Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1881 — Spurgeon’s Preaching. [ARTICLE]

Spurgeon’s Preaching.

In the vast throng the eye soon recognizes the central figure of the whole. If he were not there, the pastor of this immense dock, one might speculate* ignorant of his absence, Is not that perhaps he, or the other ? But, being there, no doubt can exist. The one figure comes out, to which all others are a setting—a full, pallid face, with thick iron-gray hair and a fringe of dark beard. As the clock overhead shows the half-hour the pastor comes forward, and at once the confused sound ceases—the shuffling of feet, the frou-frou of dresses, the nervous cough that runs over the area like the rattle of file-firing —and a profound stillness greets the first words of prayer. The voice is worn with much service, even husky in the higher notes, but admirably managed and modulated so as to reach every corner of the wide arena. We feel at once that we are in the presence of a born orator. Without book or scrap of paper, there is, from the first, a confident, easy flow of well-chosen words. Some distinguished orators put you in a cold perspiration till they have fairly warmed to their work but, with Mr. Spurgeon all is easy and self-conscious power which inspires confidence in the listener. It is part of the preacher’s system not to spare himself in any way, but to give the whole service the emphasis of his own unaided powers. His reading of scripture is accompanied by a running commentary that is a kind of preliminary sermon, and he gives out each verse of the hymn with appropriate feeling and action. There is no organ, and it excites a certain feeling of disparity of means to end, when an elderly precentor leans forward from the tribune and sounds a timing fork to lead off the psalmody—the assemblage is so big and the tuning fork so small. But the singing itself is disappointing. There is not that grand outpouring one might expect fronl such an assemblage. A great deal of tffe charm of Mr. Spurgeon’s discourse—and there is a powerful charm about it, causing time to flow on unperceived, and the risk of losing a train to be disregarded—is due to the ease and certainty of delivery, and the good old English in which it is expressed. If the preacher in former days sometimes sacrificed good taste to force of expression, time and experience have toned down such exuberances. But much of the ancient fire still smoulders beneath the surface, and, perhaps, the expectation of the breaking forth of some sudden flash of electric nature still further increases the before-men-tioned charm. But, really, the time one likes Mr. Spurgeon best is when he metaphorically descends altogether from the platform, and, taking his audience by the button-hole, so to speak, recounts some telling little story or epigrammatic saying. —AU the Year Round.