Introduction
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.”
The reader will probably regard the foregoing remarks as striking exponents of the natural intelligence possessed by Mr. Spurgeon, sufficiently illustrative of the early and varied culture he has acquired. We proceed, secondly, to array the proofs of what, in our judgment, is still more auspicious of professional success, — his independence.
A preacher is not divinely called and elevated to be a facile weathercock, turned by the wind; but, like a tower of strength in scenes of danger, not less luminous than resolute, he is to turn the winds. It is fortunate for the interests of commerce that the pharos-keeper is usually compelled, by the circumstances of his position, to trim his light alone, and pour its effulgence in his own undictated style. If all interested parties, on sea and shore, could but have their individual say as to the best mode of doing the business, a great crowd of impertinent advisers would soon extinguish both the light-master and his lamps.
Mr. Spurgeon exercises great influence in London, because he made his advent therein fresh from the quiet fields of accurate observation and independent thought. He seems to be more than willing to serve anybody, in any reasonable way, without the slightest air of assumption in his manner; but there does not happen to be cash or coercion enough in the great metropolis to create a particular track, in which alone he shall waik and talk. In a discourse on 1 John, v. 4, he says: “A very kind friend has told me that, while I was preaching in Exeter Hall, I ought to pay deference to the varied opinions of my hearers; that, albeit I may be a Calvinist and a Baptist, I should recollect that there are a variety of creeds here. Now, if I were to preach nothing but what would please the whole lot of you, what on earth should I do? I preach what I believe to be true; and, if the omission of a single truth that I believe would make me king of England throughout eternity, I would not leave it out. Those who do not like what I say, have the option of leaving it. They come here, I suppose, to please themselves; and, if the truth does not please them, they can leave it.”
We have thus presented as much testimony as our space will permit, by which a judgment may be formed of Mr. Spurgeon’s intellectual endowments and personal independence. It remains to speak of his apparent honesty of purpose, as the crowning guarantee of professional success. It is in this latter trait, we think, that a proper solution may be found of the problem of this preacher’s extraordinary influence. The able editor of the Glasgow Examiner says of him, that” His preaching is altogether peculiar, and not very easily described. Probably the following may convey to the reader some idea of it. Some preachers owe much to their personnel, or presence in the pulpit. Before they open their mouths, there is something about them which causes a sort of awe and respect to creep over the audience. The appearance of this preacher may be said to be interesting rather than commanding. He is quite a youth, and his countenance boyish. He is under, rather than over, the middle size, and has few or none of the physical advantages of the orator in his appearance. But what he lacks in appearance, he has in reality. Soon as he commences to speak, tones of richest melody are heard. A voice, full, sweet, and musical, falls on every ear, and awakens agreeable emotions in every soul in which there is a sympathy for sounds. That most excellent of voices is under perfect control, and can whisper or thunder at the wish of its possessor. And there is poetry in every feature, and every movement, as well as music in the voice. The countenance speaks, — the entire form sympathizes. The action is in complete unison with the sentiments, and the eye listens scarcely less than the ear to the sweetly flowing oratory. But, among the thirty thousand English preachers, and the three thousand Scotch ones, there are many sweet voices, as well as this, and many who have studied the art of speaking with the greatest assiduity, and yet they fail to attract an audience. Mr. Spurgeon is more than a ’ voice crying ‘; he has rare powers of observation, recollection, assimilation, and creation. His field of observation is wide and varied. He seems to have opened his eyes to nature in all its varieties; to science in all its discoveries, and to literature in all its departments. Every thing which the eye of man can look upon, or the ear hear, seems to have made an indelible impression on his mental powers. The impression is not only distinctly made, but ineradicably maintained. Every mountain, every valley, every book, every sentence, which has once come in his way, becomes forever fixed in his recollection. And not only fixed, but becomes the material on which marvellous powers of assimilation vigorously operate. Out of the forms of beauty which his eyes see,- other still lovelier forms are created. The loveliest natural landscape is adorned with additional beauty, by the aid of a refined and chastened fancy. The thoughts that have come floating down from the long bygone ages are placed in the crucible of his mind, and, purged of the objectionable, come out bearing his own image and superscription. There is evidently in him great power of assimilative genius, and occasional indications of even a higher order of genius, — even that which creates fresh and new forms of beauty, which bear the distinct mark of his own mind.
These higher qualities are evidently greatly aided by a close study of the graces of speaking. The natural has been aided by study, — the gifts of the orator by the graces. Despite an occasional neglect of all the laws of logic and ratiocination, there are evidently a thorough knowledge and appreciation of both. The negligee sometimes forms a pleasing contrast with the precise. The bow, drawn at a venture, may send the arrow more direct to the mark than the bow drawn according to the strictest rules.”
The arrangement of Mr. Spurgeon’s sermons is simple and textual. The outline forms a natural contour of the theme, and is scarcely less striking than the facts, arguments, and illustrations employed to elucidate and enforce its leading truths. As he uses no notes, he is sometimes quite episodical in the course of his demonstrations; but he never diverges so far as to be unable in a moment to recover his position, with enhanced interest and ease. There is about him that frank, open heartiness of manner, which hesitates not to express the most startling opinions; and which, combined with his intense xii INTRODUCTION.
sympathy with the masses, gives its possessor a sublime fascination over the popular heart. Twelve thousand listen to him at one time in the open field; and yet, with all this success, Jiere seems to be little or nothing about him of self-conceit. “Recollect,” he says, “who I am, and what I am, — a child, having little education, little learning, ability, or talent.” “Without the Spirit of God, I feel I am utterly unable to speak to you. I have not those gifts and talents which qualify men to speak; I need an afflatus from on high; otherwise, I stand like other men, and have naught to say. May that be given me, for without it I am dumb!” Give him the polite and the noble, give him influence and understanding, and he should fail; but give him his own praying people, “meeting in such multitudes to pray to God for a blessing,” and he will “overcome hell itself.”
Brother, all hail! This last drop of ink hastens into words, which may perchance meet your eye, amidst the dust and exhausting strife incident to that great arena of your spiritual gladiatorship. Well, let them assure you of fraternal sympathy at ten thousand altars in far-off climes. When the prospective issue of your glowing thoughts was here announced, orders for the same were promptly returned from every section of our republic: and soon you will be read, as your continued usefulness is fervently desired, in homes of affluence and cabins of industry, spread under the care of our common Father, from the Eastern Atlantic to the Great Pacific of the West. May Grace still bind thee in humble allegiance to the cross, and render thee yet more radiant, for the benefit of a dark and perishing world.
Thus we wrote last June. More than was then anticipated has been already realized; and we devoutly hope for yet greater success to attend the living voice of this effective preacher and his printed works. elm.
New York, April 10th, 1857.