Part 26

"I have had nothing else to preach," said Mr. Spurgeon, "but Christ crucified. How many souls there are in heaven who have found their way there through that preaching, how many there are still on earth, serving the Master, it is not for me to tell; but whatever there has been of success has been through the preaching of Christ in the sinner's stead."

The church building soon became too cramped; and while it was being enlarged, from February to May, 1855, the congregation met in Exeter Hall. As the Strand became blocked with people, a Music Hall in Surrey Gardens was used, where ten thousand people gathered to hear him.

A serious accident soon occurred here through the cry of "Fire!" by some malicious person; and in the eagerness to rush out, seven persons were killed and twenty-eight removed to hospitals, badly injured. For days Mr. Spurgeon was prostrated on account of the accident, and unable to preach.

After this, services were held only in the morning, attended by the Prime Minister, the nobility, and the poor. Large numbers were converted. Thirty-five years after this time a Surrey Gardens Memorial Hall was erected near this spot, at a cost of £3,000, as one of the many mission-homes in connection with the Tabernacle work. This commemorates the many conversions in these early days, before the Tabernacle was built.

The "Greville Memoirs" thus describes the minister of twenty-three, preaching to nine thousand people in the Music Hall. "He is certainly very remarkable, and undeniably a fine character,--not remarkable in person; in face resembling a smaller Macaulay; a very clear and powerful voice, which was heard through the hall; a manner natural, impassioned, and without affectation or extravagance; wonderful fluency and command of language, abounding in illustration, and very often of a very familiar kind, but without anything ridiculous or irreverent. He gave me an impression of his earnestness and sincerity; speaking without book or notes, yet his discourse was evidently very carefully prepared.... He preached for about three-quarters of an hour, and, to judge by the use of the handkerchiefs and the audible sobs, with great effect."

The corner-stone of the new Tabernacle was laid Aug. 16, 1859, by Sir Samuel Morton Peto. The building was ready for occupancy in 1861. The opening services lasted a month, the first service being a prayer-meeting, held at seven o'clock on Monday morning, March 18. One thousand persons were present.

The Tabernacle is one hundred and forty-six feet in length, and eighty-one in width. There are five thousand five hundred sittings, and many more can be accommodated. Besides the audience-room, there are rooms for Sunday-schools, working-meetings, and the like. The cost was a little over £31,000, all raised by voluntary effort. All denominations gave, and all parts of the country responded. Mr. Spurgeon spoke in Scotland, giving half the receipts to some needy pastorate, and reserving half for his new church. The church building has always been crowded, so that pewholders were admitted at the side doors by ticket. For many years there have been over five thousand members in the church.

Mr. Spurgeon once said, "Somebody asked me how I got my congregation. I never got it at all.... Why, my congregation got my congregation! I had eighty, or scarcely a hundred, when I first preached. The next time I had two hundred--every one who had heard me was saying to his neighbor, 'You must go and hear this young man.' Next meeting we had four hundred, and in six weeks, eight hundred."

It was not enough for Mr. Spurgeon that crowds were flocking to hear him preach; that in Scotland twenty thousand gathered at a time to listen to him; that at the Crystal Palace, when he was but twenty-three, more than twenty-three thousand people came together to hear him preach, Oct. 7, 1857, the day of national humiliation on account of the Indian mutiny.

Others had been converted, and he wanted them to preach the gospel. They were for the most part poor, and could provide neither clothing nor books for their term of study. He needed a Pastor's College.

It began with one student, and increased to several, cared for in a minister's home, and supported by Mr. Spurgeon.

This incident is related by the Rev. James J. Ellis, of the first student, Mr. T. W. Medhurst. He called upon Spurgeon, and said that he feared he had made a mistake in entering the ministry.

"What do you mean?" asked Spurgeon.

"Well, I've been preaching for five or six months, and have not heard of any conversions."

"You don't expect conversions every time you preach, do you?"

"No, I don't expect them every time," said Mr. Medhurst.

"Then be it unto you according to your faith," was the reply. "If you expect great things from God, you'll get them; if you don't, you won't."

"The large sale of my sermons in America, together with my dear wife's economy," writes Mr. Spurgeon, "enabled me to spend from £600 to £800 a year in my own favorite work; but on a sudden--owing to my denunciations of the then existing slavery in the States--my entire resources from that 'Brook Cherith' were dried up. I paid as large sums as I could from my own income, and resolved to spend all I had, and then take the cessation of my means as a voice from the Lord to stay the effort; as I am firmly persuaded that we ought, under no pretence, to go into debt."

This was Mr. Spurgeon's life-long rule. He once related this story of his childhood. He wanted a slate-pencil, and had no money to buy it. So he went to the shop of a Mrs. Dearson, who kept nuts, cakes, and tops, and got trusted for one, the amount of debt being one farthing. His father heard of it, and reprimanded him severely; told the young Charles, "how a boy who would owe a farthing, might one day owe a hundred pounds, and get into prison, and bring his family into disgrace." The child cried bitterly, and hastened to pay the farthing.

Mr. Spurgeon said in later life, "Debt is so degrading, that if I owed a man a penny, I would walk twenty miles, in the depth of winter, to pay him, sooner than to feel that I was under an obligation.... Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible.... Without debt, without care; out of debt, out of danger; but owing and borrowing are bramble-bushes full of thorns. If ever I borrow a spade of my neighbor, I never feel safe with it for fear I should break it."

"I was reduced to the last pound," says Mr. Spurgeon, "when a letter came from a banker in the city, informing me that a lady, whose name I have never been able to discover, had deposited a sum of £200, to be used for the education of young men for the ministry.... Some weeks after, another £100 came in from the same bank, as I was informed, from another hand.... A supper was given by my liberal publishers, Messrs. Passmore & Alabaster, to celebrate the publishing of my five-hundredth weekly sermon, at which £500 were raised and presented to the funds. The college grew every month, and the number of the students rapidly increased from one to forty."

A "weekly offering" was soon taken at the church for the Pastor's College. This in the year 1869 amounted to £1,869. When "seasons of straitness" came, as Spurgeon says, the "Lord always interposed." On one occasion, £1,000 came from an unknown source.

Mr. G. Holden Pike says of these weekly offerings, "How high a figure the total reached nobody knew; for, as Sunday is a day of rest, the money would not be counted until the following morning. Gold, silver, and copper pieces, together with little packets neatly tied with thread, made up the motley heap. One miniature parcel enclosed fifteen shillings from 'A workingman.' When the whole mass was placed in a strong black bag, I ventured to raise it for the sake of testing its weight.... It was certainly the 'heaviest' collection I had ever set eyes upon, for it was as much as one could conveniently raise from the table with one arm."

A yearly supper was provided by Mr. Spurgeon, at which guests gave as they were able or inclined. At this supper in 1891, £3,000 were subscribed.

After a time the College buildings were erected near the Tabernacle property. A lady gave £3,000 as a memorial to her husband; £2,000 were left as a legacy by a reader of the sermons. The cost of the buildings, £15,000, was paid as soon as the work was done.

The whole number added to the churches by these men educated at the Pastor's College is, as nearly as can be ascertained, considerably over one hundred thousand. Some of these men have gone to India, China, the West Indies, Africa, Australia, among the Jews, and elsewhere.

The annual address of the President, Mr. Spurgeon, was eagerly looked for. That given in 1891, "The Greatest Fight in the World," in defence of the Inspiration of the Bible, has been translated into French, German, Danish, and other languages.

In 1866 another important work was laid upon the busy preacher, whose hands seemed already full. The widow of an Episcopal clergyman, Mrs. Hillyard, was desirous of giving £20,000 to found an orphanage for boys. She was personally unknown to Mr. Spurgeon, but had read his sermons, and had great faith in his spirituality and sense.

Another lady, her husband having given her £500 on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage, made a present of it to the Orphanage. One house was built with it, called "The Silver Wedding House." A gentleman gave £600 for another house; an unknown donor £1,000 for two other houses, and soon after £2,000 more.

In 1868 the Baptist churches of England gave Mr. Spurgeon £1,765 for the Orphanage. One building is called "The Merchant's House;" another, "The Workmen's House."

At the close of 1869, all the buildings or houses for the orphan boys were completed in Stockwell, on the Clapham Road, free from debt, at a cost of £10,200, Mrs. Hillyard's funds being used for endowment.

When the funds were low,--for Mr. Spurgeon says, "Our boys persist in eating, and wearing out their clothes,"--money was raised by a bazaar, by a _fête_ on his birthday, or in some other way.

The long row of attractive houses for boys did not fill Mr. Spurgeon's heart; there must be similar homes for girls.

In September, 1879, Mr. Spurgeon writes, "Our friends know that we bought a house and grounds called 'The Hawthorns,' for £4,000. This we needed to pay for. For various reasons the payment of the purchase-money for 'The Hawthorns' was delayed until July 30; and _on that very morning_ we received a letter telling us that a gentleman had died, and left £1,500 for the Girls' Orphanage, thus bringing up our total to within a very small sum of the amount required. The whole £4,000 is now secured, including this legacy, and the property is our own."

Not long after, the £11,000 necessary for the first block of buildings was obtained.

In January, 1882, a great bazaar was held, which in three days netted the sum of £2,000 for the Girls' Orphanage. In his opening speech at this bazaar Mr. Spurgeon said, "We don't want to sell anything that is not worth the money paid for it; for we think that such should not be the case when the object is to benefit orphan children. When you leave here, you need not be in the plight of the gentleman who was met by footpads on his way home. 'Your money or your life!' demanded one of them.

"'My dear fellow, I have not a farthing about me. Do you know where I have been? I have been to a bazaar.'

"'Oh, if you've been to a bazaar, we should not think of taking any money from you. We'll make a subscription all round, and give you something to help you home.' That is a bazaar as it ought not to be."

About one thousand boys and girls are now in the Stockwell Orphanage, the larger number of the children coming from Church of England families. Some are also from Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Methodist families, as well as Baptist.

Mr. Spurgeon tells this story: "Sitting down in the Orphanage grounds, upon one of the seats, we were talking with a brother trustee, when a funny little fellow, we should think about eight years of age, left the other boys who were playing around us, and came deliberately up to us. He opened fire in this fashion, 'Please, Mister Spurgeon, I wants to come and sit down on the seat between you two gentlemen.'

"'Come along, Bob and tell us what you want.'

"'Please, Mister Spurgeon, suppose there was a little boy who had no father, who lived in an orphanage with a lot of other little boys who had no fathers; and suppose those little boys had mothers and aunts who _comed_ once a month and brought them apples and oranges, and gave them pennies; and suppose this little boy had no mother and no aunt, and so never came to bring him nice things; don't you think somebody ought to give him a penny? 'Cause, Mister Spurgeon, _that's me_!'"

Bob received a sixpence from Mr. Spurgeon, and went away with face all aglow.

The Orphanage covers four acres. Each house is complete in itself, and has its own "mother." The boys dine in a common hall; the girls in their respective houses. Both boys and girls assist in domestic duties. "The children are not dressed in a uniform," says Mr. Spurgeon, "to mark them as the recipients of charity."

In 1876 the Redpath Lecture Bureau of Boston asked Mr. Spurgeon to come to America and lecture, they offering to pay him $1,000 in gold for each lecture, and all expenses from England to America and return; but he declined the offer. He did not care to lecture, and would not preach for money.

On Wednesday evening, June 18, 1884, a remarkable jubilee service was held in the Tabernacle on Mr. Spurgeon's fiftieth birthday. Among the speakers was Mr. Spurgeon's father, the Rev. John Spurgeon; his brother, the Rev. James A. Spurgeon, of whom Charles said, "If there is a good man on the earth, I think it is my brother;" and the son of the great preacher, young Charles Spurgeon, one of the twins, affectionately called by the people, Charlie and Tommy. Both are ministers of the gospel. D. L. Moody from America also made an earnest address.

On the following evening the good Earl of Shaftesbury presided, and spoke with his wonted power. "Whatever Mr. Spurgeon is in private he is in the pulpit," said the earl; "and what he is in the pulpit he is in private. He is one and the same man in every aspect; and a kinder, better, honester, nobler man never existed on the face of the earth."

Canon Basil Wilberforce, the son of the Bishop, the Rev. Dr. Newman Hall, and others spoke. The Rev. Dr. O. P. Gifford presented an address from the Baptist ministers of Boston and vicinity.

A Spurgeon Jubilee Fund of £45,000 was given at this time. Five years previously a larger sum was given him, £3,000 of it being raised by a bazaar; and a large part of this money was used for seventeen almshouses, in which are the aged members of the Tabernacle. These are near the Elephant and Castle Station.

Another important agency for Christian work in connection with the Tabernacle is the Colportage Association, founded in 1866. The colporteurs sell religious books, conduct temperance and open-air meetings, distribute tracts, visit the sick, and are really home missionaries. The yearly distribution is about a half million Bibles, and as many, or more, books and periodicals.

Mr. Spurgeon loved to give away the Bible. He once said before the British and Foreign Bible Society, "Somebody may say it is of very little use to give away Bibles and Testaments. That is a very great mistake. I have very seldom found it to be a labor in vain to give a present of a Testament. I was greatly astonished about a month ago. A cabman drove me home, and when I paid him his fare, he said, 'It is a long time since I drove you last, sir.'

"'But,' said I, 'I do not recollect you!'

"'Well,' he said, 'I think it is fourteen years ago; but,' he added, 'perhaps you will know this Testament?' pulling one out of his pocket.

"'What,' I said, 'did I give you that?'

"'Oh, yes!' he said; 'and you spoke to me about my soul, and nobody had done that before, and I have never forgotten it.'

"'What,' said I, 'haven't you worn it out?'

"'No,' he said, 'I would not wear it out; I have had it bound.'"

Besides this society, there are ten Bible classes in the Tabernacle; a Loan Tract Society, for the distribution of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons in the neighborhood, and another to spread them in country districts; a Flower Mission, Maternal Society, Mothers' Meetings, Training Class for workers, and the like. There are twenty-three mission stations in connection with the Tabernacle, and twenty-seven Sunday-schools, with over eight thousand scholars.

With all this work, Mr. Spurgeon was a voluminous writer, as well as speaker. He published thirty-seven volumes of sermons, all of which have had an immense circulation. These were regularly printed in many papers. In Australia some of these were published and paid for as advertisements, at a fabulous price, by a gentleman deeply interested in doing good.

The Rev. Thomas Spurgeon wrote home to his father, from Australia, "I received a visit, in Geelong, from a man who produced from his pocket a torn and discolored copy of _The Australasian_, dated June, 1868, which contained a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon, entitled, 'The Approachableness of Jesus' (No. 809). To this sermon my visitor attributed his conversion.

"He lived alone, about twenty miles from Geelong, and had not entered a place of worship more than four or five times in twenty years, and had taken to drink, until delirium tremens seized upon him. When partially recovered, with not a human being near, his eye lighted on the sermon in the newspaper, which brought him to Jesus."

Mr. Pike says an admirer of Mr. Spurgeon gave away a quarter of a million copies of these sermons. Many were elegantly bound, and presented to the crowned heads of Europe. Others were sent to every member of Parliament, and to all the students of Oxford and Cambridge. Many of these sermons have been translated into German, French, Welsh, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Spanish, Gaelic, Hungarian, Arabic, Telegu, Hindustani, Syriac, and other languages.

These sermons have been scattered all over the world. At Bryher, one of the Scilly Isles, with a population of one hundred and twenty persons, Spurgeon's sermons are often read in the chapel. In Silesia and Russian Poland, many asked about "Brother Spurgeon," and read his sermons. On the Labrador coast they were read in a mission church Sunday after Sunday.

In 1880 a Red Kaffir, living at Port Elizabeth, South Africa, wrote to Mr. Spurgeon:--

"Dear Sir,--I don't know how to describe my joy and my feelings in this present moment. We never did see each other face to face, but still there is something between you and me which guided me to make these few lines for you. One day, as I was going to my daily work, I met a friend of mine in the street. We spoke about the word of God, and he asked me whether I had ever seen one of Mr. Spurgeon's books....

"He said he bought it from a bookseller. I asked the name of the book, and he said it was 'The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit;' and I went straight to the shop and bought one. I have read a good bit of it. On my reading it, I arrived on a place where Job said, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'

"I am sure I can't tell how to describe the goodness you have done to us, we black people of South Africa. We are black not only outside, even inside; I wouldn't mind to be a black man only in color. It is a terrible thing to be a black man from the soul to the skin; but still I am very glad to say your sermons have done something good to me." ...

David Livingstone carried one of these sermons with him, No. 408, entitled "Accidents not Punishments," in his last sad journey to Africa. Yellow and travel-stained it was found by his daughter Mrs. Bruce in his boxes after his death. He had written across the top, "_Very good._ D. L."

His son Thomas writes his mother from Auckland, New Zealand, concerning sermon No. 735, "Loving Advice for Anxious Seekers," copied into the _Melbourne Argus_, "This scrap of newspaper has been given to me by a town missionary here, who regards it as a very precious relic. It came to him from a man who died in the hospital, and bequeathed it to his visitor as a great treasure. The man found it on the floor of a hut in Australia, and was brought by its perusal to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. He kept it carefully while he lived (for it was discolored and torn when he found it), and on his death-bed gave it to the missionary as the only treasure he had to leave behind him."

In writing "The Treasury of David," seven volumes, Mr. Spurgeon spent a considerable part of twenty years. "During the whole of that period," says the Rev. Robert Shindler, in his valuable life of Spurgeon, "Mr. J. L. Keys, one of Mr. Spurgeon's secretaries, continued to search the library of the British Museum, and other libraries, and to cull from every available source everything worthy of quotation upon the book of Psalms." Over one hundred and twenty thousand volumes have been sold. Dr. Philip Schaff thought it "the most important homiletical and practical work of the age on the Psalter."

Of Spurgeon's "Morning by Morning" and "Evening by Evening," for home reading and devotions, over two hundred thousand copies have been sold.

"Commenting and Commentaries" was a work of great labor, showing his students and others what to use. "If I can save a poor man," he wrote, "from spending his money for that which is not bread, or, by directing a brother to a good book, may enable him to dig deeper into the mines of truth, I shall be well repaid. For this purpose I have toiled, and read much, and passed under review some three or four thousand volumes."

Twenty-seven volumes of the _Sword and Trowel_, Mr. Spurgeon's magazine, have had an enormous circulation. This is also true of "Lectures to My Students," abounding in sensible suggestions. To those about to become ministers he says:--

"Avoid little debts, unpunctuality, gossiping, nicknaming, petty quarrels, and all other of those little vices which fill the ointment with flies....

"Even in your recreations, remember that you are ministers.... His private life must ever keep good tune with his ministry, or his day will soon set with him, and the sooner he retires the better; for his continuance in his office will only dishonor the cause of God and ruin himself."