C. H. SPURGEON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
COMPILED FROM
HIS DIARY, LETTERS, AND RECORDS,
BY
HIS WIFE,
AND HIS PRIVATE SECRETARY
VOL. 1.
1834-1884
LONDON:
PASSMORE AND ALABASTER, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS.
1897
CONTENTS OF VOL. 1.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY
3. HIS CHILDHOOD AT STAMBOURNE
4. STAMBOURNE: MEETING-HOUSE
5. A MEMORABLE VISIT TO STAMBOURNE. MR. KNILL’S PROPHECY
6. INCIDENTS OF HOME AND SCHOOL LIFE
7. MEMORIES OF MAIDSTONE AND NEWMARKET
8. A HOLIDAY PASTIME. ESSAY ON POPERY
9, EARLY PRECIOUS IMPRESSIONS
10. “THROUGH MUCH TRIBULATION”
11. THE GREAT CHANGE. CONVERSION
12. LETTERS TO FATHER AND MOTHER, JANUARY TO JUNE, 1850
13. DIARY, APRIL TO JUNE, 1850
14. A GooD CONFESSION. BAPTISM
15. EXPERIENCES AFTER CONVERSION
16. DEFENCE OF CALVINISM
17. BEGINNING TO SERVE THE LORD
18. CAMBRIDGE LIFE AND LETTERS, 1850-1851
19. “THE BOY-PREACHER OF THE FENS”
20. FIRST EFFECTS OF SERMONS, 1851-1852
21. THE YOUNG SOUL-WINNER AT WATERBEACH
22. THE LORD’S HAND IN THE MAID’S MISTAKE
23. REMINISCENCES AS A VILLAGE PASTOR
24. MEMORABLE SERVICES AWAY FROM WATERBEACH
25. LATER SERMONETTES
26. GLIMPSES OF ESSEX AND CAMBRIDGESHIRE LlFE IN 1853
27. THE LAST YEAR AT WATERBEACH AND CAMBRIDGE
28. DR. RIPON’S PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER
29. FIRST SERMONS AT NEW PARK STREET CHURCH
30. LETTERS CONCERNING SETTLEMENT IN LONDON
31. DENIES ORDINATION
32. THE LONG PASTORATE COMMENCED, 1854
33. THE CHOLERA YEAR IN LONDON
CONTENTS OF VOLUME 2
34. LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
35. LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE (CONTINUED)
36. LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE (CONCLUDED)
37. EARLY CRITICISMS AND SLANDERS
38. CRITICISMS AND SLANDERS (CONTINUED)
39. FIRST LITERARY FRIENDS
40. LITERARY FRIENDS (CONTINUED)
41. “IN LABOURS MORE ABUNDANT”
42. “IN LABOURS MORE ABUNDANT” (CONTINUED)
43. FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND
44. MARVELLOUS INCREASE —FACTS AND FIGURES
45. SEEKING THE SOULS OF MEN
46. ANEW SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS
47. FIRST PRINTED WORKS — AUTHOR, PUBLISHERS, AND READERS
48. EARLY WEDDED LIFE
49. EARLY WEDDED LIFE (CONTINUED)
50. THE GREAT CATASTROPHE AT THE SURREY GARDENS MUSIC HALL
51. LATER SERVICES AT THE MUSIC HALL
52. VARYING VOICES — PRO AND CON
53. THE “DOWN-GRADE” CONTROVERSY FORESHADOWED
54. “HELENSBURGH HOUSE” AND GARDEN
55. “HELENSBURGH HOUSE” AND GARDEN (CONTINUED)
56. EARLY PASTORAL EPISTLES
57. BUILDING “OUR HOLY AND BEAUTIFUL HOUSE”
58. WEEK-DAY SERVICES, 1858—1860
59. MEETING IN THE UNFINISHED TABERNACLE
CONTENTS OF VOLUME 3
60. THE TABERNACLE OPENED
61. DEACONS AND ELDERS; PASTORS AND TEACHERS
62. DEACONS AND ELDERS; PASTORS AND TEACHERS (Continued)
63. NOTABLE LECTURES; AND ADDRESSES, 1857-1878
64. NOTABLE LECTURES; AND ADDRESSES, 1857-1878 (Continued)
65. MEMORABLE SERVICES AT THE TABERNACLE, 1861
66. SOME REMINISCENCES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL CHAPTER
67. THE ABSENT PASTOR’ S CARE FOR HIS FLOCK CHAPTER
68. THE PASTORS’ COLLEGE, 1861-1878
69. THE PASTORS’ COLLEGE, 1861-1878 (Continued)
70. THE MEN THAT “SELL THE BOOKS” CHAPTER
71. A HOME FOR THE FATHERLESS
72. THE NEW “HELENSBURGH HOUSE”, NIGHTINGALE LANE
73. A TRAVELLER’ S LETTERS HOME
74. A TRAVELLER’ S LETTERS HOME (Continued)
75. MUTUAL LOVE BETWEEN PASTOR AND PEOPLE
76. A HOLIDAY DRIVE TO THE NEW FOREST CHAPTER
77. MEMORIES OF MY FATHER
78. MEMORIES OF MY FATHER (Continued)
79. LATER LITERARY WORKS CHAPTER
80. BLESSING ON THE PRINTED SERMONS CHAPTER
81. PURE FUN
82. PREACHING IN THE OPEN AIR
CONTENTS OF VOLUME 4
83. Father’s Furlough, and how I Shared it...
84. A Double Silver Wedding
85. Enquirers and Converts
86. Enquirers and Converts (Continued)
87. “Westwood”
88. A Typical Week’s Work
89. A Typical Week’s Work (Continued)
90. Letters on Private and Public Affairs, 1856—1890
91. Letters on Private and Public Affairs (Continued)
92. Mr. Spurgeon’s Opinions on Subjects of General Interest
93. Appreciative Correspondents, 1855—1890
94. Appreciative Correspondents (Continued)
95. In the Sunny South
96. In the Sunny South (Continued)
97. Unabated Affection between Pastor and People
98. Jubilee Joys
99. The “Down-grade” Controversy,
from Mr. Spurgeon’s Standpoint
100. Mr. Spurgeon as a Literary Man
101. Mr. Spurgeon as a Literary Man (Continued)
102. Mr. Spurgeon as a Literary Man (Concluded)
103. The Growth of the Institutions, 1878 — 1892
104. My Last Letters from Mentone
105. The Long Illness
106. The Last Three Months at Mentone — and Afterwards
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, born at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19, 1834.
Converted at Colchester, January 6, 1850.
Admitted to Church membership at Newmarket, April 4, 1850.
Baptised in the river Lark, at Isleham, May 3, 1850.
Becomes Pastor of Waterbeach Baptist Chapel, 1851.
First literary effort, No. 1 of Waterbeach Tracts, published 1853.
Preaches at New Park Street Chapel, London, for the first time, December, 1853.
Accepts Pastorate of New Park Street Chapel, April, 1854.
First sermon in the “New Park Street Pulpit,” published January, 1855.
First preaches at Exeter Hall, February, 1855.
Mr. T. W. Medhurst becomes C. H. Spurgeon’s first ministerial student, July, 1855.
Marries Miss Susannah Thompson, January 8, 1856.
Metropolitan Tabernacle Building Committee formed, June, 1856.
Twin sore Thomas and Charles born, September 20, 1856.
Surrey Gardens Music Hall Disaster, October 19, 1856.
Services recommenced at the Music Hall, November 23, 1856.
A second student accepted by C. H. Spurgeon and the Pastor’s College practically founded, 1857.
Preaches to 23,654 persons at the Crystal Palace on Fast Day, October 7, 1857.
Foundation Stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle laid, August 16, 1859.
Visits Paris and is eulogised in the Roman Catholic Press of that city, February, 1860.
Preaches in Calvin’s gown and pulpit at Geneva, 1860.
Metropolitan Tabernacle opened with a great prayer meeting, March 18, 1861.
The famous “Baptismal Regeneration” sermon preached, June 5, 1864.
Metropolitan Tabernacle Colportage Association founded, 1866.
Sunday services, each attended by 20,000 persons, held at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, during the renovation of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, March 24 to April 21, 1867.
Stockwell Orphanage (Boys’ side) founded, 1867.
Foundation Stone of the Pastors’ College Building laid, October 14, 1873.
Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund inaugurated, 1875.
Girls’ Orphanage founded, 1879.
Jubilee Celebrations and presentation of testimonial (£4,500), June 18 and 19, 1884.
First “Down-grade” paper published in The Sword the Trowel, August, 1887.
Withdrawal from the Baptist Union, October, 1887.
Last sermon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, June 7, 1891.
Goes to Mentone for the last time, October 26, 1891.
Passes away, January 31, 1892.
Interred at Norwood Cemetery, February 11, 1892.
C. H. SPURGEON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER 1
Biographies are generally if they are biographies; that is to say, if the events of the person s life are truly told; but I think that the most biography to any man is his own. It would have been impossible for me to quote the experiences of other men if they had not been bold enough to record them, and I make an honest attempt to acknowledge my debt to my greater predecessors by writing down my own. Whether this arises from egotism or not, each reader shall decide according to the sweetness or acidity of his own disposition. A father is excused when he tells his sons his own life-story, and finds it the readiest way to enforce his maxims; the old soldier is forgiven when he “shoulders his crutch, and shows how fields were won”; I beg that the license which tolerates these may, on this occasion, be extended to me.
C. H. S.
My publication of this work carries out a plan long ago formed by Mr. Spurgeon. In the occasional intervals of comparative leisure that he was able to snatch from his busy life’s labours, and mainly in the bright sunshine at Mentone, he recorded many of the principal incidents in his wonderful career. As each one was completed, he used joyfully to exclaim, “There’s another chapter for my Autobiography”; and had he been spared long enough, he would doubtless have given to the church and the world a full account of his life as it appeared from his own standpoint. This he has virtually done from the commencement of his public ministry, though not in the connected form in which it is now issued. His preaching was always so largely illustrated from his personal experience that his true biography is delightfully enshrined in the whole series of his Sermons, while “his own Magazine “The Sword and the Trowel” was confessedly autobiographical during the entire period of his unique editorship. His many other published works abound in allusions to the Lord s gracious dealings with him, and these are now for the first time gathered together into a continuous narrative. The record is given entirely in Mr. Spurgeon’s own words, except before and therefore before an explanatory sentence or two had to be inserted, or when letters written to him, and references made by others to the incidents he described, seem to be necessary to the completeness of the history.
Mr. Spurgeon’s writings are enriched with many references to other biographies beside his own. In the year 1870, after reading Mr. Arnot’s Life of Dr. James Hamilton, he wrote: The value of a biography depends far less upon its subject than upon its author. Milton mutilated by Ivimey, and Carey smothered by his J Eustace, are mournful instances of literary murder. James had the singular good fortune to be embalmed by William Arnot, his own familiar friend and acquaintance, a spirit cast in the same fair mould, a genial genius wealthy in grace and wisdom. It were worth while to pray for an earlier end to one’s care: we could be sure of an Arnot to produce its record. Apples of gold in baskets of silver are precious things in an appropriate setting, the golden apple being neither dishonoured by contact with a basket too homely, nor shamed by comparison — costlier metal than its own; the memorial of a good man’s life should not be marred by poor writing, neither should it be overshadowed by excessive authorship.
In this Autobiography, the subject is also the author, thus the apples of gold are matched by the golden basket in which they are displayed.
In his early volume, The Saint and his Saviour, published in 1857, Spurgeon wrote:
“Few men would dare to read their own autobiography, their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. I do not lay claim to perfection. True, at times, a forgetful self-complacency bids us exult in the virtue of our lives; but when faithful memory awakes, how instantly she the illusion! She waves her magic wand, and in the king s palaces frogs; multitudes; the pure rivers at her glance become blood; the whole land is with loathsomeness. Wherefore we imagined purity, lo, imperfection are snow-wreath of satisfaction melts before the sun of truth, the nectared bowl of emulation is embittered by sad remembrances; while, under the glass of the deformities and irregularities of a life, apparently correct, are rendered visible.
“I count the Christian, whose hair is whitened by the sunlight of life-Iong story. He may have been one of the most upright and moral; he will have dark spot in his history, upon which he will shed the tear openly, because then he knew not the fear of the Lord. Let yon heroic warrior recount his deeds; but he, too, points to deep scars, the offspring of war in the service of the evil one.”
* * * *
Speaking in the Tabernacle many years ago, Mr. Spurgeon said:
“I used to marvel at William Huntington’s Bank of Faith, a strange enough book, by the way, but I am sure I could, from my own history, write a far more remarkable Bank of Faith than William Huntington has penned. I have often told you, dear friends, that, if I possessed the powers of a novelist, I might write a three-volume novel concerning the events of any one day in my life, so singularly striking has my experience been. I should never need to describe things from the outside, as I should have plenty of material from within. My life seems to me like a fairy dream. I am often both amazed and dazed with its mercies and its love.
How good God has been to me! I used to think that I should sing among the saints above as loudly as any, for I owe so much to the grace of God; and I said so once in a sermon, long ago, quoting those lines,
“When Thou, my righteous Judge shall come
To take Thy ransomed people home,
Shall I among them stand?
Shall such a worthless worm as I,
Who sometimes am afraid to die,
Be found at Thy right hand?
I love to meet Thy people now,
Before Thy gracious feet to bow,
Though vilest of them all:
But can I bear the piercing thought?
What if my name should be left out,
When Thou for them shalt call?
O Lord, prevent it by Thy grace;
Be Thou my only hiding place,
In this, the accepted day;
Thy pardoning voice oh let me hear,
To still my unbelieving fear,
Nor let me fall, I pray.
Among Thy saints let me be found
Whene’er the archangel’s trump shall sound,
To see Thy smiling face;
Then loudest of the crowd I’ll sing,
While heaven’s resounding mansions ring,
With shouts of sovereign grace.”
(Attributed to the Countess of Huntingdon)
“I thought that I was the greatest debtor to Divine grace, and would sing the loudest to its praise; but when I came down out of the pulpit, there was a venerable woman who said to me, ‘You made a blunder in your sermon this evening.’ I said, ‘I daresay I made a dozen, good soul, but what was that particular one?’ ‘Why, you said that you would sing the loudest because you owed most to Divine grace; you are but a lad, you do not owe half as much to grace as I do at eighty years of age! I owe more to grace than you, and I will not let you sing the loudest.’
“I found that there was a general conspiracy among the friends that night to put me in the background, and that is where I meant to be, and wished to lie; that is where those who sing the loudest, long to be, to take the lowest place, and praise most the grace of God in so doing.”
In The Sword and the Trowel for 1869, Mr. Spurgeon turned to account a popular superstition. He was too humble to apply to himself the closing sentences in the following paragraph; but all who read it must see how exactly it describes the abiding influence of his long and gracious ministry. He wrote:
“He, in his Year Book, gives a letter from a correspondent in Raleigh, Nottinghamshire,, which states that, many centuries since, the church and a whole village were swallowed up by an earthquake. Many villages and towns have certainly shared a similar fate; and we have never heard of them any more.
“The times have been
When the brains were out, the man would die”
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 4)
“But at Raleigh, they say, the old church bells still ring at Christmas time, deep, deep, in earth; and that it was a Christmas morning custom for the people to go out into the valley, and put their ears to the ground to listen to the mysterious chimes of the subterranean temple. This is sheer superstition; but how it illustrates the truth that those preachers, whose voices were clear and mighty for truth during the past, continue to preach in their graves! Being dead, they yet speak; and whether men put their ears to their tombs or not, they cannot but hear them.”
* * *
In the last sermon but one that Mr. Spurgeon ever revised, that remarkable discourse upon the text, “ I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord”; he uttered these words, which have already been to a large extent fulfilled with regard to himself:
“Often, the death of a man is a kind of new birth to him; when he himself is one physically, he spiritually survives, and from his grave there shoots up a tree of life whose leaves heal nations. A worker for God, death cannot touch your sacred mission! Be content to die if the truth shall live the better because you die. Be content to die, because death may be to you the enlargement of your influence. Good men die, as dies the seed-corn which then does not abide alone. When saints are apparently laid in the earth, they quit the earth, and rise and mount to Heaven-gate, and enter into immortality. No, when the sepulchre receives this mortal frame, we shall not die, but live.”
The portrait that forms the frontispiece of this volume has never before, so far as I know, been published. It was a lover’s gift to the one who was very soon to become his bride, and I recall how, in the glamour of “love’s young dream”, I used to gaze on the sweet boyish face, and think no angel could look half so lovely! Afterwards, the picture was enshrined in a massive oaken frame, and it occupied the place of honour on the walls of the house in the New Kent Road, where we began our life’s journey together, and founded our first home. Many a time, during my husband’s long absences, when fulfilling his almost ceaseless preaching engagements, has this portrait comforted me; its expression of calm confident faith strengthened my heart, and I used to think the up-raised finger pointed to the source from which I must draw consolation in my loneliness.
Something of the same soothing and sacred influence steals over me as I look at it now with tear-filled eyes; it speaks to me, even as it did in those days of long-ago, and it says, “Do not fear, my beloved, God is taking care of us both; and though we are still separated for a little while, we shall meet again at home “by-and-by!”