Part 27

Spurgeon urged private prayer upon his young men, and related this incident from Father Faber: "A certain preacher, whose sermons converted men by the scores, received a revelation from heaven that not one of the conversions was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the prayers of an illiterate lay brother, who sat on the pulpit steps, pleading all the time for the success of the sermon."

The great John Knox used to say he "wondered how a Christian could lie in his bed all night and not rise to pray."

Of public prayer, Spurgeon said, "Do not let your prayer be long.... 'He prayed me into a good frame of mind,' George Whitefield once said of a certain preacher, 'and if he had stopped there, it would have been very well; but he prayed me out of it again by keeping on.'"

Of the sermon he said, "Preach Christ always and evermore. He is the whole gospel.... Your pulpit preparations are your first business. A man great at tea-drinkings, evening parties, and Sunday-school excursions is generally little everywhere else.

"The sensible minister will be particularly gentle in argument," said Spurgeon. "He should take care not to engross all the conversation," and at the same time, "do not be a dummy."

"Have a good word to say to each and every member of the family,--the big boys and the young ladies and the little girls and everybody. No one knows what a smile and a hearty sentence may do. A man who is to do much with men must love them, and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker, and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living."

"Be cool and confident. As Sydney Smith says, 'A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage.' ... When a speaker feels, 'I am master of the situation,' he usually is so."

"If a man would speak without any present study, he must usually study much." This Mr. Spurgeon exemplified in his own life. Dr. Theodore Cuyler of New York wrote, after visiting Spurgeon at his home, "Westwood," Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, "a rural paradise," as he says, "Saturday afternoon is his holiday. For an hour he conducted us over his delightful grounds, and through his garden and conservatory, and then to a rustic arbor, where he entertained us with one of his racy talks, which are as characteristic as his sermons....

"It was six o'clock on Saturday when we bade him 'Good-by,' and he assured us that he had not yet selected even the texts for next day's discourses. 'I shall go down in the garden presently,' said he, 'and arrange my morning discourse and choose a text for that in the evening; then to-morrow afternoon, before preaching, I will make an outline of the second one.' ... He never composes a sentence in advance, and rarely spends over half an hour in laying out the plan of a sermon. Constant study fills his mental cask, and he has only to turn the spigot and draw."

Again he says, "To acquire the art of impromptu speech, one must practise it. It was by slow degrees, as Burke says, that Charles Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. He attributed his success to the resolution which he formed when very young of speaking well or ill at least once every night. 'During five whole seasons,' he used to say, 'I spoke every night but one, and I regret only that I did not speak on that night too.' At first he may do so with no other auditory than the chairs and books of his study."

Mr. Spurgeon's suggestions about voice, gesture, and throat are helpful. "Think nothing little," he says, "by which you may be even a little more useful. But, gentlemen, never degenerate in this business into pulpit fops, who think gesture and voice to be everything.... When you have done preaching, take care of your throat by _never wrapping it up tightly_.... If any brother wants to die of influenza, let him wear a warm scarf round his neck, and then one of these nights he will forget it, and catch such a cold as will last him the rest of his natural life. You seldom see a sailor wrap his neck up." Mr. Spurgeon used beef-tea, strong with pepper, for his throat, or a little glass of Chili vinegar and water.

"Beware of being actors! Never give earnest men the impression that you do not mean what you say, and are mere professionals. To be burning at the lips and freezing at the soul is a mark of reprobation....

"Away with gold rings and chains and jewellery! Why should the pulpit become a goldsmith's shop?"

To gain and keep the attention, he says, "The first golden rule is, always say something worth hearing.... Let the good matter which you give them be very clearly arranged.... Be sure, moreover, to speak plainly.... Do not make the introduction too long.... Be interested yourself, and you will interest others.... Many ministers are more than half asleep all through the sermon; indeed, they never were awake at any time, and probably never will be unless a cannon should be fired off near their ear.

"A very useful help in securing attention is a pause. Pull up short every now and then, and the passengers on your coach will wake up.... The next best thing to the grace of God for a preacher is oxygen. Pray that the windows of heaven may be opened, but begin by opening the windows of your meeting-house.

"Be masters of your Bibles, brethren.... Having given precedence to the inspired writings, neglect no field of knowledge.... Know nothing of

## parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for

all alike."

He urged them not to mind gossips, "who drink tea and talk vitriol;" and "to opinions and remarks about yourself turn also, as a general rule, the blind eye and the deaf ear."

Of Mr. Spurgeon's most popular books, "John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People," and "John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People," over four hundred and fifty thousand volumes have been sold. These are full of helpful words in homely garb, but most useful for rich and poor alike.

"Don't wait for helpers," he says. "Try those two old friends, your strong arms.... Don't be whining about not having a fair start.... The more you have to begin with, the less you will have at the end. Money you earn yourself is much brighter and sweeter than any you get out of dead men's bags.... As for the place you are cast in, don't find fault with that. You need not be a horse because you were born in a stable.... A fool may make money, but it needs a wise man to spend it. If you give all to back and board, there is nothing left for the savings bank. Fare hard and work hard while you are young, and you have a chance of rest when you are old.... No matter what comes in, if more goes out you will always be poor.... Plod is the word. Every one must row with such oars as he has.... Never be security for more than you are quite willing to lose."

Spurgeon was an untiring worker. He had no respect for idleness. "Many of our squires," he said, "have nothing to do but to part their hair in the middle; and many of the London grandees, ladies and gentlemen both alike, as I am told, have no better work than killing time.... The greater these people are, the more their idleness is noticed, and the more they ought to be ashamed of it.

"I don't say they ought to plough, but I do say that they ought to do something for the state, besides being like the caterpillars on the cabbage, eating up the good things; or like the butterflies, showing themselves off, but making no honey....

"Let me drop on these Surrey Hills, worn out ... sooner than eat bread and cheese and never earn it; better die an honorable death, than live a good-for-nothing life.

"Rash vows are much better broken than kept. He who never changes, never mends.... Learn to say 'No,' and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.

"An open mouth shows an empty head. Still waters are the deepest, but the shallowest brook brawls the most.... Beware of every one who swears; he who would blaspheme his Maker would make no bones of lying or stealing.... Commit all your secrets to no man ... seeing that men are but men, and all men are frail."

In "John Ploughman's Pictures" he says, "He who cannot curb his temper carries gunpowder in his bosom, and he is neither safe for himself nor his neighbors.... Anger is a fire which cooks no victuals, and comforts no households; it cuts and curses and kills, and no one knows what it may lead to.... It takes a great deal out of a man to get in a towering rage; it is almost as unhealthy as having a fit.... Shun a furious man as you would a mad dog.... A man in a thorough passion is as sad a sight as to see a neighbor's house on fire, and no water handy to put out the flames." Mr. Spurgeon's books number about one hundred volumes.

Mr. Spurgeon was blest in his home-life. On Jan 8, 1856, he married Susannah Thompson, daughter of Mr. Robert Thompson, of Falcon Square. He was married in new Park Street Chapel, before the Tabernacle was built. The church was full at the ceremony, while two thousand persons outside were unable to enter.

Their twin sons, Charles and Thomas, their only children, have always been a comfort to them. The wife has long been an invalid, but has been enabled to do great good in her home and out of it.

Mr. Spurgeon once said of her, "My experience of my first wife, who will, I hope, live to be my last, is much as follows: Matrimony came from Paradise, and leads to it. I never was half so happy before I was a married man as I am now.... I have no doubt that where there is much love there will be much to love, and where love is scant, faults will be plentiful. If there is only one good wife in England, I am the man who put the ring on her finger, and long may she wear it. God bless the dear soul! if she can put up _with_ me, she shall never be put down _by_ me."

From Hull he once wrote her a poem, beginning,--

"Over the space that parts us, my wife, I'll cast me a bridge of song: Our hearts shall meet, O joy of my life, On its arch unseen, but strong."

"Unkind and domineering husbands," he said, "ought not to pretend to be Christians, for they act clean contrary to Christ's commands."

Mr. Spurgeon once said of home, "That word _home_ always sounds like poetry to me. It sings like a peal of bells at a wedding, only more soft and sweet, and it chimes deeper into the ears of my heart."

Concerning beer-shops he wrote, "Beer-shops are the enemies of home, and therefore the sooner their licences are taken away the better.... Those beer-shops are the curse of this country; no good ever can come of them, and the evil they do no tongue can tell.... I wish the man who made the law to open them had to keep all the families that they have brought to ruin."

Again he writes, "Certain neighbors of mine laugh at me for being a teetotaller, and I might well laugh at them for being drunk, only I feel more inclined to cry that they should be such fools."

Mrs. Spurgeon's "Book Fund"[1] is well known. In the summer of 1875 Mr. Spurgeon published the first volume of "Lectures to My Students." His wife, feeling that they would do great good, desired to place them in the hands of ministers. Speaking to her husband about it, he said. "Why not do so? _How much will you give?_"

She had been keeping for years all the crown-pieces which came in her way; and on counting them, found that she had just enough to send away one hundred copies of the book. Others learned of this work, and were glad to aid it.

During the fifteen years since the Book Fund was started, up to 1890, there have been distributed by Mrs. Spurgeon to needy ministers of all denominations, a hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and twenty-nine volumes, largely Mr. Spurgeon's sermons, "The Treasury of David," and other works. The books of other authors have also been used.

Besides books, clothing and other needed things have been sent to ministers whose salary was the meager sum of sixty-five pounds per annum, or less. One village pastor for twenty years had received but sixty pounds yearly, and sometimes only forty-five pounds. Some had not purchased a new book in several years, and wrote back most thankful letters.

The money for this work has been furnished by the very poor as well as the rich. After the death of a woman who had had a struggle to support herself by her needle, more than two pounds, all in three-penny pieces, were found wrapped up in a drawer "dedicated to the Lord's work under the hand of Mrs. Spurgeon."

Mr. Spurgeon had suffered from rheumatism for many years, and had been obliged sometimes in winter to go to Mentone, in the South of France. In the middle of May, 1891, he had an attack of _la grippe_, from which, after a serious illness, he seemed to rally; but this was only temporary.

On all sides there was the greatest interest and sympathy. The Prince of Wales, Gladstone, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler, and scores of the highest in the land, all religious sects, all classes, sent letters or telegrams, to hear about the distinguished sufferer. Gladstone wrote of his "cordial admiration, not only of his splendid powers, but still more of his devoted and unfailing character."

And Spurgeon added to the letter sent back by his wife, July 18, 1891, these lines, "Yours is a word of love such as those only write who have been into the King's country, and have seen much of His face--My heart's love to you."

Mr. Spurgeon was always an admirer of Mr. Gladstone, which was heartily reciprocated. In the year 1880 the former took, for him, an unusually

## active part in politics. Having to preach for a friend, the Rev. John

Offord, Mr. Spurgeon said to him, "I should have been here a quarter of an hour sooner, only I stopped to vote."

"My dear friend," said Offord, "I thought you were a citizen of the New Jerusalem, and not of this world."

"So I am," was the reply; "but I have an old man in me yet, and he is a citizen of the world."

"But you ought to mortify him."

"So I do; for he's an old Tory, and I make him vote Liberal," replied Spurgeon.

In the autumn of 1891, the month of October, the preacher started for Mentone, his friends singing the Doxology as he left Hearne Hill Station, London. "Baron Rothschild's private saloon-carriage was placed at Mr. Spurgeon's service to travel in throughout France to Mentone."

Mr. Spurgeon grew better in the warm climate for a time, and wrote back letters to his church. He soon failed, however; and on the last day of January, 1892, on Sunday, at five minutes past eleven at night, at Hotel Beau Rivage, he passed away. At half-past three he had been unable to recognize his wife, or other friends. He grew weaker, and the end was painless.

The next day the body was almost hidden from sight by the flowers sent by friends. It was embalmed, sealed up in a leaden case, and this was enclosed in a coffin of olive-wood. On it were the last Scripture words uttered by Mr. Spurgeon to his secretary, Mr. J. W. Harrald, before his death, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

After service, Thursday, Feb. 4, at the Scottish Church at Mentone, the body was taken to London, where an immense crowd awaited its coming.

Through all of Tuesday, Feb. 9, the body lay in state in his beloved Tabernacle. Friends had been requested not to send flowers, but to use the money which they would have expended thus, for the Stockwell Orphanage. Yet the body was covered with flowers notwithstanding the request. Wednesday was spent in memorial services, the Tabernacle being crowded until after midnight.

At eleven o'clock Thursday, the 11th, the public funeral service was held. Deputations from sixty religious associations were present. Members of the House of Commons, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, bishops and laity, all came to honor the distinguished preacher.

The boys of Stockwell Orphanage sang the last hymn announced by Mr. Spurgeon before he became ill,--

"The sands of time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks, The summer morn I've sighed for, The fair sweet morn awakes."

Dr. A. T. Pierson of the United States delivered an earnest address, and the coffin was borne down the aisle, while the great congregation rose and sang,--

"There is no night in Homeland."

Through four miles of streets, crowds lining the way, the large mourning procession passed,--forty coaches and a vast number of private carriages. Flags were at half-mast, bells were tolled, and houses were draped with black.

At Stockwell Orphanage, on a raised platform covered with the emblems of mourning, five hundred boys and girls, who had loved the great man, once as poor as they, saw the solemn procession pass to the grave. Norwood Cemetery, where none had been admitted save by ticket, was already thronged. After a brief service, the Bishop of Rochester pronounced the benediction, and the sorrowing crowd went back to their homes.

More than two years afterwards, March 21, 1894 the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon was called to succeed his father at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

The manifold work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon will go on forever, through his books, and through those whose steps he has turned heavenward.

Say not his work is done; No deed of love or goodness ever dies, But in the great hereafter multiplies: Say it is just begun.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] An account of her work may be found in my book, "Social Studies in England."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"I never met any man, or any ecclesiastic, half so natural, so manly, so large-hearted, so intensely Catholic in the only real sense, so loyally true in his friendships, so absolutely unselfish, so modest, so unartificial, so self-forgetful.... A blessing and a gracious presence has vanished out of many lives. With a very sad heart I bid him farewell ... the noblest, truest, and most stainless man I ever knew." Thus wrote Canon Farrar of London in _The Review of Reviews_ for March, 1893, two months after the death of Phillips Brooks.

The various pulpits, the press, the millionnaires, the poor, and the lonely, all felt and said nearly the same thing. Canon Farrar wrote elsewhere, before Dr. Brooks's death, "I cannot recall the name of a single divine among us, of any rank, who either equals him as a preacher, or has the large sympathies and the rich endowments which distinguish him as a man."

The _Nation_ said, "The death of Phillips Brooks strikes down the greatest figure left to the American church."

[Illustration: PHILLIPS BROOKS.]

The Rev. Stopford W. Brooke, of the First Unitarian Church of Boston, said, "He was so vigorous, so noble, so persuasive, so ever welcome a guest of all our hearts, that we had almost forgotten he, too, was mortal.... We never once doubted his sincerity, or his large, pure, generous humanity. There was a power in his presence, his smile, the grasp of his hand, that deep and magnificent eye, which triumphed, unconsciously to himself, over all our haggling differences of temperament and opinion, and drew, by the same unconsciousness of itself, our best manhood to his side. I think this long consistent unconsciousness of himself was one of the great qualities that so endeared him to us all. Here was a man possessed of most remarkable gifts,--an extraordinary vitality, an astonishing 'volume velocity' and beauty of language, a rich and fertile imagination which idealized everything it touched, a power of feeling which rose and swept into his audience like the tides in the Bay of Fundy; and yet he never seemed aware that he was anything exceptional.... I believe that greatness is more common, goodness is far more common, than that unconsciousness with which he wore his greatness and goodness."

Stopford Brooke speaks of another remarkable characteristic of Phillips Brooks,--"His radiance and his joy. No one who has read at all carefully the literature of our time can have failed to remark how dominant in it is the note of sadness. The leaders of the past generation bore, with a certain sombre melancholy, the burden of the chaos, as Carlyle puts it, which they were endeavoring to fashion into cosmos."

Not so Phillips Brooks. "Goodness and happiness, duty and joy, were constant companions in his life. We looked at him, listened to him, talked with him, and knew he had saved and kept through many long years the soul's best secret. Through all that he said and did there ran this river, fresh, clear, and abundant, of inner joy. What an inspiration that joy was to us!"

Dr. Samuel Eliot, a member of Phillips Brooks's church, and his life-long friend, says in the eulogy of him, delivered at the Boston Memorial Meeting, "He was blessed with a hopefulness of which most of us have but a comparatively scanty share. No trait of his was more conspicuous. No single source of his power over his generation was more abundant or more effective. Whatever the foreground might harbor in shadows, he looked beyond into the distance and saw it radiant....

"How he helped others to be hopeful also, how many shackles he thus loosed from the heavy-laden, how he thus encouraged his people to work their way forward to a future filled with promise, is a familiar story. His hopefulness gave him his strong hold upon young men. To them, always looking before and not behind, he stood beckoning, and the fire caught from him spread through them and out from them. Neither they, nor any others, may have known all the hope that was in him; indeed, he may not have known it all himself. It often seemed as if he were hoping for brighter days and holier lives than are consistent with human imperfections."

Dr. Eliot, after speaking of Phillips Brooks's affection, playfulness of conversation with his friends, his humor, which rendered his companionship charming, his delight in children, his unconsciousness of all his distinctions and successes, the unchangeable simplicity of his habits, his manners, his opinions, says, "These are pleasant recollections to all who loved him.... They linger like the soft glow of a summer twilight, now that his day on earth is over....