Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1891 — GREAT IN BIBLE WORK. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT IN BIBLE WORK.

Ch«riM Haddon Spurgeon, Loudon** Flrat Pulpit Orator. Bev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who was recently brought so near death’s door, is one of the really great men. He was born at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19, 1834, and was educated at Colchester, Maidstone and elsewhere, finally becoming usher In a school at Newmarket Having adopted Baptist views, he joined the congregation which had been presided over by the late Robert Hall, at Cambridge, He subsequently became pastor at Waterbeach, and his fame as a preacher reaching Rendon he was offered the pastorate of the church meeting In New Park Street Chapel, In Southwark. He first preached before a London congregation in 18S3, with so much success that ere two years had elapsed It was considered necessary to enlarge the building, pending which alteration he officiated for four months at Exeter Hall. The enlargement of the chapel in Park street, however, proved insufficient, and hearers multiplied with such rapidity that

It became expedient to engage the Surrey Music Hall, and Mr. Spurgeon’s followers determined to build a suitable edifice for their services. The Metropolitan Tabernacle was accordingly built and opened in 1861. Mr. Spurgeon has published a sermon weekly since the first week of 1855, and at the end of 1889 the series—inclusive of double numbers —had reached No. 2120. The weekly circulation of these sermons is about twenty-five thousand. Mr. Spurgeon has also published a number of other works, the chief of which is “ The Treasury of David; or, ah Exposition of the Psalms,” in seven volumes.

The Storkwell Orphanage, founded by him in 1867, has since been enlarged to accommodate 250 boys and as many girls, and down to 1889 more than 1,400 children had been received. The Pastors’ College, founded by him in 18.56, has educated over 800 men, of whom, in 1889, 673 were still engaged as pastors, missionaries, evangelists or in some department of Christian work. The Metropolitan Colportage Association has about seventy or eighty agents occupying districts in different parts of the country, who, in addition to their other service, sell pure literature in the course of a year to the amount of £9,000. A “book fund,” carried on in Mr. Spurgeon’s house and superintended by Mrs. Spurgeon, has in ten years supplied indigent ministers of various denominations, free of cost, with over one hunddred and fifteen thousand volumes.

Mr. Spurgeon carries on a society for evangelists at home, and another for mission work in North Africa. His church has about thirty mission halls and schools affiliated with it. In 1879 he received a silver wedding testimonial of over £6,0C0, and in 1881, on attaining his 50th year, another sum of about £5,000 was presented. These funds were almost entirely distributed in charity, £5,000 having been devoted to the endowment Of the tabernacle almshouses. In 1887 Mr. Spurgeon withdrew from the Baptist Union. He had been a patient sufferer for many years from a compllca--tlon of diseases, chief of which was rheumatic gout. Added to this was influenza in its worst form. He lived near Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, a pretty suburb of London.,

Mr. Spurgeon was a busy man, employing five stenographers and keeping them all going. With the exception of Mr. Gladstone he received the largest mail of any man ip the three kingdoms. A great many of his letters from sailors, from soldiers, from poor fellows whom he had managed to help out of the gutter, were simply addressed Spurgeon, England. To these he replied cheerfully and was always ready to give advice. Nor was this all He gave freely of his money. In fact, he was a poor man. If it had not been for the kindness of his congregation, he would have been penniless. A few years ago they purchased a house for him, the house at Norwood, the southern ridge of the wooded heights of Sydenham. Upon the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate of the church his congregation presented him with a large purse of money as a token of its esteem. It was intended that he should pay off the mortgage on his house, and take the remainder for a holiday. He did nothing of the kind; he divided the large sum equally between the pastors’ college and the orphanage. If it had not been for the prudence of some of his friends who insisted that it was his duty to keep his house free, he would have lived in hired apartments. His charity was not indiscriminate. His money was only given to those who deserved it He declined as many as a score of invitations to lecture throughout Europe and America at fabulous prices, because, as he explained, he was not a lecturer, and he didn’t want the money, and. he preferred to work in his own way among his own -people in London. When an American lecture agency offered him recently SI,OOO for every lecture and to pay all the expenses of himself and his wife and a secretary from London to America on a great lecture tour, and held out the tempting offer that he could make $50,000, Mr. Spurgeon declined it. He said he could do better. He would stay in London and try to save fifty souls.

C. H. SPUBGEON.