spoken twice to the Sunday-school, and am to read an Essay on some subject connected with Sunday-schools at the next meeting of the Teachers' Institute for the town."

The boys he taught challenged him to greater certainty in the way he expressed himself in gospel truth and to be more catching in the way he produced an anecdote or illustration. His teaching soon attracted the other adult teachers and they requested that he give pointers on the lesson to them. The superintendent encouraged him toward this; in fact, as Spurgeon later recounted, "I could not refuse to go; and there I was, held hand and foot by the superintendent, and was compelled to go on." But the compulsion was more than the pressure of human forces. "I have always felt a kind of impulse which I could not resist; but

moreover, I have felt placed by Providence in such a position that I had no wish to avoid the duty, and if I had desired it, I could not have helped myself."

In spite, therefore, of his reluctance he taught, and soon this teachers' meeting had become like a small chapel. His preparations were done seriously and with fear and trembling, having little more than his Bible and serious reflection on his own experience under the searchlight of the Word. The urgency that characterized his preaching exhibited itself even then as he had an "intense desire to bring men to Christ." With death possible on any moment of any day, he looked upon all as "being foolish for attending to anything except their eternal business, and myself most of all foolish for not pointing dying sinners to

a living Christ, and inviting them to trust in His precious blood." ⁷ He felt that urgency slip from him quickly and felt alarmed that something so real could become so remote under the power of one's native stupidity. He discovered that "unless I am baptized anew with the Spirit of God, and constantly stand at the foot of the cross, reading the curse of sin in the crimson hieroglyphics of my Saviour's dying agonies, I shall become as steeled and insensible as many professors already are." ⁸

First Sermon and First Pastorate

Arising auspiciously from his success in Sunday School teaching was his participation in the Lay Preacher's Association. The "presiding genius," as Spurgeon called him, was James Vinter. Having observed the zeal and gifts of Spurgeon, Vinter, referred to by the young men of the Association as "Bishop Vinter," assigned him to go one Sunday evening in the autumn of 1850 to Teversham, three miles from Cambridge, "for a young man was to preach there who was not much used to services, and very likely would be glad of company."

9 This was an ingeniously worded sentence, for as it turned out Spurgeon was the young man to do the preaching. "A request to go and preach would have met with a decided negative, but merely to act as company to a good brother who did not like to be lonely, and perhaps ask us to give out a hymn or to pray, was not at all a difficult matter, and the request, understood in that fashion was cheerfully

complied with." ¹⁰ He discovered this en route as his companion for the evening assured him that he had no intention of preaching and could not do so even if coerced. When Spurgeon discerned that he himself was the man, he protested that he was no minister and was quite unprepared. His companion stated even more emphatically that the same was true of him and that "there would be no

sermon unless I gave them one." ¹¹ Spurgeon's road-mate said that if Spurgeon would just repeat one of his Sunday School lessons it would be more fit and beneficial for these poor people than a studied sermon by a learned divine. Given the counter-resolve of his companion, and convinced that it would not do for no sermon at all to be given, he set his heart on a passage of Scripture that he had contemplated much in recent days, 1 Peter 2:7: "Unto you therefore, that believe He is precious." Surely, Spurgeon thought as he walked along, very surprised but seriously affected with the solemn responsibility, "I could tell a few poor

cottagers of the sweetness and love of Jesus." ¹² On at least six other occasions Spurgeon preached on this text. In 1859, he recalled this event which he denominated, "the opening of my ministry." When he stood to preach for the first time in his life to the handful of poor people in the cottage, he remembered, "I felt my own inability to preach." The text, however, so elevated his mind that he could not have said "anything upon any other text." "Christ was precious to my soul,"—he relished the memory—"and I was in the flush of my youthful love, and I could not be silent when a precious Jesus was the subject." He remembered his Egyptian bondage, the gulf of flames which lapped around his tormented conscience ready to shroud him in everlasting burnings. With such vivid recollection he could speak of His preciousness who

"had plucked me as a brand from the burning, and set me upon a rock, and put a

new song in my mouth, and established my goings." ¹³ In 1869, when in an "exceedingly depressed" state, Spurgeon again went to this text. He again reminded his hearers that this was the text "from which I first essayed to speak in public... and I am sure it contains the marrow of what I have always taught in the pulpit from that day until now." He believed he could speak on it in his sleep and if he were dying he could "with my last expiring breath pour out a heart-full of utterance upon the delightful verse which I have

selected." ¹⁴ He visited it again in 1870 and in 1875. An 1890 sermon on this text will be discussed below. Other sermons on the text were published in volumes of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit in 1906 and 1908. Obviously many of the ideas are repeated in these sermons. The intrinsic worth of Christ receives particular affection from Spurgeon's moving vocabulary while he also explores the experiential aspects of why Christ's worthiness in essence and in work is precious to the believer. Each sermon, however, added new insights and powerful applications unique to the setting in which it was preached.

His text for that virgin voyage into public proclamation had so intertwined itself into Spurgeon's heart that he spoke on it freely and passionately. Before the hymn could be sung one lady called out, "Bless your dear heart, how old are you?" Spurgeon refused to answer until the hymn was sung and then confessed only to being under sixty. And under sixteen, his inquisitress added.

After this, every weekend, and many week nights, saw the young Spurgeon going from village to village, and often in the village from door to door, come wind, come weather. Often a frightful sight in his protective clothes, Spurgeon's heart-searching, doctrinally-profound preaching more than compensated for his initial awkward appearance. He maintained a rigorous course of personal study in order to meet these regular obligations plus his Sunday School work, his tutoring, and his own guided program of study. "When I first began to preach," Spurgeon recounted, "this was my usual way of working. I was up in the morning early, praying and reading the Word; all the day, I was either teaching

my scholars or studying theology as much as I could." ¹⁵ The evening then became his time for walking to one of the thirteen villages serviced by the Lay Preachers Association. The reading of the day found fertile soil in the meditations of Spurgeon on the journey and soon became the property of his congregation as he preached "simply and earnestly, what I had first received into

my own mind and heart." ¹⁶ Those evenings in barns and kitchens and cottages quickly honed the

prodigious gifts of the "boy preacher of the fens" and made him a master of stating the profoundest truths in vivid images and plain language. The preparation for these meetings, combined with the impromptu necessity of communicating simply, clearly, and truthfully to congregations so unspoiled by education, formed in Spurgeon's mind a principle for ministerial qualification.

Without such plain and mentally demanding labor, a minister could hardly rise beyond the conceit of professionalism in his calling. Spurgeon would require similar experience of all the men that later gained access to his college for preachers.

An assignment in October 1851 took Spurgeon to Waterbeach. The Baptist chapel had only twelve hearers that first Sunday. Spurgeon wrote his father the following week: "I have been busily employed every Lord's-day; not at home once yet, nor do I expect to be this year. Last Sunday, I went to a place called Waterbeach, where there is an old-established Church, but not able to support a minister. I have engaged to supply to the end of the month." Their former minister, for twenty years, came over from Cambridge as his father went to

Tollesbury. ¹⁷ Their appreciation for Spurgeon's preaching resulted in an invitation to preach for two more Sundays, then for six months and finally it expanded to more than two years. On December ³¹, 1851 Spurgeon wrote his father: "I preached twice on Christmas (day) to crammed congregations, and again on Sunday, quite as full. The Lord gives me favor in the eyes of the people; they come for miles, and are wondrously attentive. I am invited (to preach at Waterbeach) for six months.

My reputation in Cambridge is rather great." ¹⁸ In January of 1852, he was asked to become pastor of the church. He consented. The yearly salary was only £45, but it enabled him to pay his rent in Cambridge since the people also gave Spurgeon gifts of food. He won a prize for an essay and with the prize money bought a Septuagint to assist him in studying the Bible. The number of invitations for hospitality he received while on the field testified to the affection the people felt toward him. He had a different home opened to him for food and rest every week. He felt himself cared for richly and abundantly and could not imagine how a people could love their pastor more.

Though now a pastor, Spurgeon had to continue his teaching for income supplement. This extra drain on his time served as no excuse, however, for diminishing his zeal for the gospel in his appointed sphere of labor. He actively engaged in personal soul-winning, going from house to house in Waterbeach, entering many places that would have shamed him had he been there for any other reason than that of giving the gospel to sinners. "I would sooner pluck one

single brand from the burning than explain all mysteries," he explained as he reminisced about the first convert under his ministry at Waterbeach. "To win a soul from going down to the pit, is a more glorious achievement than to be

crowned in the arena of theological controversy as Dr. Sufficientissimus." ¹⁹ In these days, the doctrine of election greatly consoled him. God's immutable decree guaranteed that a multitude no man can number is "ordained to eternal

life." ²⁰ Also his itinerant preaching continued so that at the end of two years Spurgeon could assure his father, who was concerned about the need for formal preparation for ministry, that he had been for two years "as much a minister as any man in England; and probably very much more so, since in that time I have

preached more than 600 times." ²¹ Spurgeon was seventeen when he began preaching to this congregation of about forty people. After some months of preaching in the morning and again in the afternoon, the church requested that he preach in the evening also. He

replied, "I can not always preach three times, for I am not so strong as a man." ²² At the end of two years, over 400 crowded in to hear the young preacher, with many standing outside. Conversions were many and the transformation of the entire town was remarkable. Swearing, illicit liquor stills, broken homes, public drunkenness, and general debauchery were replaced with industrious living, generosity, joy, and public and private worship. All of the ¹,300 residents knew Spurgeon and many of the former leaders in crime had been converted, and others, yet unconverted, still attended chapel. "It was a pleasant thing," Spurgeon recalled, "to walk through that place, when drunkenness had almost ceased, when debauchery in the case of many was dead, when men and women went forth to labour with joyful hearts, singing the praises of the ever-living God; and when, at sunset, the humble cottager called his children together, read them some portion from the Book of Truth, and then together they bent their knees in prayer to God." He found real satisfaction in noting that throughout the village, "at the hour of eventide, one might have heard the voice of song coming from nearly every roof-tree, and echoing from almost every heart." So remarkable was the change, as Spurgeon observed and remembered it, that he felt with certainty "that it pleased the Lord to work wonders in our midst. He showed the power of Jesu's name, and made me a witness of that gospel which can win souls, draw reluctant hearts, and mould afresh the life and conduct of

sinful men and women." ²³ The people at Waterbeach recognized that a pulpit genius was on their hands.

Pike makes the studied judgment that "there was nothing of the mere flash-inthe-pan brilliance about his earliest sermons. Even among his rustic audience

there were those who could readily enough distinguish between rhetorical fireworks and genuine sterling eloquence." More than this, however, noted particularly by the mature members of the congregation, was the "advanced Christian experience of the youth of seventeen who had accepted the pastoral

charge." ²⁴ One of the deacons, Mr. C. King, gave a short narrative of the impact

Spurgeon had on the church and the town:

From Mr. Spurgeon's first coming to Waterbeach, he was generally well received, and soon became

popular as a preacher. It was no unusual thing to see the labourers on the farms at a distance from the

village literally running home when the duties of the day were over, that they might be in time to

attend his ministry in the evening. At the early age of eighteen, he was unanimously chosen pastor of

our little church. We have often sat under his ministry with a mixture of pleasure, profit, and surprise,

and have been ready to exclaim with the inquiring Jews named in the gospel, Whence hath this young

man this wisdom and these mighty words? Our congregation soon rapidly increased. So that both the

seats and the aisles were generally filled, and some could not obtain admission into the place. A

reformation in the habits of the people soon appeared in the village; and about twenty persons were, in

a short time, added to the church. Mr. Spurgeon's character and conduct were as amiable as his talents

were attractive. 25

Another experienced Christian, Potto Brown, the fabled Miller of Houghton, heard so much about the young Spurgeon that he invited him to preach at a private chapel that he maintained. The day was memorable for Spurgeon, for Brown essentially accused him of preaching someone else's sermons. No mere "prentice boy" could have stored such experience and theology into so small a time. Brown is described as "a man of imperious will, great determination, strong memory, yet at the same time with very marked eccentricities." All of these traits showed themselves when he, a close follower and friend of the American evangelist Charles Finney, attacked Spurgeon's clearly enunciated Calvinism. Spurgeon, though young and a guest in Brown's home, did not shrink from defending both his originality and his theology, characterizing Brown's Arminianism as "worthless theology." The after-lunch disputation, in which Spurgeon gave the imperious host "a Roland for his Oliver without compunction" in a "battle royal," sealed a mutual respect of the antagonists for each other and gave rise to Spurgeon's description of the experience as "felicitous misery." Brown was not accustomed to resistance in his critiques of the morning sermon but, as Spurgeon himself described it, "he had an unpromising youth to deal with, who had no fear of Potto Brown, or Professor Finney, or any other Arminian before his eyes, but held his own opinions with a

firmness which interested and did not displease the good but eccentric miller." ²⁶ While at Waterbeach, Spurgeon came to the attention of Joseph Angus,

principal of Stepney College, a theological school supported by the Baptists.

Angus believed that if the young phenomenon received some formal training, his usefulness could be multiplied. When the college principal went to preach at Cambridge, where he formerly had served, he did not see Spurgeon, for he was at Waterbeach, "four or five honest miles" away. Angus decided to contact Spurgeon on Monday asking for an interview. Spurgeon received the message on Monday, February ², 1854, that Angus desired to see him, designating the home of Mr. MacMillan, the wealthy publisher, as the place. When Spurgeon arrived at the appointed time, he was shown to the drawing room. Angus, when he arrived, was placed in the parlor; neither was informed by the receiving maid of the other's presence. Angus had to leave to catch his train back to London and the interview never took place.

Angus, however, left a note for Mr. Watts, a mutual friend, expressing his hope that Spurgeon would apply for acceptance since the denomination needed men thoroughly prepared "so that they may occupy important posts, and wear well." "I should regret," Angus urged, "for your friend to settle without thorough preparation." Angus was sure that a prepared man would have greater usefulness

and "fill a wider sphere, with preparation than without it." ²⁷ While he contemplated these events on a walk to a preaching engagement, Spurgeon had

the experience of divine leadership that settled the course of his life.

That afternoon having to preach at one of the village stations, I walked slowly in a meditating frame of

mind over Midsummer Common to the little wooden bridge which leads to Chesterton, and in the

midst of the common I was startled by what seemed a loud voice, but may have been a singular

illusion, which ever it was the impression was most vivid; I seemed very distinctly to hear the words,

"Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not!" This led me to look at my position from another

point of view, and to challenge my motives and intentions; I remembered the poor but loving people to

whom I ministered, and the souls which had been given me in my humble charge, and although at that

time I anticipated obscurity and poverty as the result of the resolve, yet I did there and then solemnly

renounce the offer of collegiate instruction, determining to abide for a season at least with my people,

and to remain preaching the Word so long as I had strength to do it. 28

Friends still encouraged Spurgeon to go to college but Spurgeon said, "I have no

very great desire for it; in fact, none at all." ²⁹ He knew that the idea of his not pursuing recognized academic theological instruction disturbed his father. He wrote him to assure him that, should his father still think it best, he would do it; but he also gave several reasons why he felt it would not substantially benefit him in the task to which he was called. Formal study would benefit him more at a later date when he knew more; "when I know more I shall be more able to learn." He presently had a congregation of 450 that he was loathe to leave. Later, he would be more independent financially and less dependent on his father to

provide anything. In addition, he did not consider himself uneducated nor void

of opportunities for improvement. ³⁰ He left the decision to his father. His father wisely left the matter to Spurgeon's own sense of calling.

Spurgeon decided to rest on his rapidly expanding experience, his personal drive in study, and the sanctifying effects of divine providence for his ongoing preparation for ministry. This decision soon would have all the marks of a special providence. He continued to teach at Cambridge while preaching at Waterbeach and in other villages nearby on week-nights. When possible he went to hear other preachers and benefited greatly from hearing William Jay preach on "Ever let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ." He heard

John Angell James preach on "Ye are complete in Him." ³¹ Pike interviewed Edward Ingle, one of Spurgeon's former pupils, after Spurgeon's death, and, perhaps under the influence of his later fame and universal effectiveness, Ingle recalled a Spurgeon that created a "spell similar to what his students of later years have felt." He remembered that Spurgeon showed him the book he wrote against the papacy, Antichrist and Her Brood, and that Spurgeon had told him he would "like to pull the old Pope from his throne." His engaging manner of creating interest in every subject he taught, the electric effect of his reading passages from history or literature, the way he pointed out analogies between the natural world and biblical truth, and the fervor and freshness with which he dealt with biblical passages seemed undiminished and compelling in the mind of Ingle

even after a lapse of forty years. ³² Spurgeon's final decision not to attend college disturbed his father slightly, thinking it could impede his son's future usefulness. Spurgeon wanted to give every assurance to him that he felt God's providence had ordered it so and that his decision not to go indicated no disrespect for his father's opinion. He wrote his father on April ⁶. "I have desired, all along, to act the part of a dutiful son to an affectionate parent," he assured John Spurgeon, "and if I fail, I feel sure that you and dear Mother will impute it rather to my weakness in act, than to a want of love." The matter simply came down to the fact that he considered it his duty to remain at Waterbeach, "for a short time at least." His friends had assured him "that never were more tears shed in Waterbeach, at any time, than when I only hinted at leaving. They could not give me stronger tokens of their affection than they did give." They prayed virtually in unison, "Lord, keep him here!" His popularity was so high in fact, that he felt he was in a dangerous place, perched on the pinnacle with the world before him. The anonymity of the vale would be

much safer. ³³ Though he had no confidence in himself and dreaded his tendency to pride, he had confidence in the divine purpose to save and in the humbling

tendency of the doctrine of election. Though he was no "Hyper-Calvinist," he believed that God's electing purpose guaranteed the success of gospel ministry. "Oh, if the clouds pass without rain, how sorrowful I shall feel." His passion for preaching was fueled by his confidence that a call to preach and the responsibility of a specific charge meant that God intended salvation through his ordained means. "When I have been thinking on the many difficulties in preaching the Word, the doctrine of election has been a great comfort to me. I do want men to be saved," he continued, "and it is my consolation that a multitude no man can number are by God's immutable decree ordained to eternal life. So we cannot labor in vain, we must have some; the covenant renders that secure."

34

His decision concerning college and his convictions about usefulness seemed accurate, because blessings of friendship, fellowship, and conversion gave intensity to every moment in service of the church at Waterbeach. He wrote his mother in November 1852: "I am more and more glad that I never went to college. God sends such sunshine on my path, such smiles of grace, that I cannot regret if I have forfeited all my prospects for it." His decision was made because of love to God and his cause. Poverty in service to God was far superior to riches in service of self. His congregation increased both in size and love and hospitality. "During all the time that I have been at Waterbeach, I have had a different house for my home every Sabbath day. Fifty-two families have thus taken me in; and I have still six other invitations not yet accepted." Though the salary was small, their generosity to him personally was great. "Our anniversary passed off grandly," he effused, "six were baptized; crowds on crowds stood by the river; the chapel was afterwards crammed, both to the tea and the sermon." ³⁵

A Radical Change Coming

In the autumn of 1853, Spurgeon's character and talents became known to William Olney, a lay leader of the New Park Street Chapel in London. Former pastors of this church included Benjamin Keach, John Gill, John Rippon, and Joseph Angus. Twenty-five years later, Spurgeon narrated the events of the few months in late 1853 and early 1854 that led to his settling as pastor in London.

Spurgeon recounted his walk to Waterbeach and, as usual, his sitting at a table to select the hymns for the service. A letter from London was handed to him. "It was an unusual missive, and was opened with curiosity," Spurgeon noted. He had been invited to preach at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, formerly the pulpit occupied by Dr. Rippon,—"the very Dr. Rippon whose hymn-book was then before us upon the table, the great Dr. Rippon, out of whose Selection we were about to choose hymns for our worship." Spurgeon quietly passed the letter across the table to the deacon who gave out the hymns, certain that "there was some mistake, and that the letter must have been intended for a Mr. Spurgeon who preached somewhere down in Norfolk." The deacon, however, knew that no mistake had been made. He knew Spurgeon could not long be confined to so narrow a venue, but was surprised that he so soon had been called to London. "He shook his head very gravely; but the time was come for us to look out the hymns, and therefore the letter was put away, and, as far as we can remember,

was for the day quite forgotten." ³⁶ When Spurgeon was convinced that, for good faith and in deferential courtesy to his unexpected correspondent, he should respond to the inquiry, he wrote James Low on November ²⁸. "My people at Waterbeach are hardly to be persuaded to let me come," he informed Low, "but I am prepared to serve you on the 11th December." After explaining his reason for suggesting that date, he felt he should probe Low's real knowledge of the situation and give him a chance to change lest Spurgeon come and "be out of my right place." He had served a church for more than two years, the membership had doubled, but "my last birthday was only my nineteenth." He admitted that he had never "known what the fear of man means, and have all but uniformly had large congregations, and frequently crowded ones." If his youth, however, would disqualify him, "by all means, I entreat you, do not let me come." In addition to regular preaching to his congregation, Spurgeon informed him that "almost every night, for two years, I have been aided to proclaim His truth." Unless informed otherwise, Spurgeon pledged to be there for December ¹¹, arriving on Saturday afternoon,

and returning on Monday. ³⁷ Soon another letter appeared assuring Spurgeon that everything in the first

was true written in full knowledge of the preacher's age. Again his presence was requested, the date verified, and a place of lodging appointed.

Spurgeon lodged on that Saturday evening at a boarding-house in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. His dress, a "huge black satin stock," accompanied by a "blue handkerchief with white spots," set him apart in the eyes of his fellow boarders as a young man from the country "evidently in the condition known as verdant green." They told him stories of how great the London preachers were and how many thousands came to hear them preach. "One we remember had a thousand city men to hear him, another had his church filled with thoughtful people, such as could hardly be matched all over England, while a third had an immense audience, almost entirely composed of the young men of London, who were spell-bound by his eloquence." Other magical feats of these preachers were hailed as astounding facts that hardly could be matched by such a novice. "We

were not in an advantageous condition for pleasant dreams," Spurgeon admitted.

On the narrow bed we tossed in solitary misery, and found no pity. Pitiless was the grind of the cabs in

the street, pitiless the recollection of the young city clerks whose grim propriety had gazed upon our

rusticity with such amusement, pitiless the spare room which scarce afforded space to kneel, pitiless

even the gas-lamps which seemed to wink at us as they flickered amid the December darkness. We had

no friend in all that city full of human beings, but we felt among strangers and foreigners, hoped to be

helped through the scrape into which we had been brought, and to escape safely to the serene abodes of

Cambridge and Waterbeach, which then seemed to be Eden itself. 38

The experience of walking to the church the next day was no more encouraging than the evening's sleep. On a clear, cold morning, Spurgeon wended his way along Holborn Hill and certain tortuous lanes and alleys at the foot of Southwark Bridge. "Wondering, praying, fearing, hoping, believing,—we felt all alone and yet not alone." He expected divine help, and was "inwardly borne down by [his] sense of the need of it." Feeling the depth of his forlornness, when he first sighted the Park Street Chapel, he felt "for a moment amazed at our own temerity, for it seemed to our eyes to be a large, ornate, and imposing structure, suggesting an audience wealthy and critical, and far removed from the humble

folk to whom our ministry had been sweetness and light." ³⁹ There the intimidation ended. He could tell there would be a small crowd, the imposing nature of the building did not house an equally imposing auditory, and Spurgeon realized that he was not out of his depth.

The church had declined in recent decades so that a sanctuary built to accommodate ¹,200 had only about 200 in attendance. Waterbeach had more than twice that many. Spurgeon's impression was that the congregation was a "mere handful." "The chapel seemed very large to the preacher, and very gloomy, but he stayed himself on the Lord, and delivered his message from

James 1:17." ⁴⁰ The effect on the congregation, if not electrifying, was much more than intriguing. T. H. Olney, present at that service and subsequently a faithful officer in the church, recalled at Spurgeon's funeral the significance of that service. "I had the honor of hearing his first sermon in London," Olney recounted, "and he then struck the keynote of his ministry." Upon remarking about the text Spurgeon chose from James, Olney continued: "It was a marvelous sight, that morning at New Park Street Chapel, when he came into the pulpit. He had the dew of youth upon him then. Few of you can remember him as the wonderful youthful preacher; but he spoke with the same confidence in

the first sermon, and with the same eloquence, as in later years." ⁴¹ That relatively modest congregation saw to it that a substantially larger number attended in the evening to hear this eccentric nineteen-year-old, "a

gauche country youth of nineteen years," in the words of Charles Ray. ⁴² Susannah Thompson, a niece of the Olneys, had stayed home that morning but when her relatives returned to the house she found they were determined that the crowd would be more substantial in the evening. She went, other friends and acquaintances were contacted; other church families made the same effort and, as Spurgeon stated it, "There was an improvement even on the first evening, and

the place looked more cheerful." ⁴³ He preached with authority and clarity the serious truths of Scripture but he could also smile in the pulpit and coax a smile from his hearers. In the evening he preached from Revelation 14:5, "They are

without fault before the throne of God." ⁴⁴ Because of the quaintness of the expression, Susannah remembered verbatim one line in which Spurgeon spoke of the redeemed as "living stones in the Heavenly Temple perfectly joined

together with the vermilion cement of Christ's blood." ⁴⁵ As he reflected on this twenty-five years later, Spurgeon recalled that he "had a happy Sabbath in the pulpit and spent the intervals with warm-hearted friends."

When he trudged back that night to the Queen Square narrow lodging, he was not alone, and no longer viewed Londoners as flinty-hearted barbarians. "Our tone was altered," he wrote, "we wanted no pity of anyone, we did not care a penny for the young gentlemen lodgers and their miraculous ministers, nor for

the grind of the cabs, nor for anything else under the sun." ⁴⁶ He had bearded the lion in his den and found him not nearly as fearsome as he seemed from afar.

Spurgeon shared with his father the delicate movements of his mind concerning the opportunity before him. "I do not anticipate going there with much pleasure. I am contented where I am; but if God has more for me to do, then let me go and trust in Him." He surmised that the London congregation was "rather higher in Calvinism than I am." He had succeeded in bringing one church

to his views, and believed "with Divine assistance" the same could happen there. "I am a Calvinist," he wrote, and "love what someone called 'glorious Calvinism,' but 'Hyperism' is too hot-spiced for my palate." That he was not a college graduate did not put them off, but rather pleased them. They had had enough of men seeking to air their education in the pulpit. Concerning his own people, he described them as "very sad." They wept bitterly at the sight of him, though in the pulpit he made no allusion to the subject of his leaving, and he believed it was too uncertain to speak of publicly. Still mulling over the theological issues, Spurgeon said, "It is Calvinism they want in London, and any Arminian preaching will not be endured." He had a high estimation of the theological acumen of the leading men, but they all "expressed their belief that my originality, or even eccentricity, was the very thing to draw a London audience." How such a view was consistent with any supposed "hyperism" is not clear, and Spurgeon never seemed to have difficulty from his own congregation on that issue, though he did from some of the other Baptist ministers. He thought the chapel "one of the finest in the denomination; somewhat in the style of our

Cambridge Museum." ⁴⁷ Other preaching days, January ¹ and ¹⁵, in London led the church to propose a six-month trial. Spurgeon agreed in principle, but felt another plan might succeed better. He approved of the prudence of the church in "wishing to have one so young as myself on an extended period of probation," and suggested that the probation be initiated at three months "and then, should the congregation fail, or the church disagree, I would reserve to myself liberty, without breach of engagement, to retire; and you could, on your part, have the right to dismiss me without seeming to treat me ill." If no reason to desist appeared at the end of three months they could engage for another three months under the same reasonable stipulations. After all, five persons had not seen fit to support the proposal. Spurgeon admired their "honesty and boldness," and desired that, if his

trial proved unsatisfactory, the majority would follow their lead at the end. ⁴⁸ By April ¹⁹, however, the church in a special called meeting issued an invitation to Spurgeon to become pastor. Fifty male members of the church had met and petitioned the deacons to call the church meeting for April ¹⁹. On that day the church passed unanimously the resolution "that we tender our brother, the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, a most cordial and affectionate invitation forthwith to become pastor of this church, and we pray that the result of his services may be owned of God with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and a revival in our midst; that it may be fruitful in the conversion of sinners and in the edification of those that believe." ⁴⁹ The five who had opposed the invitation to the trial period had

evidently dropped their objections.

Spurgeon had come to a conclusion that, if nothing else, pecuniary matters must soon drive him from his little garden of Eden. In spite, therefore, of a struggle with the inevitable breaking of strong ties of mutual love and spiritual fellowship at Waterbeach, on April ²⁸ he replied to the invitation: "No lengthened reply is required; there is but one answer to so loving and cordial an invitation. I ACCEPT IT. I have not been perplexed as to what my reply should be, for many things constrain me thus to answer." The call was providential, not of his solicitation, the place was honorable for its past and would support a youth with prayer, God who called would be faithful, and their kindness already had knit his heart to theirs. He laced his acceptance with reminders of covenant blessings, the biblical/theological construct from which radiated his entire understanding of divine revelation and redemption that included even this moment. "The first note of invitation from your deacons came quite unlookedfor," he reminded them, "and I trembled at the idea of preaching in London. I could not understand how it had come about, and even now I am in the hands of our covenant God, whose wisdom directs all things. He shall choose for me; and so far as I can judge, this is His choice." Spurgeon mentioned his profound awareness of the glorious names connected with that pulpit, names such as Benjamin Keach, John Gill, and John Rippon. He entreated them to remember both in private and corporate prayer that he would be faithful to the charge God placed on him and also asked that they remember his "youth and inexperience, and pray that these may not hinder my usefulness." In closing he set the context of his hopes for gospel success: "And now, commending you to our covenant

God, the Triune Jehovah, I am, yours to serve in the gospel, C. H. Spurgeon." ⁵⁰ Soon after his acceptance of the invitation, the church began to make plans for an ordination service. Spurgeon believed ordination to be a hangover from Romish sacramentalism and complained against Protestants who maintained it.

He responded quickly, therefore, to this proposed arrangement in a note that stated his position firmly in the context of a deferential spirit. On May ², Spurgeon responded: "I have a decided objection to any public ordination or recognition. I have, scores of times, most warmly expressed from the pulpit my abhorrence of such things, and have been not a little notorious as the opponent of a custom which has become a kind of iron law in the country. I am willing to retrace my steps if in error; but if I have been right, it will be no very honorable thing to belie my former loud outcries by submitting to it myself." He did not believe that this formality would make him any more a minister than he already was and detested the dogma of apostolic succession and objected to its revival among Baptists "by delegating power from minister to minister." He believed in

the glory of independency, that every church had the right, without assistance from others, of choosing its own ministers. "You, yourselves, have chosen me; and what matters it if the whole world dislikes the choice? They cannot invalidate it; nor can they give it more force." Other ministers had no more to do with him than the crown of France had to do with the crown of Britain. "Prelatic power is gone. All we are brethren." Spurgeon believed that the ceremony was meaningless and the charge received in public should be delivered only in private if a fellow minister believed it his brotherly duty to do so. "I do not know how I could sit in public to be told... that I must not spend more than my income; and (if married), that I must be a good husband, and not let the wife say that being a minister had lessened my affection, with all the absurd remarks on family and household matters. I do not know what sort of a homily I should get; but if I am to have it, let it be in my study; or if it be not a very good one, I cannot promise to sit and hear it." He was willing to endure such a thing as a penance for the sake of the congregation but he himself had a decided aversion to it.

Two weeks into the New Park Street pastorate, the noted actor who had just been converted and baptized, Sheridan Knowles, gave this admonition to his

class in elocution at Stepney College:

Go hear him at once if you want to know how to preach. His name is Charles Spurgeon. He is only a

boy, but he is the most wonderful preacher in the world. He is absolutely perfect in his oratory; and,

besides that, a master in the art of acting. He has nothing to learn from me, or anyone else. He is

simply perfect.... Why boys, he can do anything he pleases with his audience! He can make them

laugh, and cry, and laugh again, in five minutes. His power was never equalled. 51

He closed the evaluation with a remarkable judgment about his future usefulness and the world-wide influence of his sermons. The fulfillment of this prospective commendation began very soon.

A Famous London Pastorate

The New Park Street congregation had moved to that location in 1830 from Carter Lane. The unbroken connections of that congregation led back to 1652 when William Rider became pastor of a congregation that met in a private house in Southwark. Then, without a pastor for some years, the congregation called Benjamin Keach in 1668, who, in concert with his own theological change, led the congregation, at least in part, to move from a General Baptist theology to a Particular Baptist theology. He also led the congregation to build a house of worship in Horsleydown in 1672 during a brief interlude in the persecution of

those times. ⁵² After Keach's death in 1704, Benjamin Stinton served for fourteen years, to be followed by John Gill from 1720 to 1771. John Rippon followed Gill and remained for sixty-three years, dying in 1836. Joseph Angus succeeded Rippon but remained only until 1840 when he accepted a position with the Baptist Missionary Society. Two pastors followed Angus; they were James Smith and William Walters. Susannah Spurgeon remembered him as a "quaint and rugged preacher, but one well-versed in the blessed art of bringing souls to Christ." She had seen him administering the ordinance of baptism and wondered "with a tearful longing whether I should ever be able thus to confess

my faith in the Lord Jesus." ⁵³ During its history the church had enjoyed many years of flourishing but had had periodic declines in membership and fervency of spirit. In an auditorium that seated over ¹,200, hardly more than 200 regularly attended. ⁵⁴ Drummond

claims that there could not have been more than eighty. ⁵⁵ All of that changed very soon after Spurgeon's arrival.

Twenty-five years later, as Spurgeon reminisced about the early days as a means of showing the irresistible nature of divine providence, he recalled: "Twenty-five years ago we began this work for the Lord with a slender handful of friends, so slender, indeed, that it is easy enough to make a list of them." Just a "few poor, godly people were the nucleus," and they were "as good as they were few." For years they had been discouraged and disappointed and were thus delivered from all "unpractical squeamishness"; he found them ready to join "with their young leader in an effort for restoring their church and increasing the kingdom of Christ." They prayed for prosperity and "prosperity came suddenly, like the bursting of a great rain cloud." Unlike the rain cloud, however, prosperity did not abate but continued with a downpour in abundance year after year. ⁵⁶

The London Pulpit

When Spurgeon arrived, the pulpiteers of London were mighty men of renown.

That a nineteen-year-old, in less than half a decade, would rise to be the most prominent of all would have been unthinkable. An astute, but cynical, observer of The London Pulpit, who wrote a book by that name, mused: "I know not that there is a happier berth in the world than that of a fashionable Evangelical preacher in this enlightened city and enlightened age." The evangelical preacher was adored by the women, envied by the men, had his portrait in neighborhood shops, and received gifts of worsted wool slippers from the young women. His

silver teapot was a gift of the congregation. ⁵⁷ His slightly superior, worldlywise comments usually framed a viewpoint 180 degrees removed from the studied opinion of Spurgeon. Ritchie celebrated the poetic thinker unbound by traditional creedal boundaries, the intellectual focused on subtle insights about current social and cultural trends, and suggested all the wrong criteria for the success, or lack of it, of the various London pulpits. On rare instances his opinion might intersect the plane of Spurgeon's observations.

Anglicanism would survive because of the favored position it enjoyed and always there would be those that gravitated toward the predictable aesthetic pleasure of ritual. But for the success of dissent, the gravitational pull of the pulpit must be strong. That had been in decline. Ritchie claimed that two things contributed. One, "the pulpit is too much a repetition of creeds and theologies that are becoming extinct; and in the second place, there is a dead weight in the pews which masters the pulpit, and deadens its intellectual life." Ritchie was complaining, of course, but based on this observation he described dissenting ministers in a way that Spurgeon himself would affirm. They say things in private conversation that they dare not utter in the pulpit. When he seeks to give some vent to a repressed conscience, the vagueness of theological terms comes to his aid so that what he says in "one sense is understood by his hearers in

another." ⁵⁸ Ritchie concluded what Spurgeon would conclude, though with entirely different regrets, "No wonder then that the pulpit is so barren of power."

Men with gifts generally chose the pen rather than the pulpit in a day of universal reading. In spite of such discouraging conditions, the "pulpit is not wholly deserted. It can still boast its consecrated talent."

Ritchie then surveyed the most popular pulpits in London within the first five years of Spurgeon's arrival. Though largely freed from "the buffooneries by which at one time it was disgraced", of the ¹,200 clergy in London, one could

hardly name a dozen "superior men." ⁵⁹ Among Anglicans, Ritchie liked J. C.

M. Bellew who ignored the ceremonial disputes in his own church for a

Christianity that is "something proud, and majestic, and divine,—a universal remedy for a universal disease,—not a skeleton of dead doctrine, or a bone of

contention, or an obsolete word, but a living, healthy, beneficent power." ⁶⁰ Thomas Dale had a stylish congregation, whose young ladies had servants that carried the Book of Common Prayer. With a glare of silks and satins, feathers, and jewels they devoutly confessed themselves to be miserable sinners. "If the grace that is divine be as common there as the grace that is earthly, Mr. Dale's charge must be a happy flock indeed," and "one would hardly mind, in the midst of such rich city merchants and their charming daughters, being a miserable sinner himself. Such opulent misery and fashionable sin seem rather enviable than otherwise." His sermons, like his poetry, were highly polished but too invariably the same. Rev. R. Liddell was a Puseyite, whose intellectual and doctrinal commitments left him little to do but "expatiate on the sanctity of the priestly office, and the mysterious powers possessed by the Church." His was an educated congregation, but "in a wrong direction."

F. D. Maurice at Lincoln-Inn's Field was the quintessential intellectual, accused of heresy, but only because he resists the imposition of a human creed and "denies the doctrine of eternal damnation." He was a man of "study and thought" whose "voice is clear and agreeable." He differs from other clergymen "in his superior power of ratiocination and in the wider inductions on which he

bases his doctrines." ⁶¹ According to Ritchie, though the more narrow religious journals loved to criticize Maurice, "No man has so earnestly laboured to Christianize—not the dark tribes of Polynesia, for then these journals would have been redolent with his praise—but the savages with white faces and dark hearts that we meet in our streets every day." Spurgeon would find Maurice the epitome of the liberal intellectual.

Rising high above all others in Ritchie's estimation was Herman Melville. ⁶² The magic of his voice had charmed every ear. He was tall and dark "with grey hair and blue eyes, with a face lit up with genius." Indeed, he was "the most brilliant preacher in the English Church." He begins with power and increases all the way through the sermon from text to conclusion, a phenomenon of magnetic passion and intellect, perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs, and breathtaking delivery "developing and illustrating his meaning with a brilliancy and rapidity unparalleled in the pulpit at the present day." His hell is a real place, "a bottomless pit where the smoke of their torment ever ascends—where the worm never dies—where the fire is not quenched." At the same time, none is more committed to the sanctity of the English Establishment "whose articles he has subscribed, and whose emoluments he pockets." He knows of no other

church than that which the state supports. "Pulpits outside the Church are not only destitute of that power, but, alas! destitute also of all saving grace." Alas for Spurgeon, for none would be so like him and yet so far from him.

As for the Churchman Villiers, Ritchie considered him "a fine, well-made man" with a prepossessing figure, "a great thing in a public speaker." The pulpit is no place for "weak, stunted, deformed, wretched-looking men." Other desirable traits possessed by Villiers were a fine voice with excellent qualities in reading, a thing necessary to give any liveliness to the read part of the liturgy.

His preaching was calculated to keep the attention of his hearers for "he is exceedingly active and energetic" in the pulpit, "his voice filling every part of the enormous church." Neither original nor intellectual, nor creative enough to revivify old themes, he made "the common truths of orthodox Christianity" the staple of his discourse. "The theatre and the ballroom are the objects of his bitterest denunciations," a theme well-suited to enchant his congregation since "they frequent neither the one nor the other" and thus "care little what harsh

things he says of those who do." ⁶³ Among the Independents, Thomas Binney of Weigh-House Chapel gained Ritchie's mature approval. He had been through the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle, had struggled with Vanity Fair and had developed reasoned and tested answers to the destructive powers of each. "Such a man has a right to preach to me," Ritchie surmised; "If he has known, felt, thought, suffered, more

than I, he is master, and I listen." ⁶⁴ His prayers, not like the beautiful but cold and unchanging petitions of the Anglican liturgy, reach into the shifts of the human soul, make earth recede and heaven draw near. The preaching starts slowly but "at length you catch, like a gleam of sunshine in a November fog, a fine thought in fine language." Binney, so Ritchie judged, was a Christian Carlyle, with "the same faculty of realizing great and sterling thoughts; but with

a light upon his way and in his heart which Carlyle has never known." ⁶⁵ This commendation would be seconded by Spurgeon as he also found Binney one of the most thoughtful and earnest of the London preachers. Spurgeon reviewed books by and about Binney, and pointed out that while he had many imitators none of them had his gifts or the rarities of his imposing and sincere zeal.

Baldwin Brown of Clayland's Chapel, just above thirty, had great abilities and confidence and attainments commensurate with it. His main attraction is freshness, something of a code word for Ritchie. Brown's speech was "a living speech, not a monotonous repetition of old divinity. He has wandered out of the

conventional circle. He has come in contact with great minds." ⁶⁶ His view of things is broad and "manly" [meaning apparently original to him and not

necessarily consistent with the doctrinal formula of the past]. His faith, therefore, "is a living one. His Christianity is practical—that by which men may shape their life as well as square their creed." He did not wander "weakly and sentimentally in other lands and in other ages," but brought his "mind and heart to bear upon the realities of the present day. The questions of our age, not of past ages, he discusses in his pulpit." To Spurgeon, this would seem like an inflated way of saying the man was tinged with modern thought of the most destructive

kind, indeed what Spurgeon would publicly call "pernicious error." ⁶⁷ On the other hand, under the sneer of Ritchie, but soon a fast friend and supporter of Spurgeon, John Campbell ruled with a rod of iron over one section of the Congregational church. Some delight in such a rod and such a man, and they find it "a real blessing to get hold of a firm, dogmatic man, who knows his

own mind, and who will kindly take care of theirs." ⁶⁸ Campbell was "fluent in pen, meagre in attainment, seemingly master of no one subject, yet writing vehemently on all." Ritchie presented Campbell as a man that had "never said a word, or written a line, that is not narrow and sectarian and one-sided." Ritchie continued with line upon line of disgust and invective against Campbell. He considered Campbell "one of the failures of the age" for no man had "talked

more, or done less." ⁶⁹ "Superficiality has ever been his bane. A fatal copiousness of words has ruined him." A failure in the pulpit, per Ritchie, he turned himself to the newspaper and thus hindered the men who would have

done well what he did poorly. ⁷⁰ With Ritchie's full rage intact, Campbell is just the kind of man who would come to the aid of an attacked and smeared Spurgeon.

Thomas T. Lynch would be given notoriety far beyond his true ability to provoke such because of a controversy that swirled over a book of poetry that he produced entitled The Rivulet: Hymns for the Heart and Voice. Spurgeon joined the list of commentators, slightly on the negative side, an event that will be discussed later. Ritchie, however, revealed the standard of his judgment by expressing his deep regret that Lynch had only a small congregation. That fact served as no indictment of the usefulness or talent of Lynch but as a reproach of the Christian church. "Not three hundred can be got to hear him; and yet I know

no man better worth your hearing," Ritchie opined. ⁷¹ That allowed Lynch more time for the press, a fact that convinced many that their decision not to hear him was well-founded, although Ritchie was deeply impressed. "He is young yet. He is older in thoughts than in years," Ritchie believed, adding that "his inner life has been of richer growth than his outer one." Lynch would never be a popular preacher, "but to men of thought, especially to men of literature—to the school

of Tennyson and Coleridge—his will always be a welcome name." ⁷² That which commended him to Ritchie would make him suspect to Spurgeon.

Conversely, Ritchie's expectations from a preacher at the intersection of authority and reason directly contradicted Spurgeon's deep-seated convictions.

Ritchie described Martin of Westminster Chapel as "a man of one book," the Bible, and a man of one fact, "salvation by the cross," making him a man of one message and one mission, ⁷³ "You are lucky if you get a seat, the chapel, which

has recently been enlarged, being always full." ⁷⁴ Ritchie put forth that description as a criticism and statement of his minimal worth as a preacher.

Martin so focused his message because he so fully believed the biblical doctrine of total depravity—that fact in itself was enough to drive Ritchie to a philosophical excursus on the relation between set creeds, fixed doctrine, and the task of the Christian minister, as he saw it. "Is the language of the Psalmist, descriptive of himself, universally true?" Ritchie queried. "Is it true that man is born in sin, and shapen in iniquity; that he is depraved; that he hates what is good, and loves what is bad?" A positive commitment to that idea, so Ritchie surmised, "sufficiently accounts for the war ever carried on between faith and

reason, the church and the world." ⁷⁵ Ritchie thought it was a "terrible doctrine" and could not account for its popularity. Regrettably, those "who preach it are the most popular preachers." A gospel with that at the bottom tramples on the intellect and does, indeed, give the world to the weak and the despised and to the nothings. They are taught to feel themselves superior to "the science and literature and philosophy of man, which they hold but as dirt in comparison with the truths they teach and the discoveries they reveal. Their appeal is not to the intellect or the taste" since they care for neither.

A man like A. J. Morris, however, says what is worth hearing. With him religion is a real thing He has fed his intellect on it, and squared his life by it. By its lamp "he is prepared to find his way when he comes to the valley of the shadow of death." The religion he preaches is as good for the counting-house as for the closet, and he "gives you something to think about as well." He has not taken up his own creed upon a trust; nor does he expect his hearers to do so; but he has a keen perception of spiritual realities and tries to give his people the same. Though Spurgeon loved, practiced, and promoted deep spirituality, he never encouraged its prosperity at the expense of definite truth.

Among the Baptists, Ritchie reluctantly liked William Brock, the pastor at Bedford Square attended by Sir Morton Peto. Brock was purely Saxon without the slightest pretension to elegance or grace. "Such men as he are not the men young ladies run after, fall in love with, get to write in their albums, buy

engravings for their boudoirs; but, nevertheless, with their strong passionate

speech, and indomitable pluck, they are the men who move the world." ⁷⁶ But he moved a world that wanted quick pre-set answers, not refinement of philosophy —"It is in the Bible" satisfied him and pacified those that listened. "People want something positive and dogmatic" because they have little time for theology and even less to hear both sides of any issue. It must, therefore, be positive, plain, and settled, and Brock can give it to them that way.

As a distinct contrast among the Baptists, at Devonshire Square Chapel was the former great man among the Baptists, J. Howard Hinton. He had a small attendance for "Mr. Hinton has no clap-trap about him." He has long gone beyond the time that "young ladies take an interest in their darling minister", and with Hinton, "you must not merely listen to him, but must use your own intellectual powers as well." That exertion goes beyond the desires of most of the church and chapel goers of London. Those that do hear him are instructed by his sermons, have their views clarified and more enlarged, and gain a greater understanding of the Christian scheme. Hinton maintained an outline of Calvinism in his theology, while in essence, according to Ritchie's evaluation, he exploded it completely. For example, though he believed in human depravity, he preached that "no man is subject to the wrath of God, in any sense or degree, because of Adam's sin, but every man stands as free from the penal influences of his first parent's crime as though Adam had never existed, or as though he himself were the first of mankind." On the subject of the work of the Spirit, his emphasis on human responsibility so prevailed that he seemed on occasion almost to oppose the doctrine of regeneration. According to Ritchie, Hinton preached, "Without being moved thereto by the Spirit of God, and without any other influence than the blessing which God always gives to the use of means, you are competent to alter your mind towards God by obeying the dictates of your own conscience, and employing the faculties of your own being. Think on your ways, and you will turn your feet to God's testimonies. This is what God requires you to do in order to obtain deliverance from His wrath; and, except you do it without regard to any communication of His Spirit, he leaves you to

perish." ⁷⁷ Ritchie possibly misunderstood the context of Hinton's declarations. Hinton, just two years after the publication of Ritchie's dubious commendations, took a stand for theology that would certainly make Ritchie cringe. In the interests of "vital Evangelical truth—for the truth of God and the souls of men," Hinton wrote strictures against a book by Baldwin Brown because he detected a "theology fatally deficient in the truth and power of the gospel." ⁷⁸ Spurgeon

clearly supported J. H. Hinton's protest and entered the controversy in two tightly worded missives. Ritchie's approval, however, of Hinton's apparent slight defection from Calvinism, showed how he would evaluate Spurgeon's unabashed preaching of utter dependence on the divine Spirit at no cost to human responsibility. "At times," Ritchie admitted, "Mr. Hinton seems to contradict himself. But, after all, is not the theme one on which the human intellect can never be perfectly consistent and clear?"

For Sheridan Knowles, the former actor turned minister, Ritchie held little admiration. "Knowles does not shine in the pulpit as he did on the stage," but his sermons are "bundles of little bits of arguments tied up together as a heap of old

sticks, and just as dry." ⁷⁹ An honest and dogmatic man, he was but a "moderate preacher after all." It is not surprising that Ritchie would lampoon the rational powers of Knowles, for Knowles was an ardent and early supporter of Spurgeon.

The social plume for the Baptists was "THE HON. AND REV. BAPTIST NOEL." A convert from Anglicanism, and one of the royal chaplains at that, Noel was "of lordly origin" as the tenth son of a peeress whose sister was a lady in waiting to the Queen, and whose brother was an earl. No wonder that so many London shopkeepers and tradesmen resort to St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, to hear him. "These good people felt that by going to hear him they were killing two birds with one stone—getting into the very best society, and at the same time worshipping the God of heaven and of earth." As one of the plainest preachers of the metropolis, when he rises in the pulpit, "you feel that you have that undefinable mystery, a gentleman, before you," unsurpassed in "elegance of appearance, or urbanity of manner." His words are aimed at the heart, not the head; if he could not master the understanding, then he would go for the affections. "He may win you over by his gentleness, though he fail to convince you by his power." As we will see, Spurgeon's ilk found little place for approval in Ritchie.

John Cummings, among the Presbyterians, offended Ritchie's view of Christian ministry as deeply as any that he discussed. He was weary of Cummings' "Old Testament and his high-dried Scotch theology, and his Romanist antipathies, and his Millennial hopes." Instead of theories of grace, and other-worldly palaver, remember that men are finite and human. "Dr. Cummings preaches as if you had no father or mother, no sister or brother, no wife or child, no human struggles and hopes—as if the great object of preaching was to fill you with Biblical pedantry." Ritchie looked for a place that would make men "better, wiser, stronger than before." That Cummings' house of worship was so thronged spoke ill of the religious propensities of Londoners, in Ritchie's estimation.

Ritchie would much prefer, though not endorsing all that he stood for, a man like William Forster, a man of free inquiry, opposed to all creeds and fetters on the reason of man. When he left Calvinism, he also left any substantial orthodoxy. A new chapel was built for him, in Kentish Town, upon the agreement that "all definition of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, should be avoided, and that the clause, 'This place is erected for the worship of God, as the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit,' should be placed at the head of the deed." Ritchie was willing to wait and see if Forster's approach to Christianity, unfettered by creed, would answer the ever-changing needs of the nineteenth century. Forster was so opposed to any authority outside the reason of man that he posited the query, "Have we not yet to learn that there is no via media —no middle way between Reason and Rome?" A man that grows and changes everyday cannot possibly give honest assent to an unchanging creed.

Wherever this tyranny is obeyed, there cannot be much depth of conviction, vitality of sentiment, growth of knowledge, and improvement of religious life."

80 Spurgeon could not even pause to consider the possibility of such a view being right, much less helpful. There was one unchanging gospel, the same in every age, sent forth for men who are one and all under the curse of imputed guilt and corruption of soul. None but Jesus in his redeeming work can do helpless sinners good.

The New Park Street Pulpit

The immediate success of Spurgeon so astounded London that periodicals vied for news about his services as energetically as people vied for places from which they could hear his sermons. Conveyance and pubs prospered as crowds moved across the Thames to "Charlie's." The New Park Street facilities, which had dwarfed the crowd on that first evening of Spurgeon's preaching, soon seemed small. Though he had wanted a wider sphere of service, the growth of the crowds overwhelmed Spurgeon with the sense of responsibility. Later he reflected: "When I first became a Pastor in London, my success appalled me, and the thought of the career which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depth, out of which I uttered my Miserere and found no

room for a Gloria in excelsis. " ⁸¹ He wanted to return to obscurity or to emigrate to America where in the backwoods he might feel sufficient for the things demanded of him. Spurgeon learned to expect depression as a precursor to greater demands and larger blessing.

One of the first challenges of faith that he experienced came in a very physical form when, scarcely a year into his ministry there, a cholera epidemic struck London, most intensely in the neighborhood of New Park Street. Many church families lost members. Spurgeon was busy at funerals and at the bedside of many sick both in his church and in the homes of other persons who had visited the Chapel to hear him preach. A man who had scoffed at him in the first months of his ministry sent an urgent call to Spurgeon. He went and found the man dying and almost unconscious and unable even to respond to Spurgeon's attempt to present the gospel. Three years later Spurgeon referred to the panic that seized people during this time and the short-lived resolutions many made in the face of danger. "I remember, when last time the cholera swept through your streets, ye hurried to your churches, and ye prayed; terror sat upon your countenances, and many of you cried aloud for deliverance. It came. What did you do? Alas! for

your piety! It was as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it passed away." ⁸² Spurgeon's unrelenting efforts at ministry brought him to a point of exhaustion and he feared that he himself would succumb to the fatality that swirled all around him. On his way to a pastoral visit he passed the window of a shoemaker who had procured one of the signs that warned people against the entrance of certain streets in London and informed them where medical aid could be found. The lead word—the biggest and boldest lettering—simply read "CHOLERA." In the middle of the sign a bold handwriting announced, "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy

dwelling." The reading of these words made Spurgeon personalize the promise and continued his visitation without fear of evil or harm, in his words, "girt with

immortality." ⁸³ Surely he referred to himself when, in a sermon in February 1855 on Christ crucified, he described a pastor in a series of illustrations of the power of Christ crucified. "What is it that empowers yonder minister, in the midst of the cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase and stand by the bed of some dying creature who has that dire disease? It must be a thing of power which leads him to risk his life. It is love of the Cross of Christ which bids him

do it!" ⁸⁴ Meanwhile at New Park Street, as Spurgeon explained to a friend, "We are getting on too fast. Our harvest is too rich for the barn." Conversions were many and Spurgeon met with inquirers on Monday and Thursday evenings and had to send many away without seeing them. The conversion of T. W. Medhurst in this year led to the establishment of the Pastors' College, a story to be told later. The difficulty of helping all the inquirers led eventually to the election of elders in

1859 and Spurgeon's re-instituting the office of teacher in the church in 1862. ⁸⁵ On Thursday evenings, people could scarcely find a seat for the week-night service. On Sundays the crowd was immense and the aisles became so full thirty minutes prior to the service that seat-holders could not get to their seats. "Many stand through the whole service, wedged in by their fellows, and prevented from escaping by the crowd outside, who seal up the doors and fill the yard in front,

and stand in throngs as far as the sound can reach." ⁸⁶ Spurgeon likened the stuffiness of the place so filled, also lighted with gas

lights, to the "black-hole of Calcutta." ⁸⁷ He sought remedies for this in ways that startled his staid, traditional congregation. His suggestion that the unopenable permanent windows be removed was met with inaction. On one Sabbath the congregation arrived to find that some of the panes had been removed "as if they had been taken out by a glazier" and others in a less professional fashion. Spurgeon announced that a sum of £5 be set aside for finding the culprit and that, when found, he should receive the £5 as a reward.

No one discovered or reported the perpetrator. "I have not felt it to be my duty to inform against the individual," Spurgeon wrote later, and "I trust none will suspect me, but if they do, I shall have to confess that I have walked with the

stick which let the oxygen into that stifling structure." ⁸⁸ Something also would have to be done about space. At an evening service in 1854, Spurgeon called for a tearing down of the back wall just as the walls of Jericho had fallen by faith. "An aged and prudent deacon," so Spurgeon described him, approached Spurgeon at the end of the service and insisted, "Let

us never hear of that again." Not to be intimidated or hindered in his view of the urgent need for more space, Spurgeon responded, "You will hear no more about

it when it is done, and therefore the sooner you set about doing it the better." ⁸⁹ Spurgeon had told the committee during the epistolary negotiations prior to his call that he did not fear man and this deacon learned the truth of it. Though just beyond twenty years of age, his vision and resolution quickly established the grounding for his eventual nickname, "The Governor." The people could see that expansion was no mere headiness on the part of their pastor, but was a stewardship pressed upon them by the spiritual reality before them.

An Enforced Sojourn

A selected committee made a decision to expand the facilities. The plan seemed a bit awkward, but given the location and the limitations of the site and structure, it was a gallant effort to maximize their property. The vestries and school rooms were absorbed into the chapel, new school rooms were built with windows that would let down so that overflow crowds could be seated there and still hear the

preacher. ⁹⁰ This attempt at accommodation of the pressing crowds led eventually to the construction of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, but its present futility had to be demonstrated.

The renovation made the procurement of temporary accommodations necessary. Exeter Hall, a large public auditorium which held ⁵,000, was rented.

It was north of the Thames, making it more accessible to the rest of London but more difficult for the New Park Street congregation. Not only did the members make their way there, but thousands of others came and the Hall was so bloated with people that thousands had to remain outside. Spurgeon gave a simple summary of the dynamic time: "The feeble folk at New Park-street soon felt strong enough to attempt an aggressive work by holding services at Exeter Hall, and, when this turned out to be more than a success, future progress was forced

upon them rather than selected by them." ⁹¹ He wrote a friend: "It is strange that such a power should be in one small body to crowd Exeter Hall to suffocation, and block up the Strand, so that pedestrians have to turn down by-ways, and all

other traffic is at a standstill." ⁹² As newspapers carried paragraphs reporting the stranglehold that Spurgeon's preaching was creating on the Strand, editors began to attack the cause of this strange phenomenon. So many coming to such a place to hear such a young and obscure preacher! Spurgeon recalled that the "most ridiculous stories were circulated" (probably the worsted slipper story by Mr. Ewing Ritchie himself, for he seemed fixated on such cartoonish presentations), "and the most cruel

falsehoods invented, but all these things worked together for good." ⁹³ Crowds did not diminish and Exeter Hall was overflowing throughout the time needed for the renovation.

Immediately prior to the move to Exeter Hall, Passmore and Alabaster had begun publishing the weekly sermons of Spurgeon in January. His sermon for January ⁷, 1855, was the first to appear. This contributed to the rush of people to hear Spurgeon. "Our place of meeting at New Park Street only sufficed us for six weeks after the publication of the 'Pulpit,' and the platform at Exeter Hall was occupied till June of the same year, when, the chapel having been enlarged, the

congregation returned to its own abode, to be there crowded, inconvenienced,

and almost suffocated for another twelve months." ⁹⁴ Upon the return, hundreds that wanted to attend the services could not get in. Spurgeon was aware that many from other congregations attended and within the first month he began to chide them for taking up space that was needed by the derelict of their own

neighborhood:

This one thing I ask—never come here to gratify your curiosity. You that are members of other

congregations, just consider it your duty to stay at home. There are many stray sheep about. I would

rather have them than you. Keep to your own place. I do not want to rob other ministers. Do not come

here from charity. We are much obliged to you for your kindly intentions. But we would rather have

your seat than your company if you are members of other Churches. We want sinners to come—

sinners of every sort. But do not let us have that sort of men whose ears are everlastingly itching for

some new preacher—who are saying, "I need something else, I need something else." 95

On another occasion, Spurgeon recounted the return to New Park Street with a vivid recollection of the glory as well as the difficulties of the inadequate

renovation:

The return to New Park Street, enlarged though it was, resembled the attempt to put the sea into a

teapot. We were more inconvenienced than ever. To turn many hundreds away was the general if not

the universal necessity. And those who gained admission were but little better off, for the packing was

dense in the extreme, and the heat something terrible even to remember. Our enemies continued to

make our name more and more known by penny pamphlets and letters in the papers, which all tended

to swell the crowd. More caricatures appeared, and among the rest [ sic, best?] "Catch-'em-alive-O!"

Criticism and Praise

Life was happening fast for Spurgeon. The radical opposition of periodicals with such a wide circulation surely must have been a shock for one that had so recently been buried in anonymity in the rural village of Waterbeach. Though he took it as a blessing from the hand of God, it still gave him sleepless nights. He knew that this kind of treatment must surely disturb his parents also. He wrote his father in March 1855 asking him not to be "grieved at the slanderous libel in this week's Express. Of course, it is all a lie, without an atom of foundation; and while the whole of London is talking of me, and thousands are unable to get near the door, the opinion of a penny-a-liner is of little consequence." He assured his lifelong mentor that an answer would appear on all points soon. The "lie" claimed that Spurgeon in public had announced to the young ladies in the audience not to entertain hopes for him for he was already attached, and that they should not send him presents. The report was publicly exposed as a pure fabrication, a withdrawal and apology printed, in the context of an even more

irascible spirit toward Spurgeon. ⁹⁶ In quick succession, correspondents and editors called his preaching a "prostitution of the pulpit," the "vulgar colloquial varied by rant" in which "the most solemn mysteries of our holy religion are by him rudely, roughly, and impiously handled," "blasphemy from a parson," "oratorical tricks, daring utterances,... coarse sentiments, scholastic expressions, and a clap-trap style," "insolence so unblushing, intellect so feeble, flippancy so ostentatious, and manners so rude," "pulpit buffoonery" and alarmed readers with the complaint of the horrid reality that those who crowd so enthusiastically to hear this execrable display of pulpit Mountebankism "consists of people who are not in

the habit of frequenting a place of worship." ⁹⁷ For himself, though he could not fall asleep until morning light, he could say, "Hail reproach, and welcome shame." On top of that, he could rejoice because "the devil is roused, the Church is awakening, and I am now counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake."

Suffering was good ballast to offset the giddy effect of the applause. ⁹⁸ Preaching on "A Lecture on Little Faith" in 1858, Spurgeon made an illustration of his experience on the necessity of laboring to "get as much as

possible free from self." ⁹⁹ For himself, he labored "to attain the position of perfect indifference of all men." He found that, when he heard praise and gave way to finding pleasure in it, censure and abuse would follow. He felt this even more keenly "for the very fact that I took the praise rendered me liable to lay hold upon the censure." He learned therefore to try, "especially of late," to

regard both man's praise and censure as unworthy of notice, "but to fix my heart simply upon this—I know that I have a right motive in what I attempt to do, I am conscious that I endeavor to serve God with a single eye to his glory, and therefore it is not for me to take praise from man nor censure, but to stand

independently upon the one rock of right doing." ¹⁰⁰ Spurgeon's conscious efforts to detach himself from both flattery and deflation allowed him to survey the benefits of this criticism. At the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861, he pointed to the power of the divine Spirit as the only source of effectuality in the ministry of any preacher and the sole explanation for any movement of revival. Criticism of him amounted to nothing

in light of blessings from God:

May the Lord here, while he uses human instrumentality, yet let you all see that "it is not by might, nor

by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord." This has indeed been my mission, to shew the power of

God in human weakness. I do acknowledge and confess what is so continually said of me. "The man is

not educated." Granted. "His periods are unpolished." Granted. "His manner is rough." Be it so, if you

will. "Himself a fool," Aye, amen, and what else you choose. Gather together all the epithets in the

catalogue of abuse—come heap them here. But who hath done this, who hath saved souls, and called

the people to his footstool? Why, if the instrument be mean, the more glory to him that used it. And if

the man be nothing, "I glory in infirmity, that the power of God may rest upon me." 101

To one that dared to write against the editorial orthodoxy on Spurgeon and speak of his great usefulness to the poor and irreligious of London, Spurgeon responded with humble, but eloquent, gratitude. "The head of the church," he affirmed, "has given me sympathy with the masses, love to the poor, and the means of winning the attention of the ignorant and unenlightened." He never sought popularity and cannot fathom how it has come, but should he change now to please the polite critic and leave the people that "require a simple and stirring style?" "I am, perhaps, vulgar," he admitted, "but it is not intentional, save that I must and will make the people listen." The polite preachers and others may serve their class, but "God has owned me to the most degraded and off-cast;" Spurgeon's they were, and Spurgeon must have them. He thanked the editor for recognizing such was the case and for providing one favorable note within the

"constant din of abuse." ¹⁰² If some slandered, those that vied for space to hear him lifted him to the level of a force of nature. On a preaching tour in 1855 he reported to Susannah, his fiancée of a year, of extraordinary blessing and expressions of personal appreciation. On June ², 1855, God gave him as he "preached like the chief of sinners, to those who, like me, were chief sinners, too." Souls were saved and "many were the tears, and not a few the smiles." Three weeks later he reported an outdoor service in which he "climbed to the summit of a minister's glory." He

had preached to ¹⁰,000 in the field at Hackney, "twice as many as at Exeter Hall," he remarked. During the message profound silence descended on the massive crowd but afterwards "never did mortal man receive a more enthusiastic ovation! I wonder I am alive! After the service, five or six gentlemen endeavored to clear a passage, but I was borne along, amid cheers, and prayers, and shouts, for about a quarter of an hour," which to him seemed more like a week. "I was hurried round and round the field without hope of escape until, suddenly seeing a nice open carriage, with two occupants, standing near, I sprang in, and begged them to drive away." They did and he stood up as they drove off, waved his hat, pronounced a benediction toward the shouting crowd, and saw hats lifted from thousands of heads while cheer after cheer echoed through the fields. "Surely," he discerned carefully, "amid these plaudits, I can hear the low rumblings of an advancing storm of reproaches—but even this I can bear for the Master's sake."

103

All of this convinced Spurgeon that New Park Street would become the center of a revival in London. He sought to lead his church to that conviction as they entered the newly renovated chapel. Based on God's promise to Jerusalem in Ezekiel 34, Spurgeon enlarged the sense of the text to apply it "to the church of Jesus Christ, and to this particular church with which you and I stand

connected." ¹⁰⁴ If the lights of others only flickered, perhaps they can be set ablaze by the light that beamed from New Park Street. "If there is a flame here, let the flame spread, until all the neighborhood churches shall be lit up with the glory." In that way they would be a blessing and a rejoicing of the earth, for "there is never a revival in one spot, but it shall affect others." So exhilarated was Spurgeon by the relentless multiplication of conversions and pressing interest in the pure and simple message of the gospel he preached, that he

crowned his sturdy pre-millennialism with an exuberant post-millennial hope.

The little seed has grown to this—who knows what it shall be? Only let us strive together without

variance! Let us labor for Jesus. Never did men have so fair an opportunity, for the last hundred years,

"There is a tide that, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." Shall you take it at the flood? Over the

bar, at the harbor's mouth! O ship of Heaven, let your sails be out. Let not your canvass be furled. And

the wind will blow us across the Sea of Difficulty that lies before us. Oh, that the latter day might have

its dawning even in this despised habitation! O my God! From this place cause the first wave to spring

which shall move another and then another, till the last great wave shall sweep over the sands of time

and dash against the rocks of eternity, echoing as it falls, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord

God Omnipotent reigns!" 105

In addition, the foundation for Spurgeon's benevolent empire, "a city on a hill, which cannot be hid," was beginning to take shape. "I hope," he told his congregation on their return to the renovated chapel, "we shall never be satisfied,

as members of Park Street, until we are a blessing, not only to ourselves, but to

all the places round about our hill." ¹⁰⁶ Several agencies of work presently constituted their "hill." The Sabbath School that was growing and now called for more men. Next, the "Visiting and Christian Instruction Society" awaited ready workers with hearts for gospel saturation of Southwark. This was for visitation of the neighborhood, and Spurgeon already superintended a man "who labors zealously and earnestly in visiting the sick." Spurgeon felt very satisfied with the effectiveness of this man and called on others to join the work of this society in distributing tracts from door to door and to visit the numerous shops in the neighborhood of the church for a word of witness. Perhaps they would close shop on Sunday and attend chapel. Then with an auspicious, if also audacious,

statement of vision, Spurgeon announced a general and a particular:

Let me not forget any agency connected with this Church. There are several more which are places

round about our hill—and the Lord has just put it into my heart to fashion other societies, which shall

be made a blessing to this hill—and in a little while you shall hear of them. We have several Brothers

in this congregation to whom God has given a mouth of utterance. These are about to form themselves

into a society for proclaiming the Word of God. Where God has so blessed His Church and made us to

be so noted and named among the people, why should we not keep on? We have been brought up to a

great pitch of fervency and love. Now is the time for doing something. While the iron is hot, why not

strike and fashion it? I believe we have the materials not only for making a Church, here, that shall be

the glory of the Baptist churches in London, but for making churches everywhere throughout the

metropolis! And we have more plans on hand, which matured by sober judgment and backed by

prudence, shall yet make this metropolis more honored than it has been by the sound of the pure

Gospel and the proclamation of the pure Word of God. May God make all our Agencies—the places

round about our hill—a blessing! 107

Brothers with mouths of utterance—material for a pastors' college. Materials for making a church, the glory of the Baptist churches of London, making churches throughout the metropolis—a big home base for founding other churches throughout the city and in other districts. More plans, matured by sober judgment, backed by prudence, the sound of a pure gospel, the proclamation of the pure Word of God—an open-ended consideration of anything to expand the impact of gospel ministry under the watchful eye of Spurgeon. When he later said that each enterprise was forced on him by providence, one can see clearly that providence found a man in search of a variety of ways to make known the gospel.

The vision was too big for the place. The place was constricted compared to the need for space for workers, and storage, and classes, and expanding fellowship, and places for earnest inquirers to hear the message. Spurgeon needed not only hundreds, even thousands, of workers to fulfill the calling worthy of his love of the gospel, but he needed one person exactly suited to him

to receive expressions of personal love from his intense heart and to provide a haven of joy and support in his home life.

Oh, Susannah!

"Marriage and the Sabbath are the two choice boons of primeval love that have come down to us from Paradise, the one to bless our outer and the other our

inner life." ¹⁰⁸ Just as surely as Spurgeon kept the Sabbath, so did he look for the right wife. The need for a wife was met quickly. One of the hearers on the first evening that he preached for the church was a young lady named Susannah Thompson. She had been born on January ¹⁵, 1832, two and a half years the senior of Spurgeon. Though her parents attended New Park Street from time to time, Susannah's more regular attendance was influenced by the Olney family, her cousins by marriage. Her attendance on that first evening impressed her only with the irreverent quickness of his pulpit deportment, the quaintness of his speech, and the bucolic appearance of his clothes and hair—huge black satin stock, badly trimmed hair, and a blue handkerchief with white spots. By her own admission, Susannah possessed so little spiritual discernment that she could hear neither the profundity, nor the clarity, nor the earnestness of his gospel presentation so engaging and encouraging to others, but only felt regret at the illplaced confidence of such a ridiculous figure in appearing before a sophisticated London congregation.

Evidently, Susannah had a mind filled with images and comparisons that at times could distract her and at other times, when harnessed by grace, provided a brilliant medium for communication. Her writings abound in apt and intriguing illustrations, analogies, and extended metaphors. One of her earliest memories at church was the "curious pulpit without any stairs" that looked like a "magnified swallow's nest," and a deacon dressed in silk stockings and knee breeches, a short, stout rotund man who, when viewed from the side perched on his undraped legs and wearing a long tailed coat, had an "unmistakable resemblance to a gigantic robin." His chirping out the verses of a hymn in a "piping, twittering voice" made the likeness complete. What images she envisioned as she watched the energetic young Demosthenes went unexpressed except in the

terse statement "some feelings of amusement." ¹⁰⁹ Susannah had been brought to faith only within the past year, late in 1852 or early 1853, under the ministry of S. B. Bergne of Poulty Chapel. When he preached on Romans 10:8 she said "that night witnessed my solemn resolution of entire surrender to Himself." She kept all this to herself, however, and the result was that a cold despondency crept over her spiritually, engendering the "sickly and sleepy condition" of her soul when she first encountered the preaching of Spurgeon. His friendship with the Olneys provided frequent opportunities for contact and she soon found a gift to her from her pastor of an

illustrated copy of Pilgrims' Progress in which he had inscribed, "Miss

Thompson with desires for her progress in the blessed pilgrimage." ¹¹⁰ This was dated on April ²⁰, 1854, one day after the church had authorized a letter inviting Spurgeon to serve permanently as pastor. She gradually opened to him, as her pastor, her state before God and he gently guided her toward assurance that a work of grace indeed had been her experience at Poultry Chapel. During the next months their friendship grew, but in his mind it was more than friendship and he soon prompted her to see the same thing.

At the opening of the Crystal Palace on June ¹⁰, 1854, several friends had gathered and were having friendly banter occupying some raised seats waiting for a procession to pass. Spurgeon, typically, had a book with him, Martin Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, that had a chapter on marriage contained this advice, "If thou art to have a wife of thy youth, she is now living on earth; Therefore, think of her, and pray for her weal." Spurgeon pointed to the words and whispered to Susannah, "Do you pray for him who is to be your husband?"

At that moment the counsel and concern and kindness of the last months coalesced into a realization of love that had not dared to come into her consciousness prior to that moment. After the procession, he asked her to walk with him on the grounds. "During that walk, on that memorable day in June," she wrote after the perspective of another forty years, "I believe God Himself united our hearts in indissoluble bonds of true affection, and, though we knew it

not, gave us to each other for ever." ¹¹¹ What was sealed in their hearts, but yet unspoken, came into the open on August ², 1854, when Spurgeon formally proposed to her in grandfather's "old fashioned garden" with high brick walls on three sides. She confided to her diary: "August ², 1854—It is impossible to write down all that occurred this morning. I can only adore in silence the mercy of my God, and praise Him for all

His benefits." ¹¹² Whenever possible, she attended service at New Park Street until eventually she was baptized there by her future husband on February ¹, 1855. She had, like all others, to write out her personal experience of grace and the workings of God with her soul, and appear before the congregation to give a statement of faith and answer pertinent questions. "I happily passed through the somewhat severe ordeal," she later commented. Spurgeon found her letter to be far beyond what he anticipated in expression of faith and witness to the ongoing work of God in her. So much did the written testimony impress him that he wrote on January ¹¹ an intensely energetic response showing much about his pastor's heart, his love for her, his gratitude to God, and the clear confidence he had in his spiritual

judgments. Her testimony letters exceeded his expectations in verifying the depth of her present religious experience. "I knew you were really a child of God," he assured her, "but I did not think you had been led in such a path." The Master had plowed deep and sown the seed of life equally deep, so that its struggles upwards "with the clods" are vigorous and its life deeply rooted.

Some of the deep struggles she manifested could find relief in "earnest labor for Christ." Though she had progressed much given her situation, she had little "actual contact either with the saints or with the sinful, sick, or miserable," whom he was convinced she could serve. This would bring spiritual warmth and remove doubting, "for our works thus become evidences of our calling and election."

Spurgeon had no desire to flatter her either as pastor or as one that loved her "with the deepest and purest affection." Therefore he would not trifle with her immortal interests. He was convinced that God had no intention of destroying her after having shown her the charnel house of her own corruption and enabled her "so unreservedly to cast [herself] upon His faithful promise." She was deeply schooled in the lessons of the heart; other lessons would come, but he exclaimed, "Oh! My dear one, how good to learn the first lesson well!" Then in an exhibition of strange confidence in God's opening to him something of his own eternal counsels, Spurgeon said, "I loved you once, but feared you might not be an heir of Heaven;—God in His mercy showed me that you were indeed elect."

On that basis he felt liberated to reveal his love for her without sin, "but up to the time I saw your note," he continued with his revelry over her obvious Spiritgiven discernment, "I could not imagine that you had seen such great sights, and were so thoroughly versed in soul-knowledge."

This revelation of the depth of her Christian experience made Spurgeon evaluate the gift of her hand even more, knowing that God himself loves the gift and he may love it too. "Dear purchase of a Saviour's blood," he addressed Susannah, "you are to me a Savior's gift, and my heart is full to overflowing with the thought of such continued goodness." Spurgeon did not wonder at God's goodness, for it was consistent with even greater gifts; but he still could not contain his joy at these manifold mercies. They need fear no final separation, but for the present it was good that she was not there, for if she were, "I could only throw my arms around you and weep." He wanted for her the choicest favors, the companionship of the Angel of the Covenant, answered supplications, and conversation with Jesus in Heaven. He closed with a pledge of

"pure and holy affection, as well as terrestrial love." ¹¹³ Susannah had some hard lessons to learn about the absorbing demands of time made on her future husband. She sat quietly on their Monday evening dates as he

edited sermons for publication that week; she found herself isolated in a crowd when he spoke and became so absorbed in his duties that he left her unaccompanied. Her angry return home without attending the service met with her mother's wise counsel that Spurgeon was no ordinary man, that God had an absolute claim on his life and gifts, and that she must never, never seek to gain preeminence in his heart. He discovered the difficulty soon after preaching, hurried to her home, where her mother helped negotiate the reconciliation.

Susannah pictured the end result as "no patched-up peace between us, but a deepening of our confidence in each other, and an increase of that fervent love which can look a misunderstanding in the face till it melts away and vanishes, as

a morning cloud before the ardent glances of the sun." ¹¹⁴ Spurgeon's letters to "Susie" always exhibited an indivisible solution of ardent spirituality, intense love for her, deep desire for greater usefulness, unfettered love of God and the gospel along with a consciousness of the need for more purity and single-mindedness in his love for Christ. When she reported letters, she tried to edit the parts that were words of love toward her so that they would not seem like mere platitudes, but removal of them all was impossible.

She explained:

It is a difficult task, for little rills of tenderness run between all the sentences, like the singing, dancing

waters among the boulders of a brook, and I cannot still the music altogether. To the end of his

beautiful life it was the same, his letters were always those of a devoted lover, as well as of a tender

husband; not only did the brook never dry up, but the stream grew deeper and broader, and the rhythm

of its song waxed sweeter and stronger. 115

A visit to Colchester in April 1855 gained enormous outpourings of love and approval from Spurgeon's parents and a feeling of pleasure, happiness, and acceptance on Miss Thompson's part. "I fear to pain you by thanks," she wrote him on the Saturday after returning, "for what I know was a pleasure to you," for his letter to her had said, "It seems almost impossible that I could have conferred or received so much happiness," and closed expressing as he often did their

mutual affections, "I am your much-loved, and ardently-loving, C. H. S." ¹¹⁶ Spurgeon was under a great strain preaching weekly at Exeter Hall. His voice still was maturing and his knowledge as to how to use it was not settled.

Physically and vocally his body required recovery time after each Lord's Day. A variety of papers had found an opportunity for vivid caricature and harsh lampooning in the young energetic unsuspecting pastor of New Park Street. She ached to protect him from every point of tension and attack but had learned to commit to God's care both his preaching responsibility and the wrathful reaction of human enemies.

As often as possible they spent time together, more frequently the case after her parents moved to a house in Falcon Square in the City. She noted, perhaps strange to modern ears, "On Sunday mornings, I was nearly always allowed by

my parents to enjoy his ministry." ¹¹⁷ For her spiritual benefit, to increase her awareness of the doctrinal foundations of his ministry and personal spirituality, and to involve her immediately in his multi-faceted zeal, he put into her hands an "ancient rusty-looking book" with instructions to read through it carefully and mark anything that was "particularly sweet, or quaint, or instructive." From her conscientious attention to the assignment, combined with his knowledge of the Puritan author Thomas Brooks, came the volume Smooth Stones from Ancient Brooks.

Through the year they exchanged Saturday letters. Often these were from remote places on Spurgeon's part because the number of his invitations outside London increased exponentially. An attempt at a vacation to Scotland in July was a disaster as far as that intent was concerned, although it increased his fame and popularity as a preacher. His letters, as indicated above, described the phenomenal and feverish popularity Spurgeon was gaining but included within them deeply contemplative examinations of the ways in which he missed her and the dimensions of his increasing love for her. "I knew I loved you very much before, but now I feel how necessary you are to me, and you will not lose much by my absence, if you find me, on my return, more attentive to your feelings, as well as equally affectionate." So that she need not have any insecurity that his time away would induce diminished affection, he affirmed, "My darling, accept love of the deepest and purest kind from one who in not prone to exaggerate, but

who feels that here there is no room for hyperbole." ¹¹⁸ Susie was not the only one to whom he expressed his deep longings for her. He wrote his father from the Highlands: "I am happy, but had rather be home again; you will guess the reason. I only want that one person to make the trip a very fine one;—but

patience." ¹¹⁹ During Christmas of 1855, they were apart but anticipating their wedding early the next month. He sent her a copy of the first published volume of his sermons, in a series entitled The Pulpit Library, inscribed with characteristic cleverness and affection: "In a few days it will be out of my power to present anything to Miss Thompson. Let this be a remembrance of our happy meetings and sweet conversations. Dec. 22/55. C. H. Spurgeon."

On January ⁸, 1856, after a time of prayer and contemplation at Falcon Square, a drive through London with her father to New Park Street Chapel, the exchange of vows and rings officiated by Alexander Fletcher of Finsbury

Chapel, ¹²⁰ she became the "loved, and loving wife of the best man on God's

earth." ¹²¹ As at his preaching engagements, so his wedding saw a packed chapel with crowds lingering outside and many turned away. A ten-day honeymoon to Paris sealed their lives in the enjoyment of each other and seeing with united pleasure the many sites of the city and its treasures of art displays, museums, palaces, and breathtaking architecture in churches. They returned home to a modest house on New Kent Road. On September ²⁰, twin sons, Charles and Thomas, were born to them. Years later he could say with unction: "What a near and loving relationship marriage has bestowed upon us!... Oh the joy, the true, pure, elevated peace and joy which many of us have received through that divinely ordained relationship!" Not content with such acclamation, he crowned these exclamations with the observation: "We cannot but bless God every time we repeat the dear names of those who are now parts of ourselves." ¹²²

Increasing Demands

Between the return from the short honeymoon and the birth of the sons, life was more than hectic. He wrote to his friend, James Watts, on February ²³, 1856, as a weary soldier writing a brother-in-arms: "Eleven times this week have I gone forth to battle, and at least thirteen services are announced for next week." Twohundred eighty-two additions had been made the previous year to the church and in the first three months of 1856 more than eighty were added. Thirty already were proposed for the next month and "hundreds, who are equally sincere, are asking for admission; but time will not allow us to take in more." Visitors had included the Lord Mayor, though a Jew, who came up to the vestry to thank him; the Chief Commissioner of Police did the same. Better than that, however, there had been "some thieves, thimbleriggers, harlots," some of whom now were in the church, and also a "right honorable hot-potato man, who is prominently known as 'a hot Spurgeonite.'" Also concerning the recent important event Spurgeon added, "Wife, first-rate; beloved by all my people, we have good

reason mutually to rejoice." ¹²³ Undaunted by Spurgeon's perseverance through the earliest round of criticism, and unimpressed with the substantial growth of his congregation and the changing social condition of Southwark, some of the most prestigious London publications continued their effort to destroy this interloper and smother his influence with a blanket of snide condescension. Taking a volume of Spurgeon's 1855 sermons, the writer, Fitzjames Stephen, noted it as a most unwelcome fact that crowds were flocking to hear a man "who, though pious and able, seems quite unable to understand the commonest principles either of logic

or of interpretation." ¹²⁴ Spurgeon's less than submissive response to their judgments, his continued growth in popularity, and their deep loyalty to the Church of England created a recipe for mutual belligerence.

Spurgeon counted it a mark of true religion that the Saturday Review hated him. They objected to the use of the term and responded: "Hatred is not quite the feeling we entertain towards Mr. Spurgeon. Hatred selects objects worthy of an elevated sentiment. Nobody thinks of hating an absurdity or a public nuisance, a folly, a vanity, an emptiness, or a pretender; therefore we believe that Mr.

Spurgeon has never secured the hatred of a single person in the world." ¹²⁵ Spurgeon was the "Anabaptist Caliban" and an "ignorant conceited fanatic" from whom it was impossible to expect "either the information of a scholar or the manners of a gentleman, the language of refinement in controversy or the humanities of Christianity in personal intercourse." Any Anglican may be free to hold Spurgeon as a friend and yokefellow but not at the same time he serves as a

bishop. ¹²⁶ Though the provocation was sufficient, Spurgeon could not find the kind of seething bitter invective that flowed so easily from the writers of The Saturday Review, but, aside from deflective comments about these attacks from time to time, he preferred to use his writing time for the edification of the scores of converts in his own church and for young Christians throughout England. In

1857 he published The Saint and his Saviour. ¹²⁷ In this volume, Spurgeon gave free range to some of the most remarkable characteristics of these early years— in fact, traits that remained unaltered through the years although they were manifest with the maturity of one purified by fire. For one thing, Spurgeon showed how deeply impressed his own soul was with the doctrine of grace as spiritual sustenance and how seriously he expounded it as a means of evangelism and spiritual growth. For another, the freeness with which he criticized what he believed was an unfaithful pulpit in England was also abundantly evident. Each of the twelve chapters had a mingling of encouragement for believers and earnest warnings and evangelistic exhortations for the lost. Every chapter was followed by a two-to-three page message specifically to the unconverted.

Among his criticisms of a non-evangelical pulpit the following words manifest the urgency of his concern: "What are ye but polished bolts on the dungeon-door of the distressed, or well-dressed halberdiers, affrighting men from the palace of mercy? Ah! It will be well for some if they shall be able to wash their hands of the blood of souls, for verily in the cells of eternal condemnation there are heard no yells of horror more appalling than the shrieks

of damned ministers." ¹²⁸ Spurgeon knew that his style and doctrine were an abomination to the "sneering critic" disdainful of Spurgeon's "sickly sentimentalism," the class of cleric that preferred a "cold, speculative, unfeeling divinity." Such opponents were "intellectual preachers" whose sermons, rather, "passionless essays," were sterile collections of "metaphysical quibbles and heretical doctrines." Such selfcongratulatory divines were elated if only a small portion of their hearers could understand them. Their reputation as "intellectual" Spurgeon resented because it may be "settled as an axiom that falsehood is no intellectual feat, and that

unintelligible jargon is no evidence of a cultured mind." ¹²⁹ Some of his contemporaries, even friends, believed that his criticism of his fellow clergy bordered on censoriousness and arose from pride. He knew the accusations well, had absorbed both the hostile and the friendly and wrote philosophically about it. "I have had knocking about enough to kill a dozen," he wrote a friend in 1855, "but the Lord has kept me." Somewhere among the

clouds, he speculated, was a vast mass of nebulae made of advice about humility. "My pride is so infernal," he admitted, "that there is not a man on earth who can hold it in, and all their silly attempts are futile." His Master, however, had full power to do it, and often let him see his own insignificance so powerfully that he called himself "all the fools in the world for even letting pride

pass my door without frowning at him." ¹³⁰ Pulpit denizens void of gospel substance would never receive approbation from Spurgeon even to his latest days. Time was too short and the message too urgent to dabble with lesser things.

For the doctrines of grace, however, Spurgeon found no way to exhaust either his vocabulary or his affection in advocacy. Even after his death, the one that knew him best and felt and saw his deepest convictions displayed in life and thought moment after moment, wrote: "Never to the last moment of his life, did he change one jot or tittle of his belief, or vary an iota of his whole-hearted

testimony to the divinity of the doctrines of free grace." ¹³¹ God would have his way with his people and would do the same with unconverted sinners. In The Saint and His Saviour, Spurgeon saw the acceptance of divine sovereignty as essential to proper conviction of sin. "We are sure of this," he wrote, "that no convinced sinner, when under a sense of his ill-desert, will ever dispute the justice of God in damning him or quarrel with the distinguishing grace which Heaven giveth to one and not to another." Peace will not come to a person unable to subscribe to the "doctrine of sovereign, discriminating, electing grace."

He must know that the bounties of Jesus are "in his own hand, and that none can

lay any claim to them." ¹³² Spurgeon's emphasis on these ideas was so clear that most of his critics seized on it as a major concern but one was particularly sparkling in his sarcasm about Spurgeon's message. "It is not Christian-like to say," so asserted the alarmed adjudicator of English orthodoxy, "'God must wash brains in the HyperCalvinism a Spurgeon teaches before man can enter Heaven.' It does not

harmonize with the quiet majesty of the Nazarene." ¹³³ Spurgeon himself would have a few things to say about the majesty of the Nazarene.

In discussing love for the Saviour, Spurgeon placed the doctrines of grace as the first stage in love. Apprehension of these in their personal application is not the highest element of love but certainly is foundational and necessary for a fullorbed manifestation of love to Christ. "If enabled to receive all the doctrines of the gospel, we bless the name of our Redeemer for his free grace manifested in our election to eternal life; for his efficacious grace exercised in calling us into his kingdom; for pardon and justification through his blood and merits, and for

everlasting security by virtue of union with his divine person." ¹³⁴ Even should one not come to see the more refined doctrines that matured and purified one's love for God such as the consideration of Christ in his offices of redemption, the manner in which he effects salvation, our experience of communion with Christ, a sense of the amiability of himself, his person, the relationship in which ongoing revelations of divine love to the heart are experienced, and a grasp of the blessings of union with Christ—even in the absence of contemplation of these—there is sufficient provocation in the sinner's realization that for him in particular grace has operated efficaciously and abundantly, to secure the most eminent virtues and the most ardent zeal.

The Royal Surrey Music Hall Disaster

Back at New Park Street, the exposure of Exeter Hall having made Spurgeon more intriguing than ever, even the expanded facility did not solve the problem of the crowds. Eventually it was seen that the only solution was a completely new structure. The proprietors at Exeter Hall decided that they could not rent the Hall for so long a time to one denomination; the church, therefore, agreed to the bold move to have services at the Music Hall of Royal Surrey Gardens. An entry into the minutes of the church narrated the catastrophic beginning of the

adventure on October ¹⁹, 1856:

On the evening of this day, in accordance with the resolution passed at the Church meeting, Oct. 6th,

the church and congregation assembled to hear our pastor, in the Music Hall of the Royal Surrey

Gardens. A very large number of persons (about 7000) were assembled on that occasion, and the

service was commenced in the usual way, by singing, reading the Scriptures, and prayer. Just,

however, after our pastor had commenced his prayer, a disturbance was caused (as it is supposed, by

some evil-disposed persons acting in concert), and the whole congregation were seized with a sudden

panic. This caused a fearful rush to the doors, particularly from the galleries. Several persons, either in

consequence of their heedless haste, or from the extreme pressure of the crowd behind, were thrown

down on the stone steps of the north-west staircase, and were trampled on by the crowd pressing upon

them. The lamentable result was that seven persons lost their lives, and twenty-eight were removed to

the hospitals seriously bruised and injured. Our pastor not being aware that any loss of life had

occurred, continued in the pulpit, endeavouring by every means in his power to alleviate the fear of the

people, and was successful to a very considerable extent. In attempting to renew the service, it was

found that the people were too excited to listen to him, and the service was closed, and the people who

remained dispersed quietly. 135

According to the observation of church leaders, this situation had a very serious affect on the "nervous system of our pastor." He and his wife had only a month before brought into the world twin sons, Charles and Thomas, and had for the month felt that nothing could interrupt their happiness and joyful service together. Suzie was not, therefore, in the service and learned of the event only when a carriage arrived at the door, a solemn deacon entered and related to her the disturbing event. Immediately her husband arrived accompanied by concerned friends who left immediately; he spent the night weeping and tottering on the edge of a mental breakdown. He cancelled several preaching appointments, missed a Sunday in the pulpit, and spent time with his wife and new-borns at the home of a deacon friend in Croydon. After days of despair, he resolved, based on Philippians 2, that if abuse to him meant glory to Christ, then he gladly would endure all that came. The final days in retreat turned into a time of joy and spiritual resolution and a solemn dedication of the sons to the service of God. ¹³⁶

Spurgeon referred to this restoration in a sermon entitled "His Name— Wonderful." Without mentioning the specific event, Spurgeon, as he so often and effectively did, used the trauma of his own soul as a means of pointing to the

power and absolute sufficiency of the gospel as it centers in the work of Christ:

I shall never forget the time when I first became restored to myself. It was in the garden of a friend. I

was walking alone, musing upon my misery which was much cheered by the kindness of my loving

friend, yet far too heavy for my soul to bear. All of a sudden the name of Jesus flashed through my

mind. The Person of Christ seemed visible to me. I stood still. The burning lava of my soul was cooled.

My agonies were hushed. I bowed myself there and the garden that had seemed a Gethsemane became

to me a Paradise! And then it seemed so strange to me that nothing should have brought me back but

that name of Jesus. I thought, indeed, at that time that I would love Him better all the days of my life.

But there were two things I wondered at. I wondered that He should be so good to me and I wondered

more that I should have been so ungrateful to Him—but His name has been from that time,

"Wonderful," to me and I must record what He has done for my soul! 137

Renewed Strength and Intensified Criticism

Spurgeon returned on October ³¹ to "occupy the pulpit in our own chapel". ¹³⁸ A few more weeks brought him back to emotional evenness and readiness to resume his smothering schedule. He had to resume it, however, with a new awareness that strength was needed, not only for the demands of time and energy for ministry, but for sorting out the undreamt-of shock of the disaster, and dissipating the bile of criticism revived and invigorated by the event. How confident and aggressive his critics felt, how they justified themselves in firing their newly-forged flesh-devouring ammunition toward this threat to religious urbanity, this insult to propriety in religion! Spurgeon, some twenty years later, published one of the attacks on his ministry and person that came the week after the sorrow of the Surrey Music Hall. While he was enduring the "unutterable pain of the whole catastrophe," he had to cope with "the wicked accusations of

the public press."

Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher who hurls damnation at the heads of his sinful hearers. Some men there are

who, taking their precepts from Holy Writ, would beckon erring souls to a rightful path with fair words

and gentle admonition; Mr. Spurgeon would take them by the nose and bully them into religion. Let us

set up a barrier to the encroachments and blasphemies of men like Spurgeon, saying to them, "Thus far

shalt thou come and no further;" let us devise some powerful means which shall tell to the thousands

who now stand in need of enlightenment—this man, in his own opinion, is a righteous Christian, but in

ours nothing more than a ranting charlatan. We are neither straightlaced nor Sabbatarian in our

sentiments; but we would keep apart, widely apart, the theatre and the church—above all, would we

place in the hand of every right-thinking man, a whip to scourge from society the authors of such vile

blasphemies as on Sunday night, above the cries of the dead and the dying, and louder than the wails of

misery from the maimed and suffering, resounded from the mouth of Mr. Spurgeon in the Music Hall

of the Surrey Gardens. 139

The undulations between adulation and sneering made Spurgeon keenly aware of the necessity of dependence on God both for humility and encouragement. "The Press has kicked me quite long enough," he observed to a friend, "now they are beginning to lick me; but one is as good as the other as long as it helps to fill our place of worship." Caricatures appeared, such as "Brimstone and Treacle", picturing a wild-eyed Spurgeon in a posture of energetic gesture standing beside an effeminate, well-coiffed and robed establishment minister with his hand resting on a velvet cushion on a draped pulpit. The cartoon clearly favored Spurgeon as a more desirable pulpit show than the sedate minister of ease. J.

Ewing Ritchie referred to this caricature noting that, "Brimstone is supposed to represent the youthful hero of the Surrey Music Hall: the pulpit Adonis, curled and scented and lack-a-daisical, called Treacle, is supposed, though very wrongly... to typify the subject of this sketch," J. C. M. Bellew. Ritchie

remarked, "In spite of grey hair and sallow cheeks, Mr. Bellew has somewhat too much the appearance of a lady's man, and his Christianity is evidently that which will do credit to the best society; nor is this to be wondered at. Has he not an uncle that is a Bishop, and has he not the élite of the beau-monde to hear

him?" ¹⁴⁰ The crowds that heard Spurgeon were not what Ritchie would consider the beau-monde, but they astonished Spurgeon and made him wonder what other preachers were up to "when with ten times the talent, they are snoring along with prosy sermons, and sending the world away?" He thought he knew the answer: "They do not know what the gospel is; they are afraid of real gospel Calvinism and therefore the Lord does not own them." The "man-made parsons" stayed angry and continued to revile Spurgeon as did some of the papers. But Spurgeon could see God's hand in it. "What a fool the devil is!" he exclaimed. "If he had

not vilified me, I should not have had so many precious souls as my hearers." ¹⁴¹ When Spurgeon introduced his sermons to the world as a written medium, he gave much the same testimony. "Little can be said in praise of these sermons, and nothing can be said against them more bitter than has been already spoken."

The matter seemed to have run its course, though, and Spurgeon was at least glad that the opposition served a salvific purpose. Abuse exhausted itself and thoroughly spent its vocabulary in expectoration of its venom; "and yet, the printed discourses have for that very reason found a readier sale, and more have

been led to peruse them with deep attention." ¹⁴² Scarcely two months had passed since the emotional devastation of the fatal evening at Surrey when a second volume of sermons demanded another preface.

In January 1857, he testified, "Truly may the writer say 'Ebenezer,' for he marveled at the grace that made him able to write at all. Writing in the third person, he revealed that "Great and sore troubles have rolled over his head, he had been exceedingly cast down." He quoted a mournful song that ended with the verse, "The tumult of my thoughts doth but enlarge my woe: My spirit languishes, my heart is desolate and low." Yet he could say: "But now, by merciful restoration, he can again sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord, and make known his faithfulness unto all generations." His renewed health and vigor

called for "new exertion and fresh gratitude." ¹⁴³ Only God's upholding grace had allowed him to complete the second volume because such grace is necessary for preservation from year to year in light of exposure to "perils from friends and

foes, from without and within, from success and from sadness." ¹⁴⁴ Spurgeon still could point to the divine blessing on his ministry as a verification of his doctrine. "Our ministry is a testimony that no new theology is needed to stir the masses and save souls; we defy all the negative theologians in

England to give such proof of their ministry as we can." The old doctrines are victorious and raise people from the dunghill into the arms of Christ. Spurgeon averred that "best evidence of the truth of our holy religion" lay in the reclamation and regeneration of "drunkards, harlots, swearers, thieves, liars, and such like." He was willing to accept "all that is uttered to our disparagement, for therein we do but magnify the grace of God, who worketh by the least of

instruments the greatest acts of his love." ¹⁴⁵ In 1857, when Spurgeon was twenty-three, several observers took it in hand to give an account of his life and ministry. One was entitled, Sketch of the Life and Ministry of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon from Original Documents written by "Stevenson," according to the Critical Dictionary of English Literature. This volume appeared in America published by Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co. as well as in England. J. Allen wrote Life of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, and a churchman published Mr. Spurgeon's Critics Criticised. In response to the severe criticisms of the Surrey Tabernacle pastor James Wells, Isaac McCarthy published, What then Does Mr. Spurgeon Preach? Being an examination of Mr. James Wells's Review of Mr. Spurgeon's Ministry. One who had misgivings about Spurgeon's use of the Puritans published Contra and Pro: the Anti-Puritan Teachings of the Rev. C. Spurgeon on the Subject of Sanctification exhibited by Pro-Puritan. The next year, 1858, saw the appearance of A Review of Mr. Spurgeon's Discourses; or A New and Complete Refutation of Calvinism, by the Rev. J. Hughes, February 1858.

Spurgeon clearly had the experience of a decade in mind when on February ¹⁴, 1864, he preached from "He that endureth to the end shall be saved."

Autobiographical illustration flooded his mind as he contemplated the difficulties of endurance. "From the first moment of his call to the work, the preacher of the Word will be familiar with temptation," Spurgeon recalled. "While he is yet in his youth," he continued his musing, "there are multitudes of the softer temptations to turn the head and trip the feet of the youthful herald of the cross." Softer temptations soon must yield to the real venom that seeks an

immediate overthrow of a gospel herald:

And when the blandishments of early popularity have passed away, as soon they must, the harsh croak

of slander, and the adder's tongue of ingratitude assail him, he finds himself stale and flat where once

he was flattered and admired; nay the venom of malice succeeds to the honeyed morsels of adulation.

Now, let him gird his loins and fight the good fight of faith. In his after days, to provide fresh matter

Sabbath after Sabbath, to rule as in the sight of God, to watch over the souls of men, to weep with

them who weep, to rejoice with those who do rejoice, to be a nursing father unto young converts,

sternly to rebuke hypocrites, to deal faithfully with backsliders, to speak with solemn authority and

paternal pathos to those who are in the first stages of spiritual decline, to carry about with him the care

of the souls of hundreds, is enough to make him grow old while yet he is young, and to mar his visage

with the lines of grief, till, like the Saviour, at the age of thirty years, men shall count him nearly fifty.

146

Spurgeon at thirty described how the ten years of wild popularity and destructive opposition on top of the cares generated by the growth of the congregation affected the honest, earnest pastor. Gradually he earned the respect, and even well-tested praise, of the highest levels of English society and culture.

Nevertheless, those who carped at him and his ways were never far away and constantly kept a refrain of hostility, giving dissonance to the air around Spurgeon's ears.

With hostility waning because of the sobering effect of an undiminished number of hearers, some disgruntled holdouts believed that, unlike the "excited thousands," the "thoughtful hearer" would learn nothing from Spurgeon's performances. After a Sunday at Surrey Gardens, our astute commentator on The London Pulpit, J. Ewing Ritchie, observed with disdain what Spurgeon observed with glory; "Nowhere more abound the vulgar, be they great or little, than at the Royal Music Hall on a Sunday morning." Spurgeon, the "youngest and the loudest and the most notorious preacher in London," brought his flock there to mingle with an unusual conglomerate. Ewing described Spurgeon's people, "the aborigines from Park Street Chapel," as "very plain, much given to the wearing of clothes of an ancient cut—and easy of recognition." He found the men narrow, hard, and griping to look at and the women worse, stern and unlovely. It should humor his readers that this group viewed themselves as sole strollers on the pearly streets of the New Jerusalem and as tea-mates at the marriage supper of the Lamb with martyrs and prophets and saints—with Abraham, and Isaac,

and Jacob. ¹⁴⁷ But back to the "thoughtful hearer"—replacing a desired edification would be disgust—disgust with the noisy crowding, the commonplace prayer, the questionable style of oratory, the narrowness of the preacher's creed and its misrepresentation of the glorious gospel, and with "the stupidity that can take for a divine afflatus brazen impudence and leathern lungs." These are people that would not dare frequent the theatre but have an unquenchable thirst for the

theatrical which they find slaked in Spurgeon. ¹⁴⁸ Among the most severe and sickening of the criticisms, that which came from the leading minister among the London Strict Baptists, James Wells, struck the deepest. Spurgeon did not reply in kind, but he cannot but have been shocked when Wells wrote in 1855: "I have— most solemnly have —my doubts as to the

Divine reality of his conversion." ¹⁴⁹ He recognized that Spurgeon was both affable and studious, in fact, more studious than many of the "slothful, negligent,

empty-headed" ministers of Wells' denomination. He was well-versed in Puritan literature and attractive to a massive variety of people, among whom he listed free-willers, intellectual Calvinists, both high and low, along with the "philosophic and classic-taste Christian." Such wide appeal merely magnified the danger of the delusion. Wells put forth five closely reasoned arguments as to why Spurgeon's ministry was a fatal delusion. In summary, Wells believed that Spurgeon had massive popular appeal because he exhibited only the form of Christianity but none of the Holy Spirit power of it. Some of the truths he speaks will result in genuine conversion, but such will "after a time, leave his ministry, for a ministry that can accompany them in their rugged paths of wilderness

experience." ¹⁵⁰ Spurgeon had written his father before he ever moved to London that he knew of the higher brand of Calvinism held by some of the London Baptists. "I am a Calvinist; I love what someone called 'glorious Calvinism,'" he told his father,

"but 'Hyperism' is too hot-spiced for my palate." ¹⁵¹ That such a severe judgmentalism would accompany their hot spices must have surprised even Spurgeon. In principle, much of the analysis that Wells gave about "Intellectual Calvinism," the character of genuine conviction of sin, and false conversion, Spurgeon endorsed. He issued many warnings to his hearers on those matters.

But that he, an acknowledged debtor to sovereign mercy alone, a refuser of human ordination, and an abstainer from formal school-centered education, would be accused of having a "second-hand ministry, deeply tainted with an

Arminian spirit," must have amused Spurgeon as much as it bewildered him. ¹⁵² Being caught between two lines of fire left Spurgeon little place to stand among the religious pundits of the day. He used his own experience as a warning to

those that sought to be faithful and preach the whole counsel of God:

Espouse but one phase of the truth, and you shall be cried up to the very heavens. Become such a

Calvinist that you shut your eyes to one half the Bible, and cannot see the responsibility of the sinner,

and men will clap their hands, and cry Hallelujah! And on the backs of many you shall be hoisted to a

throne, and become a very prince in their Israel. On the other hand begin to preach mere morality,

practice without doctrine, and you shall be elevated on other men's shoulders; you shall, if I may use

such a figure, ride upon these asses into Jerusalem; and you shall hear them cry Hosanna! And see

them wave their palm branches before you. But once preach the whole counsel of God, and you shall

have both parties down upon you; one crying, "The man is too high," the other saying, "no, he is too

low;" the one will say, "He's a rank Arminian," the other, He's a vile Hyper-Calvinist." Now a man

does not like to stand between two fires. 153

Spurgeon never retaliated directly to Wells, though in personal correspondence he referred to him as "King James" and thought his attack would shake his own throne, but he ever maintained that the hyper-Calvinists erred in their distinctive

doctrinal stance on grace and human responsibility. Put plainly, Spurgeon believed that the preacher must emphasize duty as well as doctrine. Without calling his name, Spurgeon referred to Wells and his crowd as "a certain class of men of perverted intellect who will admire you [if you preach Calvinism], but once begin to reach responsibility" and their admiration ends and their carping criticism of "Inconsistency" falls in an ever-increasing crescendo around the

head of the one who declares that if the sinner perish it is his own fault. ¹⁵⁴ When preaching at the Surrey Music Hall, Spurgeon preached a message entitled "Human Responsibility." Referring specifically to an idiosyncratic doctrine of the hyper-Calvinists, Spurgeon said, "I have often been rebuked by certain men who have erred from the truth, for preaching the doctrine that it is a sin in men, if they reject the gospel of Christ." He brushed aside the habit of this group to label him with opprobrious titles, and continued: "I am certain that I have the warrant of God's Word in so preaching, and I do not believe that any man can be faithful to men's souls and clear of their blood, unless he bears his frequent and

solemn testimony upon this vital subject." ¹⁵⁵ The hyper-Calvinist did not believe that a minister had warrant to call on the unregenerate to believe. Belief came to elect sinners as an operation of the Holy Spirit on their souls and was thus a work of special grace not included in the duties of Adam in the unfallen state. Sins that brought condemnation were those of violation of the moral law written on the heart prior to the fall, but unbelief, that is, a failure to have faith in Christ as Redeemer, could not be a sin, and faith could not be a present duty, because no such action of the human soul was called for prior to the fall; no duty was required for something alien to the condition of innocent man. Spurgeon quoted a score of New Testament passages that denominated unbelief as the chief of sins, from which he drew the conclusion: "If they do not mean that unbelief is a sin, and the sin, which, above all others, damns men's souls, they do not mean any thing at all, but they are just a dead

letter in the Word of God." ¹⁵⁶ Very seldom did Spurgeon defend himself in this conflict, but he was not hesitant to take on the opposition on theological issues, and to seek to emerge triumphant when he felt that concession of victory to them would compromise the pure faith and the consequent proclamation of a full gospel to sinners.

For Wells in particular, Spurgeon nursed an affection throughout his life and sought his good whenever possible. Spurgeon never met James Wells.

Eventually Wells confessed to T. W. Medhurst: "I love Mr. Spurgeon, but I do not believe in his duty-faithism." When Wells lay in bed with his last and fatal sickness in 1871, Spurgeon wrote him a loving and consoling letter in which he

stated, "Personally I own my great obligations to the furnace and the hammer; and I am sure that you also rejoice in the assurance that tribulation worketh patience, and brings, through the supply of the Spirit, a long train of blessings

with it.... May your sick chamber be the very gate of heaven to your soul." ¹⁵⁷ Spurgeon expressed his genuine sympathy that his protracted confinement had kept him from the labor so dear to his heart. Calling to mind the many comforts of Scripture that God works joy and holiness in his people through suffering, Spurgeon noted: "Immutable purposes and infinite love have been themes of your constant ministry to others. May the Holy Ghost make these mighty floods of consolation to roll in upon your own soul, till all things else are swallowed up

in your hearts holy joy!" ¹⁵⁸ If Spurgeon was unable to secure the blessings of the leading High Calvinist voice, or the approval of the dailies, weeklies, and monthlies, or the Christian wishes of the Church clergy, at least one self-professed high churchman pushed aside the prejudices by a cleverly conceived narrative of going to hear Spurgeon in the Music Hall on a Sunday morning. "Fancy a congregation consisting of ¹⁰,000 souls, streaming into the Hall, mounting the galleries, humming, buzzing, and swarming—a mighty hive of bees—eager to secure at first the best places, and, at last, any place at all. After waiting more than half an hour—for if you wish to have a seat you must be there at least that space of time in advance—Mr. Spurgeon ascended his tribune. To the hum, and rush, and trampling of men succeeded a low, concentrated thrill and murmur of devotion, which seemed to run at once, like an electric current, through the breast of every one present; and by this magnetic chain, the preacher held us fast bound for about two hours."

This writer, calling himself Habitans in Sicco, finally issued an appeal to drop all prejudice against his Calvinism and his baptism and look at the stark reality that he was preaching to ¹⁰,000 people. He could fill the largest church in England with his voice, and more to the purpose, with people. Then with a sly flourish of irony he laid waste the starched proprietarians by a most unorthodox suggestion: "And may it please your grace, here are two churches in the metropolis, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. What does your grace think of inviting Mr. Spurgeon, this heretical Calvinist and Baptist, who is able to draw ¹⁰,000 souls after him, just to try his voice, some Sunday morning, in the nave of either of those churches?" ¹⁵⁹

The Fast Day Sermon

Ten thousand was dwarfed when the size of occupancy allowed attendance by all who wanted it. The opportunity came on October ⁷, 1857, when Spurgeon preached in the Crystal Palace. The Sepoy Mutiny in India had brought severe suffering and outrage to many and led to the necessity of a military execution of the mutineers. Spurgeon had preached on this event in September and, as a result, was invited by the directors of the Crystal Palace to hold a service in the transept of the building on the day of fasting and prayer. He accepted. On the day before the service, as the pulpit was being secured, Spurgeon was testing the acoustics in order to decide the most advantageous placement. In order to hear the effects, he projected a loud and forceful sentence, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Years later he learned that a workman in one of the galleries, heard the words, could not escape the power of such an

admonition, and was converted. ¹⁶⁰ Beginning with a prayer Spurgeon asked for more than just an outward display of humility: "instead of sackcloth and ashes give us true repentance, and hearts meekly reverent; instead of the outward guise, to which some pay their only homage, give us the inward spirit; and may we really pray, really humiliate

ourselves, and really tremble before the Most High God." ¹⁶¹ The hymn, "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," Spurgeon read, and then asked the massive congregation to be "kind enough to sing it through." This was followed with an exposition of Daniel 9:1-19, another prayer, and another hymn, "O God Our Help in Ages Past," followed by the sermon, based on Micah 6:9: "Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." In exposition and prayer and sermon Spurgeon evoked brilliant images of human filth and sin, the divine splendor manifest in judgment and grace, and claimed a status for Britain as the people of God in the manner of old covenant Israel. Reflecting on Daniel's solicitation for Israel because it was God's city, God's people, and called by God's name, Spurgeon

commented:

And, my brethren, not Israel itself could boast a nobler history than we, measuring it by God's

bounties. We have not yet forgotten an armada scattered before the breath of heaven, scattered upon

the angry deep as a trophy of what God can do to protect his favored Isle. We have not yet forgotten a

fifth of November, wherein God discovered divers plots that were formed against our religion and our

commonwealth. We have not yet lost the old men, whose tales of even the victories in war are still a

frequent story. We remember how God swept before our armies the man who thought to make the

world his dominion, who designed to cast his shoe over Britain, and make it a dependency of his

kingdom. God wrought for us; he wrought with us; and he will continue to do so. He hath not left his

people, and he will not leave us, but he will be with us even to the end. Cradle of liberty! Refuge of

distress! Storms may rage around thee, but not upon thee, nor shall all the wrath and fury of men

destroy thee, for God hath pitched his tabernacle in thy midst, and his saints are the salt in the midst of

thee.

His prayer brought to mind the great atrocities of the rebellion and the necessity for the execution of justice on such violations of trust, citizenship, morals and humanity. "Thou didst rain hell out of heaven upon the cities of the plain. The cities of Inde are not less vile than they, for they have committed lust and cruelty, and have much sinned against the Lord. Remember this, O God of Heaven." He employed a forceful statement of the justice of military action against the bloody and outrageous rebellion by praying, "Bid them remember that they are not warriors merely, but executioners; and may they go with steady tramp to the battle, believing that God wills it that they should utterly destroy the enemy, who have not only defied Britain, but thus defiled themselves amongst men." He considered himself no apologist for the dominion of Britain in India, but the rebellion of the Sepoys was entirely another matter. "With regard to the Sepoys, they are our voluntary subjects, they deserve the utmost rigour of the law. From their own oath they were our subjects; and if they have revolted let them suffer the punishment of their treason."

Moreover, the Indian government ought never to have tolerated Hinduism. A religion that consists of bestiality, infanticide, and murder, no one has a right to practice unless he is prepared to be hanged for it. Hinduism, Spurgeon preached, "is neither more nor less than a mass of the rankest filth that ever imagination could have conceived." Not only are their gods of despicable character, but "when their worship necessitates everything that is evil, not religion, but morality must put it down." A "religion that does not infringe upon morality is beyond the force of legislature," but the propagation and compulsion to immorality admits of no toleration. "If it be any man's religion to blow my brains out, I shall not tolerate it." And if under the embellishment of the name of religion one is encouraged to "commit bestial acts in public, I for one would touch his conscience" as well as hinder his act of worship.

England had sins aplenty also that had provoked God to make such executions necessary. Sins of the rich, sins of the merchant, sins of the poor, sins of the government, and sins of the church all had accumulated the increasing pressure of chastening justice on Britain. As for the church, not just that established by law, but all churches, "for many and many a year pulpits never condescended to men of low estate. Our ministers were great and haughty; they understood the polish of rhetoric, they had all the grandeur of logic; to the people they were blind guides and dumb dogs, for the people knew not what they said, neither did they regard them." The message was not intended to make men smile nor to give

relief to any, but, in accord with the dictates of the government itself, intended for a serious call to repentance. Spurgeon urged in with all his might and all the power of his keen moral perception.

In the end, he could not close without a call to salvation. Urging on his audience repentance, not only for national sins but for personal sins against God,

Spurgeon closed:

Oh! if I might but have some souls won to Christ to-day, what would I give? What is all this great

gathering to me? It is an extra labor, that is all. For this I do not labor. God is my witness, I sought you

not; never once have I said a thing to court a smile from any man. When God first sent me to the

ministry he bade me fear no man, and I have not yet met the man to whom I have feared to tell of

God's truth. Nor you have I sought to please, nor you have I sought to gather here. I would preach the

gospel; may God give me some souls as my reward! And if but one poor sinner shall look to Jesus,

clap your wings, ye angels! enough is done, for God is honored. 162

At the beginning of this service, Spurgeon requested one of his deacons to ask Susannah to move to a place where he could not see her, for her obvious intensity of concern for him made him nervous. That the entire affair produced an extraordinary drain on his mental and physical strength is also indicated from

his sleep from Wednesday night, October ⁷, until Friday morning, October ⁹. ¹⁶³ One of Spurgeon's early defenders, Dr. Campbell, had positive comments about the service overall but clearly stated his difference with Spurgeon's prayer for vengeance, saying that "the idea of military butchery is most incongruous

with the exercise of devotion." ¹⁶⁴ The Approaching Revival In the context of that message, Spurgeon made reference to the spiritual stirring that he sensed, not only at New Park Street, but in many places around London. "I do hope that we have already seen the beginning of a revival. The last year has seen more preaching than any year since the days of the apostles. We are stirring in ragged schools, and in various efforts for doing good; but still the church is only half awake." A real revival Spurgeon hoped and worked for. He was seeing it all around him in his own ministry, but wanted others to partake of the glory of such a work.

Less than a year earlier, on Tuesday afternoon, November ¹¹, 1856, he had preached at Whitefield's Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road, at the 100-year celebration of the laying of the first stone for the building. He recalled the great movement of revival that had taken place during Whitefield's time and largely with Whitefield as the chief instrument. He had been in London long enough to read the city literature and see London as a paradigm of sin, the pulpit as stylish but dry and dead, church life a mere shell filled not with piety but with social

status, theology as a mark of shifting human creativity and ingenuity rather than faithfulness to a historic standard of revealed truth, the church emerging as an honorable institution rather than a reproach to the world, worship-times as fodder for afternoon gossip and carping, and Christian life as formal rather than vital in its perception of the nearness and loveliness of Christ. Nothing less than a mighty work of God would do what London and the churches needed. He began the sermon, "Spiritual Revival the want of the Church," with an

affirmation of absolute divine sovereignty in the granting of spiritual life:

All true religion is the work of God: it is pre-eminently so. If he should select out of his works that

which he esteems most of all, he would select true religion. He regards the work of grace as being even

more glorious than the works of nature; and he is, therefore, especially careful that it shall always be

known, so that if any one dare to deny it, they shall do so in the teeth of repeated testimonies to the

contrary, that God is indeed the author of salvation in the world and in the hearts of men, and that

religion is the effect of grace, and is the work of God. I believe the Eternal might sooner forgive the sin

of ascribing the creation of the heavens and of the earth to an idol, than that of ascribing the works of

grace to the efforts of the flesh, or to any thing else but God. It is a sin of the greatest magnitude to

suppose that there is aught in the heart which can be acceptable unto God, save that which God himself

has first created there. 165

After treating all the areas that demonstrated the necessity of revival, he pleaded that men would cry mightily to God for such a reviving, for God alone can give it. There was no need of fresh machinery but true spiritual life. The train needs not a new engine but fire and steam in the one that is there. No new inventions will do, no contrivances will bring the life that is needed, but divine truth earnestly preached from a new heart under the power of the Divine Spirit. God already provided the means directly adapted to the great work of spiritual transformation, and substitution of a temporary manipulation may indeed accomplish what man can do, but will not be the channel for divine power. A

Christian must cry, "Lord, revive thy work."

The church wants fresh revivals. O! for the days of Cambuslang again, when Whitefield preached with

power. O! for the days when in this place hundreds were converted sometimes under Whitefield's

sermons. It has been known that two thousand credible cases of conversion have happened under one

solitary discourse. O! for the age when eyes should be strained, and ears should be ready to receive the

word of God, and when men should drink in the word of life, as it is indeed, the very water of life,

which God gives to dying souls! O! for the age of deep feeling—the age of deep, thorough-going

earnestness! Let us ask God for it; let us plead with him for it. Perhaps he has the man, or the men,

somewhere, who will shake the world yet; perhaps even now he is about to pour forth a mighty

influence upon men, which shall make the church as wonderful in this age, as it ever was in any age

that has passed. God grant it, for Christ's sake! Amen. 166

Less than three weeks after the Fast Day sermon, on October ²⁵, 1857, Spurgeon dealt with the theme of revival again setting forth not only his hope for it, but his

theory of its occurrence by divine decree. Based on Zechariah 14:7, "It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light," Spurgeon took the text, not in its immediate context but "as a rule of the kingdom, as one of the great laws of

God's dispensation of grace." ¹⁶⁷ In establishing general principle by mere human reason, Spurgeon knew that the collection of a large number of phenomena was essential. But this need not be done in matters of divine revelation. "Since God is immutable, one act of his grace is enough to teach us the rule of his conduct." God has set in general terms a principle that applied to a specific situation in Israel's history, and from that the Christian may deduce a generally applicable theory. God has said that at evening time it should be light.

A merely human proposition would not justify any optimism concerning a general principle, but when God has acted in a particular place based on this proposition, Spurgeon concluded, "I feel myself more than justified in deducing from it the rule, that always to his people at evening time there shall be light."

His approach to this sermon therefore, expanded the doctrine, "There are different evening times that happen to the church and to God's people, and as a

rule we may rest quite certain that at evening time there shall be light." ¹⁶⁸ For Spurgeon, evening meant that time from which one would expect the immediate onset of complete darkness. At that time, when darkness would seem the natural consequence, the light of revival comes. Marching on through daylight nothing it seems can conquer the light of the sun until the shadow of the earth gradually eclipses it. So the gospel seems to run with ever increasing power until it seems the world with all its black sludge of sin and bilious corruption appears to neutralize and then eliminate the power of grace. But, at that time, at evening, there shall be light. The early church, in its triumphs over a hostile, pagan, licentious and persecuting Rome, went from strength to strength and conquered. The darkness of sin and Satan under the guise of a Christian Rome seemed more impenetrable by grace and impervious to the truth than ever heathen Rome did, but God brought out his Luther and his Calvin. The Church of England fell into decay after the great far-advanced light of the Puritans— how could regression to putrefaction come after such a cleansing balm as Puritanism?—but arose the Bible moths so despised by the world, the Wesleys and Whitefield and their companions, and again light succeeded evening. "So has it always been—progressing, retrograding, standing still awhile, and then progressing once more, and falling back again," Spurgeon theorized. "The whole history of the church has been a history of onward marches, and then of quick retreats." The overall impact, however, Spurgeon believed, was "a history of advance and growth, but which read chapter by chapter, is a mixture of success

and repulse, conquest and discouragement. And so I think it will be even to the

last." ¹⁶⁹ How extended through history that pattern should last, Spurgeon did not profess to know. He hoped for the inauguration of a time of "constant progress to the brightest day;" that but he did know. Perhaps English civilization would perish and another generation would sit under the ruined arches of London Bridge and wonder that so mighty a civilization had fallen so completely. If the final decline seemed utterly to obliterate the knowledge of God from the earth, it still would be succeeded by the day in which "this poor planet shall find herself unrobed of those swaddling bands of darkness that have kept her luster from breaking forth." And God "shall yet cause his name to be known from the rising

of the sun to the going down thereof." ¹⁷⁰ Before any such final cultural and religious devastation, however, at least one more shining forth of light would be given, and Spurgeon was already a part of the first glimmers of it. Soon, England would participate in a revival that stirred America, Canada, and the British Isles. Spurgeon's preaching in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and various places in England for the first five years of his New Park Street ministry clearly indicated a growing interest in the plain, uncompromised proclamation of Christ as the Mediator of the eternal covenant of grace. The observation of this awakening prompted J. Howard Hinton to take his stand against the vapid theology off Baldwin Brown. "The aspect of the times emboldens me," Hinton wrote. "It is not now dear brethren—above all times, it is not now—when 'the end' must be so near, and when so many cheering tokens of revival enkindle our hopes, that a perversion, or even a dilution, of the truth as it is in Jesus should find welcome or entrance among us."

He hoped instead that such tokens of divine blessing on the preaching of the old gospel would encourage all to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once

delivered unto the saints." ¹⁷¹ Spurgeon would have thirty-plus years to observe the spiritual and theological dynamic subsequent to this brief but powerful visitation of the Spirit to the churches of England. The power of it would not subside in his congregation but he would see darkness settling around him, as forces already at work would be retarded but not extinguished by the temporary surge in God's gracious operations of gospel power.

An End and a Beginning

From November ²³, 1856 through December ¹¹, 1859, morning services were held at the Music Hall, Surrey Gardens. On May ¹⁶, 1858, essentially half way through this venture, Spurgeon preached on "Human Responsibility," having announced just two months earlier that he would preach more substantial and meaty doctrinal messages from that point forward. Earlier in this journey he had felt the raggedness of such an open situation and transient auditory. The months, however, had brought stability and familiarity with a massive number of faces, so that he considered the opportunity not only as evangelistic but as demanding meatier and more deeply doctrinal subjects. Like his New Park Street evening crowd, this was a congregation and his duty to them was pastoral. Though many passages in different sermons could stand forth as representative of Spurgeon's earnest sense of responsibility to that mass of people from week to week, one passage in this sermon gives a succinct statement of Spurgeon's perception of

his stewardship:

Oh to have such a message to deliver to you, to you I say, for if there is a people under Heaven to

whom my text applies, it is you! If there is one race of men in the world who have more to account for

than others, it is yourselves. There are doubtless others who are on an equality with you, who sit under

a faithful and earnest ministry. But as God shall judge between you and me at the Great Day—to the

utmost of my power I have been faithful to your souls! I have never in this pulpit sought by hard

words, by technical language, to magnify my own wisdom. I have spoken to you plainly. And not a

word, to the best of my knowledge, has escaped these lips which every one of you could not

understand. You have had a simple Gospel. I have not stood here and preached coldly to you. I could

say as I came up yon stairs, "The burden of the Lord was upon me." For my heart has come here heavy

and my soul has been hot within me. And when I have preached feebly, my words may have been

uncouth and my language far from proper, but my heart never has been wanting! This whole soul has

spoken to you. And if I could have ransacked Heaven and earth to find language that might have won

you to the Savior, I would have done so. I have not shunned to reprove you, I have never minced

matters. I have spoken to this age of its iniquities and to you of your sins. I have not softened down the

Bible to suit the carnal tastes of men. I have said damn, where God said damn—I have not sweetened it

into, "condemn." I have not minced matters, nor endeavored to veil or conceal the Truth of God, but as

to every man's conscience in the sight of God, I have endeavored to commend the Gospel earnestly

and with power and with a plain, outspoken, earnest and honest ministry! I have not kept back the

glorious Doctrines of Grace, although by preaching them, the enemies of the Cross have called me an

antinomian! Nor have I been afraid to preach man's solemn responsibility, although another tribe have

slandered me as an Arminian! And in saying this, I say it not in a way of glorying. I say it for your

rebuke—if you have rejected the Gospel—for you shall have sinned far above that of any other men in

casting away Christ! A double measure of the fury of the wrath of God shall fall on you! Sin, then, is

aggravated by the rejection of Christ. 172

At the end of the three years of off-site ministry and pilgrim-worship for the congregation, the congregation returned to "the house which God has in so

special a manner given to us." ¹⁷³ On January ⁶, 1861 a written declaration was signed by Spurgeon and church leaders, "This church needs rather more than £4000 to enable it to open the New Tabernacle free of all debt. It humbly asks this temporal mercy of God, and believes that for Jesus' sake the prayer will be heard and the boon bestowed." On May ⁶ of that year another testimony was drawn up and signed: "We, the undersigned members of the church lately worshipping in New park Street Chapel, but now assembling in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, desire with overflowing hearts to make known and record the lovingkindness of our faithful God." The entire debt was paid and the document expressed shame at any doubt that might have lingered in their hearts about God's meeting the needs in a way that went beyond all that they had asked. As opening services at the Tabernacle were completed, the accounts showed that £31,332 4s, 10d had been received, and that amount spent. "Truly

we serve a gracious God," wrote Spurgeon. ¹⁷⁴