Sermons of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, Series 1

A BUPwNiNG and shining light has suddenly burst upon the moral world. At its first rising, many were doubtful of its source and power; but, in its early morning, it has already caught the eye of thousands, who rejoice in its beams.

The preaching of Mr. Spurgeon in London is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present times. The loftiest and humblest minds, the rich and the poor, the titled and the lowly, in uncounted crowds, throng the courts where he ministers, listen with rapture to his glowing words; hundreds are pricked to the heart, and God is honored in the conversion of sinners and the joy of his people.

What is the secret of the wonderful success attending the labors of a youth of twenty-two? Whence came he? Where was he trained for such service? Will he soon burn out and be forgotten? These are the earnest inquiries which a brief sketch of his history will, in part at least, answer.

Rev. C. H. Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, in Essex, on the 19th of June, 1834. His father and grandfather are both living, and are Independent ministers. It is further stated, in the London Patriot, that the subject of this sketch received his early education at Colchester, and also passed a year in the Agricultural College at Maidstone, where he added to his previous knowledge some insight into natural science. Thus equipped, he began the business of life as usher in a school at Newmarket; whence he removed to Cambridge, where he held a similar appointment in a day-school, employing the ampler leisure thus secured in improving his own mind. While at Newmarket, lie began to address the Sunday-school children, and that in such a style as attracted grown-up hearers. At Cambridge the practice was continued, with the addition of Sunday-evening sermons in the surrounding villages. The Baptist church at Waterbeach called this young Timothy to be their pastor. He accepted the invitation; and, while the chapel was crowded, the church was doubled under his ministry. On the week-days, eleven villages shared the advantage of his sermons, which, in one year, amounted to as many as there are days in the year. In January, 1854, Mr. Spurgeon was invited to undertake the pastorate of the Baptist church in New Park street. Not content with discharging the duties of that office, he preaches in many other places during the week.

New Park street chapel stands on the Surrey side of the Thames, near Southwark Bridge a locality which the untravelled hereabouts will better understand by being told that it almost exactly corresponds with the Brooklyn end of Catharine ferry. It was on this spot that the great expositor Gill, and the hymnologist Rippon, preached and sung to successive generations long before the advent of the present popular preacher and his immense auditory.

Having thus briefly glanced at Mr. Spurgeon’s biography, and the scene of his stated labors, let us proceed to notice more particularly the elements of his professional influence. If we mistake not, he is preeminently intelligent, independent, and honest in purpose, as a servant of Jesus Christ; and, so long he remains such, no degree of success, however great, ought to be regarded as being either wonderful or dangerous.

In the first place, Mr. Spurgeon is an intelligent man. His personal influence implies this, and his published works prove it. He began the assiduous study of books at an early period, and evidently has ever since been a comprehensive reader of whatever he deems of practical use. But he did not heap books so high about his boyhood as to exclude nature from &

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loving and ennobling view. Every realm of elegance and grandeur has been laid under contribution to enlarge and embellish his intellect. Hence the richness and variety of illustration, which so much enhance the beauty and force of his public discourses. In body and mind he appears redolent of health; and this has resulted mainly from habitual intercourse with natural charms. His studies at Colchester, and in the Agricultural College at Maidstone, doubtless did much to feed his ardent love of learning, and, especially, to enlarge his knowledge of natural science. As usher in the school at Newmarket, and afterwards while acquitting himself of like functions at Cambridge, he accumulated no small amount of literary treasure; but his best acquisitions were secured in the early and accurate knowledge of human nature, which, through juvenile discipline in diversified life, Providence caused him to possess.

Before he left Cambridge, while the dignitaries of the university and town were enjoying their lettered content, Mr. Spurgeon was wont frequently to address Sunday-schools, in season and out of season; to visit the neighboring villages, where descending day, as well as opening morn, found him still busy in refreshing the weary and spiritually destitute. Thus, in the very morning of his life, in the dew of his youth, we find him in labors more abundant, his ardor and love supplying the lack of experience, and filling his friends with the highest hopes of his future usefulness and fame, in the service of his Divine Master.

Read some of Mr. Spurgeon’s statements touching his early education, which at once assert the source of its greatest worth, and exemplify the beauty of its blessed influence. Says he: “When I hear sweet syllables fall from many lips, keeping measure and time, then I feel elevated, and, forgetting for a time every being terrestrial, I soar aloft towards heaven.” He represents himself as having” delighted in the musty old folios

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which many of his brethren have upon their library shelves,” and, “as for new books, he leaves them to others.” To the Bible he ascribes the discipline of his mental faculties, as well as his knowledge of divine truth. Once, he declares, he put all his knowledge together in glorious confusion; but now he has a shelf in his head for every thing, and, whatever he reads or hears, he knows where to stow it away. “Ever since I have known Christ, I have put Christ in the centre as my sun, and each secular science revolves around it as a planet, while the minor sciences are satellites to their planets.” He can learn every thing now; and, from his own experience, he exhorts thus: “0 young man, build thy studio on Calvary! There raise thine observatory, and scan, by faith, the lofty things of nature! Take thee a hermit’s cell in the Garden of Gethsemane, and lave thy brow with the waters of Siloa!” In one of his sermons, he remarks that “the man of one book is often more intelligent than the man of fifty.” In recommending pointed preaching, he makes a remark, which illustrates his own habit of wide wandering for material, connected with the power of sudden and concentrated use. “It is not the sheet lightning, seen in all places, that takes effect; but it is the forked flash that smites the temple, or scorches the tree.” Another remark sets forth the spontaneity of this rare preacher’s thoughts, and the graceful freshness with which they emanate from his heart and lips. “There is much virtue which is like the juice of the grape, which has to be squeezed before you get it; not like the generous drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely.”

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