Abundant in Labors

Life is so brief that no man can afford to lose an hour of it. It has been well said, that if a king should bring us a great heap of gold, and bid us take as much as we could count in a day, we should make a long day of it; we should begin early in the morning, and in the evening we should not withhold our hand. Now, to win souls, or to grow in grace, or to commune with God, is far nobler work; how is it that we so soon withdraw from it? — C. H. Spurgeon.

THE year 1856 was a remarkable one in the life of Mr. Spurgeon. It was the year of his marriage; the year in which he preached his grandfather’s jubilee sermon, and one of the centenary sermons in Whitfield’s Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road.

During the first week of the year Mr. Spurgeon was delighting larie audiences at Bath. The second week was made memorable by a service held in his own chapel, in which the young people, more particularly, took a very lively interest. Early in the forenoon of January 8th Mr. Spurgeon was married to Miss Susanna Thompson, daughter of Mr. Robert Thompson, of Falcon Square, London. Twin boys, Charles and Thomas Spurgeon, are the only additions to their family. Both are now settled pastors.

At this period Mr. Spurgeon was daily in the pulpit, often travelling many miles between the services held; and for months together he preached twelve sermons weekly, with undiminished force and unflagging zeal. In the achievement of such herculean tasks he has doubtless been indebted to an excellent constitution and to his simple habits of living. He is the very embodiment of nature, without the usual make-up of art. He throws himself on the tide of social intercourse with the freedom of one who has no tricks to exhibit and no failings to conceal. He is one of the most pleasant of companions: pious without any of the shams of piety; temperate without a touch of asceticism; and devout without the solemnity of the devotee. Preaching for his poorer brethren in the country, he declined to receive any contribution towards his personal outlay, excepting only in cases where the church could well afford to pay his travelling expenses.

New Park-street Chapel when enlarged soon became utterly inadequate to receive the crowds which flocked to hear Mr. Spurgeon, and the deacons found it necessary to take the largest available building in London, — the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall, — and in October, 1856, Mr. Spurgeon commenced to preach every Sabbath in that vast audience-room, continuing the morning service there till the great Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened.

What is known as the Surrey Gardens catastrophe we need not do more than allude to. On October 19th a sad and fatal accident had wellnigh put an end to the large Sabbath gatherings drawn to hear Mr. Spurgeon; but that fatality was overruled for good. Previous to this Mr. Spurgeon knew not what illness was; but this calamity, joined with the wicked calumnies of a portion of the press, laid prostrate even the strong man.

In October, 1856, the first meeting was held for considering the steps necessary to be taken for erecting a great Tabernacle. The proposal was very heartily taken up by Mr. Spurgeon’s friends, and in every part of the country sympathy was largely shown with the movement. There were many who laughed at the idea of erecting as a place of worship an edifice to hold five thousand persons. Regardless of these objections the work went on, Mr. Spurgeon travelling all over the land, preaching daily, with the promise of half the proceeds of the collection being devoted to the new Tabernacle. The foundation-stone of the great building was laid by Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Aug. 16, 1859.

During the progress of the work Mr. Spurgeon met on the ground, one evening after the workmen had left, one of his deacons. After some consultation and meditation, surrounded by planks, piles of timber and bricks, in the dim twilight, they both knelt down where no eye could see them but that of God; and with only the canopy of heaven for their covering, the pastor and his friend each poured out most earnest supplications for the prosperity of the work, the safety of the men engaged on the building,

Surrey Music Hall.

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and a blessing on the church. Their prayers were not offered in vain, but were abundantly answered. Out of so large a number of men engaged on the work, not one of them suffered harm.

In 1860 a large and enthusiastic meeting was held in the building before it was finished, at which much money was given and more promised. Great preparations were made during the winter for the holding of a large bazaar in the spring, which was probably one of the largest and most productive of the kind ever held in London. The opening services were commenced on March 25, 1 86 1, and were continued without interruption for five weeks. As the result of all these efforts, the great Tabernacle, to hold five thousand people, was free from debt at the end of the special services, and $155,000 of free-will offerings had been poured into the hands of the treasurer. Since then various improvements have been made in the audience-room, and, using every facility modern invention could suggest, scats have been provided for 5,500 persons, and standing room for 1,000 more, — total, 6,500.

Large as is the accommodation provided, the Tabernacle has always been filled. All the prophets of evil have been found false prophets, and the. spirit of faith with which the work was begun has had its full reward in results even greater than ever had been anticipated.

When the church removed from New Park Street, in 1861, it numbered 1,178 members. In ten years from the commencement of his ministry Mr. Spurgeon had received into fellowship by baptism 3,569 persons.

During the period in which ]Ir. Spurgeon was preaching in the Surrey Music Hall large numbers of the aristocracy attended his ministry; amongst whom were Lord Chief Justice Campbell, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, Earl Russell, Lord Alfred Paget, Lord Panmure, Earl Grey, Earl Shaftesbury, the Marquis of Westminster, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lord Carlisle, Earl of Elgin, Baron Bramwell, Miss Florence Nightingale, Lady Rothschild, Dr. Livingstone, and many other persons of learning and distinction, some of whom sought and obtained interviews with the preacher. It was during that interim that Mr. Spurgeon paid one of his visits to Holland, was privileged to preach before the Dutch Court, and had a lengthened interview with the queen of that country. It was reported that some members of the English Royal Family also occasionally attended on his preaching, and not a few distinguished clergymen and professors.

During the present year Mr. Gladstone and his son have formed part of the congregation, and a mutual interview was held at the close of the service between the great premier and the humble pastor. Mr. Gladstone has often spoken very highly of Mr. Spurgeon, calling him “the last of the Puritans.”

Dr. Livingstone, the great African explorer, said, on one occasion after hearing Mr. Spurgeon, that no religious service he ever remembered had so deeply impressed his own mind as that he had witnessed and participated in that morning; adding, that when he had retired again into the solitudes of Africa, no scene he had ever witnessed would afford him more consolation than to recall the recollection that there was one man God had raised up who could so effectively and impressively preach to congregated thousands, whilst he should have to content himself by preaching to units, or at most tens, under a tropical sky in Africa; implying, at the same time, that Mr. Spurgeon’s sphere of religious influence was a hundred times greater than that of the great and good traveller.

Mr. Spurgeon has often been invited to lecture in this country, but has always declined. The managers of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau having noticed a paragraph in the Boston papers stating that Mr. Spurgeon was about to visit the United States, enclosed it to him, and wrote as follows: —

Boston, Mass., June 22, 1876.

Dear Sir, — Is the above paragraph true? We have tried so long and so hard for many years to secure you that we thought it impossible, and long since gave up all hope. We are the exclusive agents of all the leading lecturers in America. We will give you a tJioiisand dollars in gold for every lecture you deliver in America, and pay all your expenses to and from your home, and place you under the most popular auspices in the country. Will you come?

To this invitation Mr. Spurgeon returned the following reply: —

Clapham, London, Eng., July 6. Gentlemen, — I cannot imagine how such a paragraph should appear in your papers, except by deliberate invention of a hard-up editor, for I never had any idea of leaving home for America for some time to come. As I said to you before, if I could come, I am not a lecturer, nor nwiihi I receive money for prcacJiijig.

In the year 1857 Mr. Spurgeon preached two sermons, — one in the ordinary course of his ministrations, the other on a special occasion, — both of which commanded a sale of more than a hundred thousand copies. The first, preached in the autumn, was entitled “India’s Ills and England’s Sorrows,” and had reference to the mutiny in India. The second was preached in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham on the fast day relating to the war in India, when probably not less than twenty thousand formed the preacher’s audience.

It will doubtless interest many to learn something of the personal appearance of the preacher as he stood before that vast audience. One who had some skill in depicting natural life wrote of him as follows: —

“He is of medium height, at present quite stout, has a round and beardless face, not a high forehead, dark hair, parted in the centre of the head. His appearance in the pulpit may be said to be interesting rather than commanding. He betrays his youth, and still wears a boyish countenance. His figure is awkward, — his manners are plain, — his face (except when illumined by a smile) is admitted to be heavy. His voice seems to be the only personal instrument he possesses, by which he is enabled to acquire such a marvellous power over the minds and hearts of his hearers. His voice is powerful, rich, melodious, and under perfect control. Twelve thousand have distinctly heard every sentence he uttered in the open air, and this powerful instrument carried his burning words to an audience of twenty thousand gathered in the Crystal Palace. * Soon as he commences to speak,’ says an English critic, * 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. Then 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.’ To the influence of this powerful voice, he adds that of a manner characterized by great freedom and fearlessness, intensely earnest, and strikingly natural. When to these we add the influence of thrilling description, touching anecdote, sparkling wit, startling episodes, striking similes, all used to illustrate and enforce the deep, earnest home-truths of the Bible, we surely have a combination of elements which must make up a preacher of wonderful attraction and of marvellous power.”

Amidst his incessant duties and almost daily journeys and sermons, the devoted pastor still found time to give instruction to the young men he kept under his careful ministry. With Mr. Spurgeon it was work almost night and day, and all day long, with but little intermission, for several years in succession. The germs of what is now known as the Pastors’ College were never absent from his mind, and frequently occupied his attention when in London. In 1857 the first student was sent out in charge of a church; in 1858 Mr. Silverton went forth; in 1859 Mr. Davies and Mr. Genders followed, both of whom have left their mark on society.

On Jan. i, 1865, appeared the first number of “The Sword and the Trowel;” a record of combat with sin, and labor for the Lord. It had an ornamental cover representing a Jewish doorway of stone, and beyond and within were seen the zealous Jews at work rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, the sword in one hand, the trowel in the other. The work was so wisely planned, and it has been so ably conducted, that it now occupies a prominent, if not a foremost place amongst the periodical literature of the land, and has a circulation of several thousand copies monthly, with a steady advancement.

Besides the other works daily undertaken by Mr. Spurgeon himself, and all his journeys in the country to preach special sermons, he found time to write no less than nineteen articles for the first year’s volume of his magazine. At the end of the year the Editor was ill at home, but he informed his friends, through the magazine, that he had finished writing his new book, “Morning by Morning,” by which means he hoped to hold hallowed communion with thousands of families all over the world, every morning, at the family altar. He has since added to it a companion volume, “Evening by Evening,” both of which works have had a large sale, which is steadily on the increase. Amongst his articles in 1865 were two poems, one entitled “The Fall of Jericho;” the other will finfl a fitting place in these pages. It was written while on a visit to Hull, in Yorkshire, during the summer: —

MARRIED LOVE — TU MY WIFE.

Over the space ihat parts us, my wife.

I ’11 cast me a bridge of song,
Our hearts shall meet, O joy of my life,

On its arch unseen, but strong.

The wooer his new love’s name may wear

Engraved on a precious stone;
But in my heart thine image I wear,

That heart has long been thine own.

The glowing colors on surface laid,

Wash out in a shower of rain;
Thou need’st not be of rivers afraid,

For my love is dyed ingrain.

And as every drop of Garda’s lake

Is tinged with sapphire’s blue,
So all the powers of my mind partake

Of joy at the thought of you.

The glittering dewdrops of dawning love

Exhale as the day grows old,
And fondness, taking the wings of a dove,

Is gone like a tale of old.

But mine for thee, from the chambers of joy.

With strength came forth as the sun,
Nor life nor death shall its force destroy,

Forever its course shall run.

All earth-born love must sleep in the grave,

To its native dust return;
What God hath kindled shall death out-brave,

And in heaven itself shall burn.

Beyond and above the wedlock tie

Our union to Christ we feel;
Uniting bonds which were made on high,

Shall ‘hold us when earth shall reel.

Though He who chose us all worlds before,
Must reign in our hearts alone,

We fondly believe that we shall adore
Together before His throne.