Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon
(A biography of Susannah Spurgeon)
by
Charles Ray
(1905)
The
position of the wife of a great man and particularly of a great minister, is
not only one of rare difficulty but calls for an exercise of unselfishness
and self-effacement which is quite contrary to the natural instincts of
human nature. The lady who would be a true helpmeet to the popular preacher
and God-ordained pastor must to a very large extent sink her own
individuality and claims and be. come absorbed in those of her husband. She
must be prepared to part often with the one she loves best on earth, in
order that he may go to, fulfill his solemn engagements untrammeled by
domestic repinings; she must render every assistance in her power and yet
not expect: to reap the praise from men, which is rightly her due; she must
initiate and carry through new plans of Christian effort and be satisfied
that they shall be regarded as nothing more than a legitimate part of her
husband's ministry; and she must take upon her shoulders a load of
responsibility, which the ordinary wife knows nothing of and which amid such
a multitude of duties might well overwhelm a strong and vigorous man. If it
be true in at general sense, that "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing
and obtaineth favor of the Lord," how much more must it be the case with the
minister who is encouraged 'and helped by his partner in life. The members
of the Christian churches little know what they owe to the wives of their
pastors and when, by way of faint praise, they oftentimes declare that the
lady of the manse has "done what she could," the expression usually implies
a qualification that the work might have been greater or better. How many of
those who thus look with a more or less supercilious eye upon the work of
the minister's wife do a tithe of the good in the world which can be placed
to her credit?
No grander example of the possibilities which the position of
a preacher's wife affords, could be offered to her sisters of the manse or
to the world at large than Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, whose death on October 22nd,
1903, has left the Church poorer than it yet realizes. Called to a position
of rarer difficulty at an early age, her husband already raised on dazzling
heights of popularity, which few could have endured without being' lifted up
with pride, it was an ordeal for the retiring girl to be thus suddenly
thrust into prominence. Then when the storms of abuse', and slander broke on
her loved one's head, she might well have been crushed and broken, but she
bore up and by her words of comfort, her strong affection and her piety 4
and faith, helped him to weather the gale. In every branch of his work she
threw her heart and soul, she stinted herself to render financial assistance
to the various causes, and to the smallest detail acted with her husband as
a faithful steward of the God in whom she. trusted. Never did woman fulfill
the marriage vow more faithfully. In sickness and in health, through good
report and evil, she was ever his support and it would be difficult to find
anywhere another woman, who in spite of adverse circumstances and
conditions, ill-health and infirmity, did such monumental work for God and
man as Susannah Spurgeon. Her life was one long self-sacrifice. She need not
have expended the strength she so much required for herself; no one would
have blamed the invalid for seeking comfort in rest, but what she did, she
did with a will and as "unto the Lord." Her life is a brilliant example of
what can be done by a weak woman who devotes herself to the service: of the
Master and not only as the wife of Charles Haddon Spurgeon will Mrs.
Spurgeon live green in the memory of all true Christians, but as herself, as
the woman who found solace in suffering by ministering to the needs of
others, she will stand out through all time.
Those early experiences at New Park Street Chapel were among
the most vivid memories of Mrs. Spurgeon’s life. “Well, also,” she
continues, “did I know the curious pulpit without any stairs; it looked like
a magnified swallow’s nest and was entered from behind through a door in the
wall. My childish imagination was always excited by the silent and ‘creepy’
manner in which the minister made his appearance therein. One moment the big
box would be empty - the next, if I had but glanced down at Bible or
hymn-book, and raised my eyes again, - there was the preacher, comfortably
seated or standing ready to commence the service! I found it very
interesting and though I knew there was a matter-of-fact door, through which
the good man stepped into his rostrum, this knowledge was not allowed to
interfere with, or even explain the fanciful notions I loved to indulge in
concerning that mysterious entrance and exit. It was certainly somewhat
singular that, in the very pulpit which had exercised such a charm over me,
I should have my first glimpse of the one who was to be the love of my
heart, and the light of my earthly life.”
The young girl’s visits to New
Park Street Chapel were no doubt more frequent than they would have, been,
from the fact that old Mr. and Mrs. Olney were very fond of her and often
invited her to visit them. Naturally on Sundays, during these visits, she
usually accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Olney to the chapel and thus she had more
than one association with the place which was to play so large a part in her
after history. Brought up in a godly family’ and having earnest Christian
friends, Susannah Thompson was not indifferent to the importance of religion
in the individual life, but it was by means of a sermon from Romans 10:8,
“The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart,” preached at
the old Poultry Chapel, by the Rev. S. B. Bergne, that the girl was first
aroused to a sense of her own personal need of a Savior. “From that
service,” she says, “I date the dawning of the true light in my soul. The
lord said to me, through His servant, ‘Give Me thy heart, and, constrained
by His love, that night witnessed my solemn resolution of entire surrender
to Himself.”
In those days there were no Christian Endeavor Societies, and
few attempts at encouraging young converts to engage in service for their
Lord. The lack of communion with kindred youthful spirits and the absence,
of Christian work to occupy the mind and lead to further knowledge of God,
were, no doubt, more or less responsible for a state of coldness and
indifference which in a short time took the place of the joy and gladness of
soul that had followed conversion. “Seasons of darkness, despondency and
doubt had passed over me,” she says, “but I had kept all my religious
experiences carefully concealed in my own breast,” the hesitancy and reserve
in this respect being the cause, in Mrs. Spurgeon’s judgment of the sickly
and sleepy condition of her soul. It was at this juncture that she first
came under the influence of the man who was in a few years, to become more
dear to her than all others.
Chapter 2 - First Contact with C. H. Spurgeon
In the
morning of Sunday, December 18th, 1853, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, then a
gauche country youth of nineteen years, preached for the first time in the
pulpit of New Park Street Chapel. Susannah Thompson was staying with old Mr.
and Mrs. Olney, but she did not go to the service although like many others
the much-talked of experiment of asking a lad from a rural village to occupy
the historic pulpit of Benjamin Keach, Dr. Gill and Dr. Rippon interested
her. The members of the Olney family when they returned from the morning
service, were full of praise for the preacher, and, in common with others of
the congregation, they were determined that in the evening the many empty
seats which had obviously discouraged and disconcerted the young minister,
should be filled. Friends and acquaintances were called upon and urged to go
to New Park Street Chapel with the result that in the evening the church was
full.
Susannah Thompson was there, more to please her friends than herself,
for having rigid ideas as to the proprieties of the pulpit, she entertained
no prepossessions in favor of one - and he a mere youth - who dared to break
those proprieties. The chapel was filled, a hush fell upon the multitude,
and all eyes, including those of the young maiden, were turned towards the
pulpit. At last the door in the wall opened and the preacher entered
briskly. Miss Thompson was shocked. This was quite contrary to her ideas of
what a preacher should be. Young Charles Haddon Spurgeon was evidently from
the country; she could have told that in a moment even if she had not known.
His clothes had the village tailor marked upon every part of them; round his
neck he wore a great stock of black satin, and in his hand he carried a blue
handkerchief with white spots! What business had such a youth in the pulpit
of Dr. Gill and Dr. Rippon? and with that thought in her prejudiced mind
Susannah Thompson settled down to hear what he had to say. “Ah!” wrote Mrs.
Spurgeon in after years, “how little I then thought that my eyes looked on
him who was to be my life’s beloved; how little I dreamed of the honor God
was preparing for me in the near future! It is a mercy that our lives are
not left for us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us; else might we
sometimes turn away from our best blessings, and put from us the choicest
and loveliest gifts of His providence. For, if the whole truth be told, I
was not at all fascinated by the young orator’s eloquence, while his
countrified manner and speech excited more regret than reverence. Alas, for
my vain and foolish heart! I was not spiritually-minded enough to understand
his earnest presentation of the Gospel and his powerful pleading with
sinners; - but the huge, black satin stock, the long badly-trimmed hair, and
the blue pocket handkerchief with white spots which he himself has so
graphically described, - these attracted most of my attention and I fear
awakened some feelings of amusement. There was only one sentence of the
whole sermon which I carried away with me, and that solely on account of its
quaintness, for it seemed to me an extraordinary thing for the preacher to
speak of the ‘living stones in the Heavenly Temple perfectly joined together
with the vermilion cement of Christ’s blood.’”
When C. H. Spurgeon finally
accepted the pastorate of New Park Street Chapel, Miss Thompson often met
him at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Olney, although neither the preacher nor
his wife could ever recall their first introduction to one another. The
young maiden seems to have soon got over her prejudices and often went to
hear the new minister. It was not long before his earnest pleadings aroused
her and she realized that her life of indifference and non-service was far
front being what it should be.
“Gradually I became alarmed at my
back-sliding state and then, by a great effort, I sought spiritual help and
guidance from Mr. William Olney (‘Father’ Olney’s second son, and my cousin
by marriage), who was an active worker in the Sunday School at New Park
Street, and a true Mr. Greatheart and comforter of young pilgrims. He may
have told the new Pastor about me, -I cannot say; - but one day I was
greatly surprised to receive from Mr. Spurgeon an illustrated copy of The
Pilgrim’s Progress, in which he had written the inscription ‘Miss Thompson,
with desires for her progress in the blessed pilgrimage, from C. H.
Spurgeon, April 20th 1854.’ “I do not think,” continues Mrs. Spurgeon, “that
my beloved had at that time any other thought concerning me than to help a
struggling soul Heavenward; but I was greatly impressed by his concern for
me, and the book became very precious as well as helpful. By degrees, though
with much trembling, I told him of my state before God and he gently led me,
by his preaching, and by his conversations, through ‘the power of the Holy
Spirit to the cross of Christ for the peace and pardon my weary soul was
longing for.”
From this time the intimacy and friendship of the young couple
grew, although on Miss Thompson’s part, at any rate, there was no thought of
love. She tells us, however, that she was happier than she had been since
the days at the Poultry Chapel when she was first brought to the feet of
Christ, and it is clear that the preacher who had taken London by storm, had
proved of real spiritual blessing to this quiet young girl who now sat
pretty regularly in his congregation.
Chapter 3 - The Dawning of Love
The manner and
circumstances in which C. H. Spurgeon declared his love to, Miss Thompson
were very characteristic of the man. At the opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, on June 10th, 1854, a large party of friends connected with the
New Park Street Chapel was present, including the preacher and the young
girl to whom he had rendered such valuable spiritual help. “We occupied some
raised seats,” says Mrs. Spurgeon, “at the end of the Palace where the great
clock is now fixed. As we sat there talking, laughing’ and amusing ourselves
as best we could, while waiting for the procession to pass by, Mr. Spurgeon
handed me a book into which he had been occasionally dipping and pointing to
some particular lines said, ‘What do you think of the poet’s suggestion in
those verses?’ The volume was Martin Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy, then
recently published, and already beginning to feel the stir of the breezes of
adverse criticism, which afterwards gathered into a howling tempest of
disparagement and scathing sarcasm. ‘No thought had I for authors and their
woes at that moment, The pointing finger guided my eyes to the chapter ‘On
Marriage,’ of which the opening sentences ran thus “‘Seek a good wife of thy
God, for she is the best gift of His providence; Yet ask not in bold
confidence that which He hath not promised: Thou knowest not His good will;
be thy prayer then submissive thereunto; And leave thy petition to His mercy
assured that He will deal well with thee. If thou art to have a wife of thy
youth, she is now living on the earth; Therefore think of her and pray for
her well!
“‘Do you pray for him who is to be your husband?’ said a soft, low
voice in my ear, - so soft that no one else heard the whisper. “I do not
remember that the question received any vocal answer; but my fast-beating
heart, which sent a tell-tale flush to my cheeks, and my downcast eyes,
which feared to reveal the light which at once dawned in them, may have
spoken a language which love understood. From that moment a very quiet and
subdued little maiden sat by the young Pastor’s side, and while the
brilliant procession passed round the Palace, I do not think she took so
much note of the glittering pageant defiling before her, as of the crowd of
newly-awakened emotions which were palpitating within her heart. Neither the
book nor its theories were again alluded to, but when the formalities of the
opening were over, and the visitors were allowed to leave their seats, the
same low voice whispered again, “Will you come and walk round the Palace
with me?’ How we obtained leave of absence from the rest of the party, I
know not; but we wandered together for a long time, not only in the
wonderful building itself, but in the gardens and even down to the lake,
beside which the colossal forms of extinct monsters were being cunningly
modeled.” “During that walk on that memorable day in June, I believe,” wrote
Mrs. Spurgeon, a few years before her death, “God Himself united our hearts
in indissoluble bonds of true affection, and, though we knew it not, gave us
to each other for ever.
From that time our friendship grew apace and quickly
ripened into deepest love, - a love which lives in my heart today as truly,
aye, and more solemnly and strongly than it did in those early days; for,
though God has seen fit to call my beloved up to higher service, He has left
me the consolation of still loving him with all my heart, and believing our
love shall be perfected when we meet in that blessed land where Love reigns
supreme and eternal.” Would anyone but Charles Haddon Spurgeon have
whispered his love in the midst of a crowd, and have made it known by asking
the lady of his choice to pray for her future husband?
Chapter 4 - Courtship Days
Less than two months after
the incident at the Crystal Palace, C. H. Spurgeon formally proposed for the
hand of Susannah Thompson. They were in the little old-fashioned garden of
the girl’s grandfather, with its high brick walls, straight, formal gravel
paths and small lawn, - “rather a dreary and unromantic place for a
declaration of love,” as Mrs. Spurgeon described it. “But,” she says,
“people are not particularly careful as to the selection of their
surroundings at such a moment, and do not often take pains to secure a
delightful background to the picture, which will for ever be photographed on
their hearts. To this day I think of that old garden as a sacred place, a
paradise of happiness, since there my beloved sought me for his very own,
and told me how much he loved me. Though I thought I knew this already, it
was a very different matter to hear him say it, and I trembled and was
silent for very joy and gladness.” What words the lover used we are not
told, but Mrs. Spurgeon has declared that the verbal confession was
“wonderful,” and writing forty years afterwards she could ask, “Was there
ever quite such bliss on earth before?” They were one in heart, in soul, in
inclination, and even at this stage the great preacher had communicated to
his fiancée much of his own spirituality and earnestness. There was more
than mere earthly affection in their love for one another, and both felt
that indeed the finger of God had marked out at united course for them. “To
me,” says Mrs. Spurgeon, “it was a time as solemn as it was sweet; and with
a great awe in my heart, I left my beloved and, hastening to the house and
to an upper room, I knelt before God and praised and thanked Him with happy
tears for His great mercy in giving me the love of so good a man. If I had
known, then how good he was and how great he would become, I should have
been overwhelmed, not so much with the happiness of being his, as with the
responsibility which such a position would entail.”
In the diary which the
young girl kept she thus made a record of that memorable day - August 2nd,
1854, - “It is impossible to write down all that occurred this morning. I
can only adore in silence the mercy of my God, and praise Him for all His
benefits.” Miss Thompson now attended New Park Street Chapel pretty
regularly, and before long she sought for membership and became a candidate
for baptism. The preacher asked her to write out her confession of faith,
probably for his own personal perusal only, and this she did in a manner so
satisfactory as to elicit a letter from him in which his joy at the work of
grace in her soul can scarcely find utterance. “Oh? I could weep for joy (as
I certainly am doing now’,’’ he wrote, “to think that my beloved can so well
testify to a work of grace in her soul. I knew you were really a child of
God, but I did not think you had been led in such a path. I see my Master
has been plowing deep and it is the deep-sown seed, struggling with the
clods, which now makes your bosom heave with distress. If I know anything of
spiritual symptoms, I think I know a cure for you. Your position is not the
sphere for earnest labor for Christ. You have done all you could in more
ways than one; but you are not brought into actual contact either with the
saints or with the sinful, sick or miserable, whom you could serve. Active
service brings with it warmth and this tends to remove doubting, for our
works thus become evidences of our calling and election. “I flatter no one,
but allow me to say, honestly, that few cases which have come under my
notice are so satisfactory as yours. Mark I write not now as your admiring
friend, but impartially as your Pastor. If the Lord had intended your
destruction, He would not have told you such things as these, nor would He
enable you so unreservedly to cast yourself upon His faithful promise. As I
hope to start at the bar of God, clear of the blood of all men, it would ill
become me to flatter; and as I love you with the deepest and purest
affection, far be it from me to trifle with your immortal interests; but I
will say again that my gratitude to God ought to be great, as well on my own
behalf as yours, that you have been so, deeply schooled in the lessons of
the heart and have so frequently looked into the charnel-house of your own
corruption. There are other lessons to come, that you may be thoroughly
furnished; but, oh! my dear one, how good to learn the first lesson well! I
loved you once, but feared you might not be an heir of Heaven; - God in His
mercy showed me that you were indeed elect. I then thought I might without
sin reveal my affection to you, - but up to the time I saw your note, I
could not imagine that you had seen such great sights and were so thoroughly
versed in soul-knowledge. God is good, ‘very good, infinitely good. Oh, how
I prize this last gift, because I now know, more than ever, that the Giver
loves the gift:, and so I may love it too, but only in subservience to Him.
Dear purchase of a Savior’s blood, you are to me a Savior’s gift, and my
heart is full to overflowing with the thought of such continued goodness. I
do not wonder at His goodness, for it is just like Him, but I cannot but
lift up my voice of joy at His manifold mercies. Whatever befall us, trouble
and adversity, sickness or death, we need not fear a final separation,
either from each other or our God I am glad you are not here just at this
moment, for I feel so deeply that I could only throw my arms around you and
weep. May the choicest favors be thine, may the Anabel of the Covenant be
thy companion, may thy supplications be answered, and may thy conversation
be with Jesus in Heaven! Farewell; unto my God and my father’s God I commend
you. Yours, with pure and holy affection as well as terrestrial love, C. H.
Spurgeon.”
Surely a remarkable lover’s letter and one which speaks volumes
as to the character of both the writer and the recipient. C. H. Spurgeon had
said that there were other lessons to come that she might be thoroughly
furnished, and this was true not only in her soul’s experience, but also in
the preparation and schooling for the position of a minister’s wife. Some of
these lessons, Mrs. Spurgeon herself has told us, were far from pleasing,
but she learned them well, and became the stronger and more earnest for the
teaching. At times the preacher would be so absorbed in his great mission,
when about to preach, that on his fiancée entering the vestry, he would fail
to recognize her and merely greet her with a handshake as if she were some
casual acquaintance or visitor. Once there was a more trying experience
still. C. H. Spurgeon was to preach in a large hall at Kennington on a
certain afternoon and Miss Thompson accompanied him thither in a cab. The
pavement outside the building was thronged with people as were also the
entrance hall and staircase leading to the auditorium, and the maiden had
hard work in struggling through the mass of people and trying to keep near
her lover. Suddenly he turned in at a side door on the landing, leaving Miss
Thompson to manage as best she could in the throng eagerly pressing forward
to get into the hall. The burden of souls was resting heavily upon the
preacher, and occupied with the momentousness of the message he was to
deliver, he had forgotten all about his poor fiancée.
Miss Thompson’s
feelings at what she considered an unpardonable slight, may easily be
imagined. “At first,” she says, “I was utterly bewildered, and then, I am
sorry to have to confess, I was angry.” She at once returned home, without
making any further effort to get to a seat, her indignation and grief
increasing momentarily. But the young girl possessed that best of gifts a
wise and loving mother, who with the greatest tact sought to soothe her
daughter’s ruffled spirits. “She wisely reasoned,” says Mrs. Spurgeon, “that
my chosen husband was no ordinary man, that his whole life was absolutely
dedicated to God and His service, and that I must never, never hinder him by
trying to put myself first in his heart. Presently, after much good and
loving counsel, my heart grew soft, and I saw I had been very foolish and
willful; and then a cab drew up at the door and dear Mr. Spurgeon came
running into the house in great excitement, calling, ‘Where’s Susie? I have
been searching for her everywhere and cannot find her; has she come back by
herself?’ My dear mother went to him, took him aside and told him all the
truth; and, I think, when he realized the state of things, she had to soothe
him also; for he was so innocent at heart of having offended me in any way,
that he must have felt I had done him an injustice in thus doubting him. At
last, mother came to fetch me to him, and I went downstairs. Quietly he let
me tell him how indignant I had felt, and then he repeated mother’s little
lesson, assuring me of his deep affection for me, but pointing out that,
before all things, he was God’s servant, and I must be prepared to yield my
claims to His. I never forgot the teaching of that day; I had learned my
hard lesson by heart, for I do not recollect ever again seeking to assert my
right to his time and attention when any service for God demanded them.” The
incident closed happily with a cozy tea at her mother’s house, and Mrs.
Spurgeon speaks of the sweet calm which reigned in the hearts of all after
the storm of the afternoon.
When a few weeks later the preacher was to
fulfill an engagement at Windsor he wrote and asked his fiancée to accompany
him, adding, “Possibly, I may be again inattentive to you if you do go, but
this will be nice for us both, - that Charles may have space for mending,
and that ‘Susie’ may exhibit her growth in knowledge of his character, by
patiently enduring his failings.”
In April, 1855, Miss Thompson paid a
week’s visit to Colchester in company with her fiancé, to be introduced to
his parents and family. It was a very happy holiday, the fact that the
lovers were together all day, and that the Rev. John Spurgeon and his wife
“welcomed and petted” their future daughter-in-law, being the principal
contributory causes. When the young minister was in London he had little
time for courtship, and when he did visit his fiancée at her Brixton home he
usually took proofs of a sermon with him to revise for the press. “I learned
to be quiet and to mind my own business while this important work was going
on,” says Mrs. Spurgeon. “It was good discipline for the Pastor’s intended
wife.” Even in these early days C. H. Spurgeon was abused in the press, and
he found some consolation in writing to his fiancée, who did much to comfort
and sustain him. “I am down in the valley,” he says, in a letter of May,
1855; “partly because of two desperate attacks in The Sheffield Independent
and The Empire, and partly because I cannot find a subject. Yet faith fails
not. I know’ and believe the promise and am not afraid to rest upon it. All
the scars I receive are scars of honor; so faint heart, on to the battle! My
love, were you here, how you would comfort me; but since you are not I shall
do what is better still, go upstairs alone and pour out my grief into my
Savior’s ear.”
About this time Miss Thompson’s parents removed from Brixton
to Falcon Square in the City of London, and the lovers saw more of one
another than they had hitherto done. The young maiden commenced to help her
future husband in his literary work and very proud she was of the honor and
trust thus implied, although the responsibility seemed at first
overwhelming. His wonderful popularity and success as a preacher naturally
delighted and awed the timid maiden, but with the pleasure was mingled
something of anxiety and distress, for the strain on the preacher’s physical
power when addressing the large congregations that gathered at Exeter Hall
was tremendous and his fiancée, sitting watching him from the body of the
Hall, often felt she must rush to his succor. “A glass of Chili vinegar,”
she says, “always stood on a shelf under the desk before him, and I knew
what to expect when he had recourse to that remedy. Oh, how my heart ached
for him! What self-control I had to exercise to appear calm and collected
and keep quietly in my seat up in that little side gallery! How I longed to
have the right to go and comfort and cheer him when the service was over!
But I had to walk away, as other people did, I who belonged to him and was
closer to his heart than anyone there! It was severe discipline, for a young
and loving spirit.” When the preacher went to Scotland in July, 1855, his
first long journey by rail, he wrote many letters to his fiancée, giving her
an account of the services he conducted, and the crowds who flocked to hear
him, and asking her to pray that he might be sustained and helped, and his
preaching blessed to the souls of the people. “I shall feel deeply indebted
to, you,” he says in one note, “if you will pray very earnestly for me. I
fear I am not so full of love to God as I used to be. I lament my sad
decline in spiritual things. You and others have not observed it but I am
now conscious of it; and a sense thereof has put bitterness in my cup of
joy. Oh! what is it to be popular, to be successful, to have abundance, even
to have love so sweet as yours, - it! I should be left of God to fall and to
depart from His ways? I tremble at the giddy height on which I stand, and
could wish myself unknown, for indeed, I am unworthy of all my honors and my
fame. I trust I shall now commence anew and wear no longer the
linsey-woolsey garment; but, I beseech you, blend your hearty prayers with
mine, that two of us may be agreed, and thus will you promote the usefulness
and holiness and happiness of one whom you love.”
His affection for the
maiden of his choice grew deeper, if that were possible, during this
absence. “I have had daydreams of you while driving along,” he writes in one
letter. “I thought you were very near me. It is not long, dearest, before I
shall again enjoy your sweet society, if the providence of God permits. I
knew I loved you very much before, but now I feel how necessary you are to
me; and you will not lose much by my absence, if you find me, on my return,
more attentive, to your feelings, as well as equally affectionate. I can now
thoroughly sympathize with your tears, because I feel in no little degree
that pang of absence which my constant engagements prevented me from
noticing when in London. How then must you, with so much leisure, have felt
my absence from you even though you well knew that it was unavoidable on my
part! My darling, accept love of the deepest and purest kind from one who is
not prone to exaggerate, but who feels that here there is no room for
hyperbole.” It must have been no ordinary woman who could draw such letters
from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Chapter 5 -
The wedding of Susannah
Thompson and Charles Haddon Spurgeon took place at New Park Street Chapel,
on January 8th, 1856, Dr. Alexander Fletcher, of Finsbury Chapel,
officiating. As may be imagined in the case of a man whose name was in
everybody’s mouth, and whose remarkable work was the topic of discussion up
and down the country, it was quite impossible for the wedding to be a quiet
one. At a very early hour in the morning people began to gather outside the
Chapel, ladies being among the first arrivals, and soon after eight o’clock
the crowd had swelled to such proportions, that New Park Street and some
adjoining thoroughfares were blocked with people, and traffic was
practically at a standstill. A special body of police had to be summoned to
prevent accidents. When the chapel doors were at last opened, there was a
rush for seats, and in less than half-an-hour the building was filled to its
utmost extent. Large numbers who had tickets of admission but arrived late
were unable to gain entrance. Many went home when they found that there was
no chance of their being able to get inside the chapel, but some thousands
still remained in the streets to see the bridle and bridegroom enter and
leave. It must have been a trying ordeal for the modest and retiring girl.
She had risen early and spent much time in her bedroom in private prayer.
Although awed with a sense of the responsibilities which she was about to
assume, she was "happy beyond expression” that the Lord had so favored her,
and on her knees, with no one else near, she earnestly sought strength and
blessing and guidance in the new life opening before her. The dressing for
the ceremony did not take an unconscionable time as it does with some
maidens, for Susannah Thompson was very simply attired, and as she drove
through the city to the chapel with her father the young girl’s chief
thought was, “as the passers-by cast astonished glances at the wedding
equipage whether they all knew what a wonderful bridegroom she was going to
meet.” The crowds standing in the streets adjoining New Park Street,
bewildered the bride, and she remembered little more until she was inside
the building, “a large wedding partly in the table-pew, dear old Dr.
Alexander Fletcher beaming benignly on the bride and bridegroom before him,
and the deacons endeavoring to calm and satisfy the excited and eager
onlookers.” The service was commenced by the congregation singing the hymn,
“Salvation, O, the joyful sound!” after which Dr. Fletcher read the
hundredth Psalm and prayed for the Divine blessing upon the young couple The
venerable minister then grave a short address and the wedding ceremony was
performed in the usual manner. The reading of another lesson, a hymn sung by
the congregation and a closing prayer, completed the proceedings, and Mr.
and Mrs. Spurgeon, after receiving the congratulations of their friends in
the chapel, drove away amid the loud and continued cheering of the crowds
gathered outside the building. A brief honeymoon of ten days was spent in
Paris, and as Mrs. Spurgeon had often been to that city before and was a
good French scholar, she acted as cicerone to her husband. Together they
visited the various churches and palaces and museums, the lady finding a new
interest in all these familiar places on account of “those loving eyes that
now looked upon them” with her. Years afterwards during one of C. H.
Spurgeon’s frequent visits to the French capital he wrote to his wife, “My
heart flies to you as I remember my first visit to this city under your
guidance. I love you now as then, only multiplied many times.” The happy
couple would have liked to prolong the holiday, but the preacher was unable
to leave his work, and so they returned to their first united home ...... a
modest house in New Kent Road, London, where as in all their future homes,
the best room became the library. “We never encumbered ourselves,” says Mrs.
Spurgeon, “with what a modern writer calls ‘the draw-back of a
drawing-room’; perhaps for the good reason that we were such homely, busy
people that we had no need of so useless a place, - but more especially, I
think, because the best room was always felt to belong by right to the one
who ‘labored much in the Lord.’ Never have I regretted this early decision;
it is a wise arrangement for a minister’s house, if not for any other.”
Housekeeping was commenced on a very modest scale, for C. H. Spurgeon was
keenly anxious to provide a training for young preachers who needed a course
of education to fit them for the ministry, and his wife threw herself into
the work with a zeal not less than his own. She was a splendid manageress,
and by means of rigid economies quite a substantial amount was saved towards
the support and education of the first student, the success of this effort
leading to the foundation of the Pastors’ College. “I rejoice,” says Mrs.
Spurgeon, ‘“to remember how I shared my beloved’s joy when he founded the
Institution, and that together we planned and pinched in order to carry out
the purpose of his loving heart; it gave me quite a motherly interest in the
College, and ‘our own men.’ The chief difficulty with regard to money
matters in those days was to ‘make both ends meet’; we never had enough left
over to ‘tie a bow and ends’; but I can see now that this was God’s way of
preparing us to sympathize with and help poor pastors in the years which
were to come.” There were times when the devoted couple abstained from
almost necessary things in order to have money to help on the work, and to
the young wife it must have been truly a period of anxiety when “means were
sorely straitened and the coffers of both College and household were
well-nigh empty.” But there were joys which more than compensated for any
cares of this kind. What times of happiness were spent in the little home on
Sunday evenings after the duties of the day were done. On his return from
Chapel tired by his labors the preacher would enjoy a light repast and then
throw himself into an easy chair by the fireside, while his wife sat on a
low cushion at his feet reading to him from the pages of George Herbert or
some other Christian poet. Or, if the young minister felt that he had not
been as earnest in his preaching as he should have been, the poet would give
place to Baxter’s Reformed Pastor, and as the solemn words were read,
husband and wife would sob and weep together, he “from the smitings of a
very tender conscience towards God,” and, she because, she “loved him and
wanted to share his grief.” The constant absence from home of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon in fulfillment of his reaching engagements, were sources of sore
trial to the young wife. Often tired of waiting in the sitting-room late at
night for his return, she would pace up and down the passage, praying that
he might he brought back in safety to his home, and with what a thrill of
joy and thankfulness did she open the door and welcome him, when his step
was heard outside. Once and once only she broke down, when her clear one was
about to leave in the early morning for a distant mission, and the tears
could not be kept back. “Wifey,” said her husband, “do you think that when
any of the children of Israel brought a lamb to the Lord’s altar as an
offering to Him they stood and wept over it when they had seen it laid
there?” and when she replied in the negative he added, tenderly, “Well,
don’t you see, you are giving me to God in letting me go to preach the
Gospel to poor sinners, and do you think He likes to see you cry over your
sacrifice?” “Could ever a rebuke have been more sweetly and graciously
given?” says Mrs. Spurgeon. ‘It sank deep into my heart, carrying comfort
with it and thenceforward when I parted with him, the tears were scarcely
ever allowed to show themselves, or if a stray one or two dared to run over
the boundaries he would say, “What! crying over your lamb, wifey!’ and this
reminder would quickly dry them up, and bring a smile in their place.” One
very remarkable incident happened about this time. On a certain Saturday
evening C. H. Spurgeon found himself quite unable to get any light upon the
text from which he believed he ought to preach on the following morning.
Commentaries were consulted, but in vain, and his wife could not help him.
The rest of the story shall be told in Mrs. Spurgeon’s own words.
“He sat up
very late and was utterly worn out and dispirited, for all his efforts to
get at the heart of the text were unavailing. I advised him to retire to
rest and soothed him by suggesting that if he would try to sleep then, he
would probably in the morning feel quite refreshed and able to study to
better purpose. ‘If I go to sleep now, wifey, will you wake me very early so
that I may have plenty of time to prepare? ‘With my loving assurance that I
would watch the time for him and call him soon enough, he was satisfied;
and, like a trusting, tired child, he laid his head upon the pillow and
slept soundly and sweetly at once. “By-and-by a wonderful thing happened.
During the first dawning hours of the Sabbath, I heard him talking in his
sleep, and roused myself to listen attentively. Soon I realized that he was
going over the subject of the verse which had been so obscure to him, and
was giving a clear and distinct exposition of its :meaning with much force
and freshness. I set myself with almost trembling joy to understand and
follow all that he was saying, for I knew that if I could but seize and
remember the salient points of the discourse he would have no difficulty in
developing and enlarging upon them. Never preacher had a more eager and
anxious hearer! What if I should let the precious words slip? I had no means
at hand of ‘taking notes,’ so, like Nehemiah, ‘I prayed to the God of
Heaven,’ and asked that I might receive and retain the thoughts which He had
given to His servant in his sleep, and which were so, singularly’ entrusted
to my keeping. As I lay repeating over and over again the chief points I
wished to remember, my happiness was very great in anticipation of his
surprise and delight on awaking; but I had kept vigil so long, cherishing my
joy, that I must have been overcome with slumber just ‘when the usual time
for rising came, for he awoke with a frightened start, and seeing the
tell-tale clock, said, ‘Oh, wifey, you said you would wake me very early,
and now see the time! Oh, why did you let me sleep? What shall I do? What
shall I do?’ ‘Listen, beloved,’ I answered; and I told him all I had heard.
‘Why! that’s just what I wanted,’ he: exclaimed; ‘that is the true
explanation of the whole verse! And you say I preached it in my sleep?’ ‘It
is wonderful,’ he repeated again and again, and we both praised the Lord for
so remarkable a manifestation of His power and love.” Chapter 6 - A Dark Shadow On September 20th, 1856, twin
sons were born to Mrs. Spurgeon at her home in the New Kent Road, and the
joy of husband and wife knew no bounds. Fortunately the event fell upon a
Saturday, and C. H. Spurgeon was able to remain indoors from morning to
night. With what pride he gazed upon the babes, and how tenderly he
comforted his wife and spoke of the new and happy responsibility which they
now had to fulfill! The boys were named Charles and Thomas, and from the
first there was a tacit understanding and desire that they should be devoted
to the service of God. No cloud that could mar the happiness and joy of the
home seemed visible, and there was a holy peace brooding over the little
family for which husband and wife repeatedly and devoutly thanked their
Lord. But suddenly and without warning, when things seemed at their
brightest, the black shadow of a dreadful sorrow was cast over the young and
happy lives, and the faith of the wife and mother must have been such as
that which the prophets of old possessed or she would have been distraught.
Exactly a month had elapsed since the birth of her boys. She was still very
weak although able to leave her room, and on a certain Sunday evening, was
lying upon the couch in the little, sitting room of her home. That evening,
October 19th, 1856, was to become a terrible memory in the lives of husband
and wife, but at that time no dread was entertained, at any rate on the part
of Mrs. Spurgeon, and there was every prospect that her husband was to have
another of those triumphs in the service of His master, which had followed
in constant succession since his advent to London. The young minister was to
preach for the first time in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, where, later in
the evening, owing to the machinations of evil-disposed persons, a scene of
death and desolation resulted. There had been prayer at home, and with his
wife’s parting benediction, the young minister set out for the Hall. She lay
at home thinking of the great task and praying that the Lord would bless His
message to the assembled thousands. Then her mind reverted to her children:
“I was dreaming of all sorts of lovely possibilities and pleasures,” says
Mrs. Spurgeon, “when I heard a carriage stop at the gate. It was far too
early for my husband to come home and I wondered who my unexpected visitor
could be. Presently one of the deacons was ushered into the room, and I saw
at once, from his manner, that something unusual had happened. I besought
him to tell me all quickly and he did so, kindly, and with much sympathy;
and he kneeled by the couch and prayed that we might have grace and strength
to, bear the terrible trial which had so suddenly come upon us. But how
thankful I was when he went away! I wanted to be alone, that I might cry to
God in this hour of darkness and death! When my beloved was brought home he
looked a wreck of his former self,.... an hour’s agony of mind had changed
his whole appearance and bearing. The night that ensued was one of weeping
and wailing and indescribable sorrow. He refused to be comforted. I thought
the morning would never break; and when it did come it brought no relief.
“The Lord has mercifully blotted out from my mind most of the details of the
time of grief which followed when my beloved’s anguish was so deep and
violent that reason seemed to totter in her throne, and we sometimes feared
he ‘would never preach again. It was truly ‘the valley of the shadow of
death’ through which we then walked; and, like poor Christian, we here
sighed bitterly for the pathway was so dark that often times when we lifted up
our foot to set forward, we knew not where or upon what We should set it
next.” The story of the disaster at the Music Hall is too well-known to need
any description here, but how many women in Mrs. Spurgeon’s delicate
condition could have borne the terrible trouble as she did, and not only
have fulfilled the duties of a mother but proved a comfort and stay to her
husband in his mental anguish? C. H. Spurgeon was taken by friends to Croydon where he stayed in the house of Mr. Winsor, one of his deacons, and
Mrs. Spurgeon with the babies joined him there. It was hoped that the rest
and the change of scene would aid in the restoration of his mental
equilibrium, and although at first his spirit seemed to be imprisoned in
darkness, light at last broke in. “We had been walking together as usual “in
the garden," says Mrs. Spurgeon, “he restless and anguished; I, sorrowful
and amazed, wondering what the end of these things would be; when at the
foot of the steps which gave access to the house, he stopped suddenly, and
turned to me, and, with the old sweet light in his eyes (ah! how grievous
had been its absence!), he said, ‘ Dearest, how foolish I have been! Why!
what does, it matter what becomes of me, if the Lord shall but be
glorified?’ - and he repeated with eagerness and intense emphasis,
Philippians 2:9-11: ‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given
Him a name which is above every name; that at the Name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth and things under the
earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the Father.’ ‘If Christ be exalted,’ he said, - and his face
glowed with holy fervor, - ‘let Him do as He pleases with me; my one prayer
shall be, that I may die to self and live wholly for Him and for His honor;
Oh, wifey, I see it all now! Praise the Lord with me!” The husband having
recovered his peace of mind, and the wife being strengthened in body, it was
decided, while at Croydon, to dedicate the twin sons to the Lord and His
service. A number of friends were invited, and the time was spent in prayer
and praise, the babies being carried round the room at the conclusion, so
that they might be kissed and blessed by those present. Surely those prayers
have been answered many times over in the lives of Charles and Thomas
Spurgeon. The Music Hall disaster called forth the virulent abuse of a
certain section of the Press, and the preacher collected the newspaper
comments and criticisms, as indeed he did throughout his career, and handed
them to his wife who stuck them in a book, on the cover of which C. H.
Spurgeon himself wrote the title, “Facts, Fiction and Facetiae.” Late in
life the devoted wife could smile as she read the unjust and cruel words
written by her husband’s enemies, “but at the time of their publication what
at grievous affliction these slanders were to me,” she says. “My heart
alternately sorrowed over him and flamed with indignation against his
detractors. For a long time I wondered how I could set continual comfort
before his eyes, till, at last, I hit upon the expedient of having the
following verses printed in large Old English type and enclosed in a pretty
Oxford frame: ‘Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice
and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in Heaven: for so persecuted
they the prophets which were before you.’ - Matthew 5:11, 12. The text was
hung up in our own room and was read over by the dear preacher every
morning, .... fulfilling its purpose most blessedly, for it strengthened his
heart and enabled him to buckle on the invisible armor, whereby he could
calmly walk among men, unruffled by their calumnies, and concerned only for
their best and highest interests.” Chapter 7 -
In 1857 Mr. and Mrs.
Spurgeon moved to Helensburgh House, Nightingale Lane, Clapham, a place
which they found far more congenial than their first home in the New Kent
Road. Clapham was at that time, quite a rural district, and, as the house
possessed a large garden, the preacher greatly enjoyed the quiet and
retirement which he could find there, in the midst of his abundant labors.
The country lanes, too, provided delightful walks where the young couple
could take recreation without being followed or accosted by admirers, which
was not always the case in the neighborhood of their old residence. Speaking
of the garden, Mrs. Spurgeon says: “Oh, what a delightsome place we thought
it, though it was a very wilderness through long neglect - the blackberry
bushes impertinently asserting themselves to be trees, and the fruit trees
running wild for want of the pruning knife. It was all the more interesting
to us in this sweet confusion and artlessness because we had the happy task
of bringing it gradually into accord with our ideas of what a garden should
be. I must admit ‘that we made many absurd mistakes both in house and garden
management in those young days of ours; but ‘what did that matter? No two
birds ever felt more exquisite joy in building their nest in the fork of a
tree-branch than did we in planning and placing, altering and rearranging
our pretty country home.” Here, from time to time, a number of distinguished
persons visited the minister and his wife, and here, during an illness of
the preacher, much pleasant intercourse was had with John Ruskin, who, on
one occasion, carried to the house as a present for his friends some
charming engravings and some bottles of wine of a rare vintage. Mrs.
Spurgeon speaks eloquently of the delightful times spent in her rural Clapham home. “We lived,” she says, “in the dear old house in Nightingale
Lane for many happy years; and looking back upon them from this distance of
time, I think they must have been the least shadowed by care and sorrow of
all the years of our married life. We were both young and full of high
spirits. We had fairly good health, and devoutly loved each other. Our
children grew apace in the sweet country air, and my whole time and strength
were given to advance my dear husband’s welfare and happiness. I deemed it
my joy and privilege to be ever at his side, accompanying him on many of his
preaching journeys, nursing him in his occasional illnesses, his delighted
companion during his holiday trips, always watching over and tending him
with the enthusiasm and sympathy which my great love for him inspired. “I
mention this,” she explains, “not to suggest any sort of merit on my part,
but simply that I may here record my heartfelt gratitude to God that, for a
period of ten blessed years, I was permitted to encircle him with all the
comforting care and tender affection which it was in a wife’s power to
bestow. Afterwards God ordered it otherwise. He saw fit to reverse our
position to each other; and for a long season, suffering instead of service
became my daily portion, and the care of comforting a sick wife fell upon my
beloved.” The garden was a regular rendezvous of songbirds, and during her
periods of convalescence it was Mrs. Spurgeon’s delight to sit at the window
and feed the little creatures. In this way she made many feathered friends,
and the birds would hop around her and feed from her hand, perfect love
having quite cast out fear. Saturday mornings for a good many years were
devoted to the students, who used to march down from Mr. Rogers’ house where
they resided, to Nightingale Lane, and there in the garden listen to the
addresses of C. H. Spurgeon on theology, preaching and kindred topics, which
were really the foundation of the famous “Lectures to Students.” While she
enjoyed good health Mrs. Spurgeon took, an active part in the work of her
husband’s church, both at New Park Street Chapel and afterwards at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle. She attended the services, often gave spiritual
consolation to women and girls who were in trouble about their souls, and
assisted the female candidates at the baptismal services. Writing in The
British Banner, on April 12, 1861, of the first service of this kind in the
mammoth building that had just been opened, Dr. Campbell said - “The
interest of the thing was overpowering. We doubt if it was a whit inferior
to that of taking the veil in the Church of Rome. There was the young
orator, the idol of the assembly, in the water with a countenance radiant as
the light, and there, on the pathway, was Mrs. Spurgeon, a most
prepossessing young lady - the admiration of all who beheld her - with
courtly dignity and inimitable modesty, kindly leading forward the trembling
sisters in succession to, her husband, who gently and gracefully took and
immersed them with varied remark and honied phrase, all kind, pertinent to
the occasion, and greatly fitted to strengthen, encourage and cheer.” When,
about a month later, the first church-meeting was held in the Tabernacle and
a record of thanks and gratitude to God was placed on the pages of the
Church-book, Mrs. Spurgeon was the first of a long list of members to sign
it after the names of the pastor, deacons and elders had been appended.
Chapter 8 - Husband and Wife Mrs. Spurgeon, in the
earlier years of her married life, used to accompany her husband in his
holidays both in England and on the Continent, but in 1868, she tells us,
her traveling days were done. “Henceforth for many years I was a prisoner in
a sick-chamber, and my beloved had to leave me when the strain of his many
labors and responsibilities compelled him to seek rest far away from home.
These separations were very painful to hearts so tenderly united as were
ours, but we each bore our share of the sorrow as heroically as we could and
softened it as far as possible by constant correspondence.” And what a
delightful correspondence it was - love letters of the very best and highest
kind. “God bless you,” wrote the husband on one occasion, “and help you to
bear my absence. Better that I should be away well, than at home suffering -
better to your loving heart, I know. Do not fancy, even for a moment, that
absence could make our hearts colder to each other; our attachment is now a
perfect union, indissoluble for ever. My sense of your value and experience
of your goodness are now united to the deep passion of love which was there
at the first alone. Every year casts out another anchor to hold me even more
firmly to you, though none was needed even from the first. May my own Lord,
whose chastening hand has necessitated this absence, give you a secret
inward recompense in soul and also another recompense in the healing of the
body! All my heart remains; in your keeping.” “Did I but know that you are
better,” he writes on another occasion, “I don’t think I should have more to
wish except your company,” and a day or two later, “God be thanked for even
the twinkling stars of better news in the letter I have just received from
your dear self.” In a letter from Rome, we find the passage: “I had two such
precious letters from you this morning, worth to me far more than all the
gems of ancient or modern art. The material of which they, are composed is
their main value, though there is also no mean skill revealed in its
manipulation. They are pure as alabaster, far more precious than porphyry or verd antique; no mention shall be made of malachite or onyx, for love,
surpasses them all.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon looked upon the writing of
these letters as more than a loving duty to, his wife. Knowing how pressed
he was with other correspondence that had to be attended to, and with
literary work, she often used to urge him to write less often to her, so as
to get more rest for himself, but this he would not hear of, and except when
taking a long railway journey, he used to write a letter to his wife every
day that he was absent from her. “Every word I write,” he says in one note,
“is a pleasure to me, as much as ever it can be to you; it is only a lot of
odds and ends I send you, but I put them down as they come, so that you may
see it costs me no labor, but is just a happy scribble. Don’t fret because I
write you so many letters; it is such a pleasure to tell out my joy.”
At
another time, when sending some pen and ink sketches which he had made of
the women’s head-dresses in Italy, he writes, “Now, sweetheart, may these
trifles amuse you; I count it a holy work to draw them, if they cause you
but one happy smile.” “That I smiled on them then, and weep over them now,”
said Mrs. Spurgeon a year or two, ago, referring to these sketches and the
letter that accompanied them, “is but a natural consequence of the more
complete separation which God has willed for us, - he, dwelling in the land
of glory, - I, still tarrying amid the shadows of earth; - but I verily
believe that when I join him, ‘beyond the smiling and the weeping,’ there
will be tender remembrances of all these details of earthly love and of the
plenitudes of blessings which it garnered in our united lives. Surely we
shall talk of all these things in the pauses of adoring ‘worship and of
joyful service. ‘There must be sweet converse in Heaven between those who
loved and suffered and served together here below. Next to the rapture of
seeing the King in His beauty and beholding the face of Him who redeemed us;
to God by His blood, must be the happiness of the communion of saints in
that place of inconceivable blessedness which God has prepared for them that
love Him.” Those partings of husband and wife, after the latter became an
invalid, must have been sore wrenches to Mrs. Spurgeon’s heart, but in
accordance with the resolution she had made before and at marriage, she
never faltered, but gave her loved one up willingly for service or for those
Continental holidays which were necessary for his health. “I thank God,” she
said late in life, “that he enabled me to carry out this determination and
rejoice that I have no cause to reproach myself with being a drag on the
swift wheels of his consecrated life. I do not take any credit to myself for
this; it was the Lord’s will concerning me, and He saw to it that I received
the necessary training whereby in after years I could cheerfully surrender
His chosen servant to the incessant demands of his ministry, his literary
work, and the multiplied labors of his exceptionally busy life.” That this
was no vain and empty boast was dearly confirmed by a letter which C. H.
Spurgeon wrote to his wife in 1871, in which he declared, “None know how
grateful I am to God for you. In all I have ever done for Him you have a
large share, for in making me so happy you have fitted me for service. Not
an ounce of power has ever been lost to the good cause through you. I have
served the Lord far more and never less for your sweet companionship”
Chapter 9 - Mid Life After the preacher and his wife
had been living in Helensburgh House, Nightingale Lane, for close upon a
dozen years, the building was found altogether too small and inconvenient
for a man whose work needed a very large library and consequently much space
to store his books. The old house was loved for its happy associations by
both husband and wife, but, realizing the need for a more commodious
dwelling, it was, after due consideration, decided to pull down the building
and erect a new Helensburgh House which should meet the altered and
increased needs of the preacher and his wife. The demolition took place in
1869, and on the site arose a handsome house with ample room for all the
requirements of its owners. Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon had always been lavishly
generous with their money, and had at all times given every available pound
that they possessed to one or other of the great causes which they had at
heart. A few of their wealthier friends therefore came to the conclusion
that it would be unfair to let them be saddled with the cost of the new
house, which was only rendered a necessity because of the unselfish labors
and extraordinary energy of the pastor in ever increasing his efforts for
good, and these friends determined to defray the principal part of the cost
as a token of their esteem and appreciation. Mr. William Higgs, the builder
of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, built the new Helensburgh House, and no
efforts were spared to make it a worthy gift and a suitable dwelling for the
devoted minister and his invalid wife. Some time before the building was
ready for occupation, the preacher met the donors, and Mrs. Spurgeon, who
had been staying at Brighton since the demolition of her old home, came up
to London in order to be present at the gathering. C. H. Spurgeon made a
dainty little speech, thanking his kind friends for their gift and paying a
loving tribute to their generosity. “My wife and I,” he concluded, “have
firmly resolved that we will never go into debt for anything, yet you know
something of the continuous claims upon us in connection with the work of
the Lord,” and he explained that the reason why he was not rich was that he
refused to avail himself of many opportunities of acquiring wealth, such as
by a lecturing trip to America, when he could have obtained more money in a
few weeks than he was likely to receive through his ministry in many years.
“There is no intent on my part to rest now that I have a new house. If
possible, I shall work harder than ever before and preach better than ever,”
and all that the speaker uttered for himself, he declared, his wife
re-echoed. After this interesting meeting, Mrs. Spurgeon, who was at great
sufferer at the period, went back to Brighton, where Sir James Y. Simpson,
of Edinburgh, performed a difficult operation upon her that had the effect
of giving her some relief from pain and resulted in a slightly better state
of health. Meanwhile her husband took upon himself the whole duty of
furnishing and preparing the new house for habitation. How lovingly he did
this work, and how carefully he sought to please his wife in all that he
performed, the following letter which Mrs. Spurgeon received will show: -
“My Own Dear Sufferer, - I am pained indeed to learn from T - ‘s kind note
that you are still in so sad a condition. Oh, may the ever merciful God be
pleased to give you ease! “I have been quite a long round today - if a
‘round’ can be ‘long.’ First to Finsbury to buy the wardrobe, - a beauty. I
hope you will live long to hang your garments in it, every thread of them
precious to me for your dear sake. Next to Hewlett’s for a chandelier for
the dining-room. Found one quite to my taste and yours. Then to Negretti and
Zambra’s to buy a barometer for my own very fancy, for I have long promised
to treat myself to one. On the road I obtained the Presburg biscuits and
within their box I send this note, hoping it may reach you the more quickly.
They are sweetened with my love and prayers. “The bedroom will look well
with the wardrobe in it; at least, so I hope. It is well made, and, I
believe, as nearly as I could tell, precisely all you wished for Joe Mr.
Joseph Passmore had given this as a present is very good, and should have a
wee note whenever darling feels she could write it without too much fatigue;
but not yet. I bought also a table for you in case you should have to keep
your bed. It rises or falls by a screw, and also winds sideways, so as to
go over the bed, and then it has a flap for a book or paper, so that my dear
one may read or write in comfort while lying down. I could not resist the
pleasure of making this little gift to my poor suffering wifey, only hoping
it might not often be in requisition, but might be a help when there was a
needs-be for it. Remember, all I buy, I pay for. I have paid for everything
as yet with the earnings of my pen, graciously sent me in time of need. It
is my ambition to leave nothing for you to be anxious about. I shall find
the money for the curtains, etc., and you will amuse yourself by giving
orders for them after your own delightful taste. “I must not write more;
and, indeed, matter runs short except the old, old story of a love which
grieves over you and would fain work a miracle and raise you up to perfect
health. I fear the heat afflicts you. Well did the elder say to John in
Patmos concerning those who are before the throne of God, ‘Neither shall the
sun light on them nor any heat.’ - Yours to love in life and death, and
eternally, C. H. S.” When everything was ready, Mrs. Spurgeon’s health for a
time forbade her returning from Brighton, and her husband had to inhabit the
house alone. But when at last she could take up her abode once again in
Nightingale Lane she found that the loving care of her husband had forgotten
nothing that could in any way conduce to the comfort of an invalid almost
entirely confined to her couch. “Never,” she wrote, “will the rapture with
which he welcomed her home be forgotten, nor the joyful pride with which he
pointed out all the arrangements he had made so that her captivity should
have every possible compensation and alleviation. There was a
cunningly-contrived cupboard in one corner of the room into which he had
gathered all the details of his loving care for her. When the doors were
opened, a dainty washing apparatus was disclosed with hot and cold water
laid on, so that no fatigue in ascending and descending the stairways should
be necessary, and even the towels were embroidered with her name. He had
thought of everything; and there were such tender touches of devoted love
upon all the surroundings of the little room that no words can describe her
emotions when first she gazed upon them, and afterwards when she proved by
practical experience their exceeding usefulness and value.” During her sad
illness at this time, Mrs. Spurgeon had one very remarkable instance of a
desire of hers being granted by what cannot but be accepted as a Divine
interposition. Her husband often used to ask if there were anything she
would like him to get for her. The usual answer was a negative. But one day
in a half-bantering tone she said, “I should like an opal ring and a piping
bullfinch!” Her husband was surprised, but replied, “Ah, you know I cannot
get those for you!” For several days the curious request was laughed over,
and then it passed from the memories of both husband and wife. Mrs. Spurgeon
herself shall tell the sequel of the story. “One Thursday evening, on his
return from the Tabernacle, he (the preacher) came into my room with such a
beaming face and such love-lighted eyes, that I knew something had delighted
him very much. In, his hand he held a tiny box, and I am sure his pleasure
exceeded mine as he took from it a beautiful little ring and placed it on my
finger. ‘There is your opal ring, my darling,’ he said, and then he told me
of the strange way in which it had come. An old lady whom he had once seen
when she was ill, sent a note to the Tabernacle to say she desired to give
Mrs. Spurgeon a small present, and could someone be sent to her to receive
it. Mr. Spurgeon’s private secretary went accordingly and brought the little
parcel, which, when opened, was found to contain this opal ring. How we
talked of the Lord’s tender love for His stricken child and of His
condescension in thus stooping to supply an unnecessary gratification to His
dear servant’s sick one, I must leave my readers to imagine; but I can
remember feeling that the Lord was very near to us. “Not long after that I
was moved to Brighton, there to pass a crisis in my life, the result of
which would be a restoration to better health, or death. One evening, when
my dear husband came from London, be brought a large package with him, and,
uncovering it, disclosed a cage containing a lovely piping bullfinch! My
astonishment was great, my joy unbounded, and these emotions were
intensified as he related the way in which he became possessed of the
coveted treasure. He had been to see a dear friend of ours, whose husband
was sick unto death, and after commending the sufferer to God in prayer,
Mrs. T___ said to him, ‘I want you to take my pet bird to Mrs. Spurgeon; I
would give him to none but her; his songs are too much for my poor husband
in his weak state, and I know that “Bully” will interest and amuse Mrs.
Spurgeon in her loneliness while you are so much away from her.’ Mr.
Spurgeon then told her of my desire for such a companion, and together they
rejoiced over the care of the loving Heavenly Father who had so wondrously
provided the very gift His child had longed for. With that cage beside him
the journey to Brighton was a very short one, and when ‘Bully’ piped his
pretty song and took a hemp seed as a reward from the lips of his new
mistress, there were eyes with joyful tears in them and hearts overflowing
with praise to God in the little room by the sea that night, and the dear
Pastor’s comment was, ‘I think you are one of your Heavenly Father’s spoiled
children, and He just gives you whatever you ask for.’ “Does anyone doubt
that this bird was a direct love-gift from the pitiful Father” asks Mrs.
Spurgeon. “Do I hear someone say, ‘ Oh! it was all “chance” that brought
about such coincidences as these’? Ah, dear friends, those of you who have
been similarly indulged by Him know of a certainty that it is not so. He who
cares for all the works of His hand cares with infinite tenderness for the
children of His love, and thinks nothing which concerns them too small or
too trivial to notice. If our faith were stronger and our love more perfect,
we should see far greater marvels than these in our daily lives.”
Although
so weak and ailing and confined to her bedroom for such long periods of
time, Mrs. Spurgeon was a faithful trainer of her twin sons in the Christian
doctrine, and she had the joy of seeing them both brought to the Lord at an
early age. “I trace my early conversion,” Pastor Thomas Spurgeon has
written, “directly to her earnest pleading and bright example. She denied
herself the pleasure of attending Sunday evening services that she might
minister the Word of Life to her household. There she taught me to sing, but
to mean it first, - “‘I do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me;
That, on the cross, He shed His blood From sin to set me free.’ “My dear
brother was brought to Christ through the pointed word of a missionary; but
he, too, gladly owns that mother’s influence and teaching had their part in
the matter. By these, the soil was made ready for a later sowing.” On
September 21st, 1874, the sons were baptized by their father at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle in the presence of an immense concourse of people,
and Mrs. Spurgeon was herself an eye-witness of this open confession of
faith made by her boys. On that occasion she was presented by the Church
with an illuminated address, in which hearty thanks were expressed “to
Almighty God for calling so early in life to the fellowship of the saints
the two sons of our beloved and honored pastor,” and praising “Our gracious
Lord that it should have pleased Him to use so greatly the pious teachings
and example of our dear sister, Mrs. Spurgeon, to the quickening and
fostering of the Divine Life in the hearts of her twin sons, and we
earnestly pray,” concluded the address, “that amidst her long-continued
sufferings she may ever be consoled with all spiritual comfort and by the
growing devoutness of those who are thus twice given to her in the Lord.” Chapter 10 - Founding of 'The Book Fund'
Mrs. Spurgeon,
had she organized no new work herself, would always have been remembered as
the wife of the great preacher, to whom she rendered such valuable help and
encouragement, and who, to repeat C. H. Spurgeon’s own words, was indeed as
“an angel of God” to him. But, apart from any such associations and the
reflected glory from her husband, Mrs. Spurgeon’s name deserves to live for
ever in the annals of the Christian Church in connection with her fund for
supplying theological books to clergymen and ministers too poor to buy them.
As a branch of Christian effort this work was, and is, quite unique, and its
vast importance and necessity to the ministry and to the Church at large,
cannot be over-estimated. In his preface to Mrs. Spurgeon’s volume, "Ten
Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund,” the pastor of the
Tabernacle expressed his conviction “that the work was sadly needed, has
been exceedingly useful, and is still urgently called for.” “How can many of
our ministers buy books?” he asked. “How can those in the villages get them
at all? What must their ministries become if their minds are starved? Is it
not a duty to relieve the famine which is raging in many a manse? Is it not
a prudential measure, worthy of the attention of all who wish to see the
masses influenced by religion, that the preachers who occupy our pulpits
should be kept well furnished with material for thought?” Incredible as it
may seem, the state of things revealed when the Book Fund was started was so
bad that many ministers had been unable to buy a new book for ten years.
“Does anybody wonder if preachers are sometimes dull?” was C. H. Spurgeon’s
comment on this fact. Like most other important works, the Book Fund grew
from a very simple beginning, and there was no idea at the first of the
wonderful way in which the movement would develop. In the summer of 1875 Mr.
Spurgeon completed the first volume of his “Lectures to my Students,” and,
having given a proof copy to his wife, asked her what she thought of the
book. “I wish I could place it in the hands of every minister in England,”
was the reply, and the preacher at once rejoined, “Then why not do so how
much will you give?” This was driving the nail home with a vengeance. Mrs.
Spurgeon was not prepared for such a challenge, but she began to wonder if
she could not spare the money from her housekeeping or personal account. It
would necessitate pressure somewhere, she knew, for money was not plentiful
just then. Suddenly a flash of memory made the whole way clear. “Upstairs in
a little drawer were some carefully hoarded crown pieces, which, owing to
some foolish fancy, I had been gathering for years whenever chance threw one
in my way; these I now counted out and found they made a sum exactly
sufficient to pay for one hundred copies of the work. If a twinge of regret
at parting from my cherished but unwieldy favorites passed over me, it was
gone in an instant, and then they were given freely and thankfully to the
Lord, and in that moment, though I knew it not, the Book Fund was
inaugurated. The next number of The Sword and the Trowel, that for July,
1875, contained an announcement of Mrs. Spurgeon’s intention and inviting
poor Baptist ministers to apply for the book. The applications proved far
more numerous than was anticipated, and although she could not supply all
demands, the generous donor distributed two hundred copies of the book
instead of the one hundred which she had at first proposed. In The Sword and
the Trowel for August, C. H. Spurgeon referred to the matter again and said,
“It has been a great pleasure to our beloved wife to give a book to so many
needy servants of the Lord; but it is a sad fact that there should be so
many needing such a present. Cannot something be done to provide ministers
with books? If they cannot be made rich in money, they ought not for the
people’s sake to be starved in soul.” This appeal had due effect, and
friends began to forward money, so that by the following month (September)
parcels of books were being sent out to ministers every day, and the work
was formally designated “Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund.” A gentleman contributed
a number of good books for distribution among the poor ministers, and other
people, who were unable to send money, followed his example and gave volumes
from their libraries. Of course, the acceptance and acknowledgment of gifts
in kind led to a good deal of rubbish being sent to Mrs. Spurgeon, who
several times had to gently protest against worthless volumes, lit only for
the rag-shop, being “presented” to the Book Fund. “I really fear,” she wrote
in one report, “that some people think that anything in the shape of a book
will do for a minister, or they would scarcely send such things as ‘Advice
to Mothers,’ or’ Letters to a Son,’ as aids to pulpit preparation.”
On
another occasion she wrote: “There are in this pleasant world of ours many
kind and tender-hearted people who, after perusing the report of my Book
Fund, straightway rush off to their bookcases and in an enthusiasm of
goodwill pull down a pile of old books and pack them off to me for my poor
pastors, in the, full belief that they have thus rendered the best possible
service to the Fund and the Fund’s Manager and the Fund’s Manager’s needy
folk. I should be very sorry to damp any kindly ardor or seem ungrateful for
proofs of willing sympathy, but I feel constrained to point out as tenderly
as possible to my well-meaning but mistaken friends that such presents are
worse than useless to me. I am often puzzled how to get rid of the
encumbrances which were meant to be blessings! Usually when good people thus
disturb the dusty solitude of their bookshelves the result is as follows: -
A large number of volumes of The Evangelical Magazine and The Baptist
Record, musty perhaps and always incomplete; some ancient ‘Sermons’ by the
venerable pastor they ‘sat under’ half a century ago, a book or two of
‘Poems’ by ‘nobody knows who,’ a few old works on some abstruse notions, a
‘French Grammar and Exercises,’ Magnall’s ‘Questions,’ ‘ Advice to a Newly
Married Pair,’ and - I was going to say - a ‘Cookery Book,’ but I think that
might be an exaggeration where all else is simple, earnest fact. Now, what
could my poor pastors care for rubbish such as this?” C. H. Spurgeon
himself, in acknowledging in his magazine the first gift of valuable books
from the gentleman above-mentioned, said, “We have on several occasions in
days past received parcels consisting of old magazines and the sweepings of
libraries, and we have concluded that the donors thought we kept a butter
shop, but this friend has sent really standard volumes, which will, we
trust, be a boon to some poor preacher.” During the autumn Mrs. Spurgeon
became seriously ill and the distribution of books had to be delayed, but by
November she had sufficiently recovered to commence work again, and scarcely
a day went by but what some poor minister was made happy by receiving a gift
of volumes which his slender means would never have allowed him to purchase.
No distinction as to denomination was made, and although · the poverty of
Baptist ministers was perhaps more acute than that of others, yet there were
hundred’s of preachers in all the Churches quite unable to purchase the
books, which, they absolutely needed for their work. It was not long before
the valuable volumes of “The Treasury of David” were added to the
“Lectures,” and gradually other books were distributed, mostly C. H.
Spurgeon’s own writings and sermons, as these were generally asked for by
the poor ministers applying. By January, 1876, without any solicitation,
friends had sent in £182, and this had increased in August, one year after
the inauguration of the Fund, to upwards of £500, representing a
distribution of 3,058 volumes. By a generous arrangement of the publishers
of C. H. Spurgeon’s works, the books were supplied for purposes of the Fund
at a very low rate, so that £500 in money would purchase about £800 worth of
books. The novel and important work was now established on a solid and
permanent basis, and the interest in the movement to furnish poor ministers’
libraries was increasing. Quoting from the letters of recipients, who
expressed their intense joy and thankfulness at receiving the books Mrs.
Spurgeon wrote in The Sword and the Trowel after the first twelve months’
work: “Now this is very beautiful and admirable, but is there not also
something most sorrowfully suggestive to the Church of God? Surely these
‘servants of Christ,’ these ‘ambassadors for God,’ ought to have received
better treatment at our hands than to have been left pining so long without
the aids which are vitally necessary to them in their sacred calling. Books
are, as truly a minister’s needful tools as the plane and the hammer and the
saw are the necessary adjuncts of a carpenter’s bench. We pity a poor
mechanic, whom accident has deprived of his working gear, ‘we straightway
get up a subscription to restore it, and certainly never expect a stroke of
work from him while it is lacking; why, I wonder, do we not bring the same
common-sense help to our poor ministers, and furnish them liberally with the
means of procuring the essentially important books? Is it not pitiful to,
think of their struggling on from year to year on £100, £80, £60, and some
(I am ashamed to write it) on less than £50 per annum? Many have large
families, many more sick wives, some, alas! have both; they have’ heavy
doctors’ bills to pay, their children’s education to provide for, are
obliged to keep up a respectable appearance, or their hearers would be
scandalized; and how they manage to do all this and yet keep out of debt
(as, to their honor and credit be it said, the majority of them do), only
they and their ever-faithful God can know! I never hear a word of complaint
from them, only sometimes a pathetic line or two like this: ‘After upwards
of sixteen years’ service in ‘the Master’s vineyard I am sorry to say that,
with a small, salary and a wife and five daughters to provide for, my
library is exceedingly 43 small, and I am not in a position to increase its
size by purchasing books.’ Or, again, like this: ‘ My salary is small (£60),
and if I did not get some little help from some benevolent societies, I
should have very great difficulty in keeping the wolf from the door.’ Are
these men to be kept in poverty so deep that they positively, cannot afford
the price of a new book without letting their little ones go barefoot? “Fine
laborer is worthy of his hire,’ but these poor laborers in the gospel field
get a pittance which is unworthy both of the workman and the work, and if
their people (who ought to help them more) either cannot or will not do so,
we at least, dear friends, will do, all in our power to encourage their
hearts and refresh their drooping spirits. This is a digression, I daresay
from my authorized subject, but I was obliged to say what I have said,
because my heart was hot within me, and I so earnestly want to do these poor
brethren good service.” Mrs. Spurgeon took as her motto the words which her
husband put into the mouth of the spendthrift in “John Ploughman’s Talk.”
“Spend and God will send,” and before the Book Fund was nine months old she
had a remarkable proof of her faith being honored. A gentleman sent £50 for
the Fund, the largest gift received up to that time, and it was quickly
distributed in the form of books. About six months later the same gentleman
(who insisted upon remaining anonymous to everyone else) called upon Mrs.
Spurgeon and declared his intention of giving to every one of the five
hundred Calvinistic Methodist ministers, preachers and students in North
Wales, through the Book Fund, a copy of “Lectures to My Students,” and at
the same time he handed over another sum of £50 to meet expenses. Before the
distribution in North Wales was completed, the same generous donor gave
authority to Mrs. Spurgeon to continue at his expense the dispatch of copies
to the ministers and preachers in South Wales. Chapter 11 - The Book Fund Grows
A few months before the
Book Fund originated, Mrs. Spurgeon had sown in a large garden flower-pot
some lemon pips, hoping that one at least of them would spring up and grow
into a healthy plant. Sure enough, one did take root, and a frail stern with
two tiny leaves made its appearance, and was tenderly cared for by its
owner. In a happy moment Mrs. Spurgeon’s mind associated her Book Fund, then
a “tender plant,” whose continued existence might be precarious, but which
had splendid possibilities in it, with the little lemon tree, and as the
latter flourished and increased, she determined to regard it as something in
the nature, of an augury of the prosperity of her Fund, each leaf
representing a sum of a hundred pounds, which sooner or later would surely
come to hand. The growth of the tree was steady and continuous, and,
curiously enough, the Fund kept pace with it. As fresh leaves were formed,
so new subscribers came forward to help on Mrs. Spurgeon’s labor of love,
and all through their history the Book Fund and the lemon tree were
associated in the mind of the lady, to whom they were both so dear.
Although
subscriptions were not solicited, there was no lack of funds. Between
August, 1876, and January, 1877, no less than £926 was received, and by the
end of the second year more than £2,000 had come in and been expended. The
progress of time only served to show how widespread was the need, and the
letters which Mrs. Spurgeon received by the score each week formed pathetic
reading, whilst the gratitude expressed by recipients of books was quite
painful in its intensity. She had been trained in her husband’s school of
faith, and it was to God and not to man that she looked both for the money
to carry on her mission and for the health and strength to enable her to
cope with the ever growing work of correspondence and organization. “The
Book Fund has been nourished and fed from the King’s Treasury,” she wrote in
1877, “and I must make my boast in the Lord that all needful supplies for
the carrying on of the work have plainly borne the stamp of Heaven’s own
merit. I say this because I have never asked help of anyone but Him, never
solicited a donation from any creature, yet money has always been
forthcoming and the supplies have constantly been in due proportion to the
needs. Once only during the year did the Lord try my faith by allowing the
grants of books to outnumber the gifts of money, and then it was only for a
small moment that a fear overshadowed me. The dark cloud very speedily
passed away, and fresh supplies made me more than ever satisfied with the
resolution I had formed to draw only on the unlimited resources of my
heavenly Treasurer. None of the friends whose hearts have ‘devised liberal
things’ on behalf of my work will reproach me with ingratitude towards them
when I lay my first loving thanks at His feet; they will rather join me in
praising Him for so sweetly inclining their hearts to help His needy ones,
and will joyfully say, ‘O Lord, of Thine own have we given thee.’
“I recall
with very’ glad satisfaction the first donation which reached me ‘for
sending books to ministers.’ it came anonymously, and was but five
shillings’ worth of stamps, yet it was very precious, and proved like a
revelation to me, for it opened up a vista of possible usefulness and
exceeding brightness. The mustard seed of my faith grew forthwith into a
‘great’ tree, and sweet birds of hope and expectation sat singing in its
branches. You’ll see, I said to my boys, the Lord will send me hundreds of
pounds for this work. For many a day afterwards mother’s hundreds of pounds
became a household word of good-humored merriment and badinage. And now the
Lord has made me to laugh, for the hundreds have grown into thousands, He
has done ‘exceeding abundantly above what I could ask or even think,’ and
faith, with such a God to believe in and depend upon, ought surely to smile
at impossibilities and say ‘it shall be done.’” The work which Mrs. Spurgeon
had undertaken did not for very long confine itself exclusively to the
supply of books. At the beginning of 1877 a friend placed at her disposal a
sum of money from which she could draw such amounts as were necessary for
the relief of poor ministers in dire financial straits, and, her husband and
other friends adding to this sum, a very useful and much-needed Pastors’ Aid
Fund was founded, which has proved a valuable auxiliary and supplement to
the Book Fund. At the end of the year, too, a number of Christian ladies
undertook to supply warm garments and other suitable clothing for the
families of poor pastors, and this branch of the work has also gone on
increasing to the present time. Still another advance was made when two
friends provided the means for sending The Sword and the Trowel regularly
for a year to each of sixty ministers who could not afford to purchase a
religious magazine for themselves. Perhaps these developments of Mrs.
Spurgeon’s original idea were foreshadowed by the announcement which the
gardener made to her some time earlier: “Your lemon tree is brought up to
the house, ma’am. It is making a great deal of new wood.” In 1878, Mrs.
Spurgeon’s malady reached an acute stage, and indeed so serious was her
condition that her son Thomas, who was then in Australia, received an urgent
cable to return at once. For some time her life was despaired of, but the
crisis was passed successfully, and, although still an invalid, she was able
once again to give all her attention to the Book Fund. The work, however,
did not diminish on account of the illness, for the arrears were soon made
up and the year was the most successful since the inauguration. Those
periods of pain and weariness, which Mrs. Spurgeon was called upon to
suffer, never led her to despair or to rebel against the strange providence
that had so marked out a hilly path for her. If for a moment the mystery of
life perplexed her, she quickly found comfort and consolation by trusting to
Him who doeth all things well. Her diaries or note-books contain many
entries which tell of her experiences of soul during the most trying periods
of her life. Referring to this time of crisis she writes: “At the close of a
very dark and gloomy day I lay resting on my couch as the deeper night drew
on, and though all was bright with in my cozy little room, some of the
external darkness seemed to have entered into my soul and obscured its
spiritual vision. Vainly I tried to see the hand which I knew held mine and
guided my fog-enveloped feet along a steep and slippery path of suffering.
In sorrow of heart I asked, “Why does my Lord thus deal with His child? Why
does he so often send sharp and bitter pain to visit me? Why does he permit
lingering weakness to hinder the sweet service I long to render to His poor
servants?’ These fretful questions were quickly answered, and though in a
strange language, no interpreter was needed save the conscious whisper of my
own heart. “For a while silence reigned in the little room, broken only by
the crackling of an oak log burning on the hearth. Suddenly I heard a sweet,
soft sound, a little, clear, musical note, like the tender trill of a robin
beneath my window. ‘What can it be? “I said to my companion, who was dozing
in the firelight; ‘surely no, bird can be singing out there at this time of
the year and night!’ We listened, and again heard the faint plaintive notes,
so sweet, so melodious, yet mysterious enough to provoke for a moment our
undisguised wonder. Presently my friend exclaimed, ‘ It comes from the log
on the fire!!’ and we soon ascertained that her surprised assertion was
correct. The fire was letting loose the imprisoned music from the old oak’s
inmost heart. Perchance he had garnered up this song in the days when all
went well with him, when birds twittered merrily on his branches, and the
soft sunlight flecked his tender leaves with gold; but he had grown old
since then and hardened; ring after ring of knotty growth had sealed up the
long-forgotten melody until the fierce tongues of the flames came to consume
his callousness and the vehement heat of the fire wrung from him at once a
song and a sacrifice. “Oh! thought I, when the fire of affliction draws
songs of praise from us, then indeed are we purified and our God is
glorified! Perhaps some of us are like this old oak log; - cold, hard and
insensible; we. should give forth no melodious sounds were it not for the
fire which kindles round us, and releases tender notes of trust in Him, and
cheerful compliance with His will. As I mused the fire burned and my soul
found sweet comfort in the parable so strangely set forth before me. Singing
in the fire! Yes, God helping us if that is the only way to get harmony out
of these hard, apathetic hearts, let the furnace be heated seven times
hotter than before.” How the suffering ‘wife had caught the spirit and faith
of her husband, who, in his sufferings, later on, wrote words almost to the
same effect as the foregoing! The story of the Book Fund in its financial
department during these early days, and indeed up till the present, is very
much like that of the Stockwell Orphanage or the Pastors’ College, on a
small scale. Unsolicited the money would come in from the most unexpected
sources just when it was needed, and would be spent without delay in the
full and faithful expectation that more would follow to take its place. An
entry in Mrs. Spurgeon’s note-book a month or two after that which records
the message, of the burning oak log says, “My heart praises and extols the
goodness of the Lord, and my hand shall at once record the mercy which, like
a blessed rain on a thirsty land, has so sweetly refreshed my spirit. This
afternoon a constant and generous friend brought £100 for the Book Fund.
This was cause for devout thankfulness and great joy, for lately an
unusually large number of books has been going out week by week though funds
have flowed in less freely. But it was not till a few hours after receiving
this noble donation that I saw fully the Lord’s tender care and pitying love
in sending me this help just when he knew I should most sorely need it. By
the late post that night came my quarterly account for books, and so heavy
was it, that in fear and haste I turned to my ledger to see the available
balance, and with an emotion I shall not easily forget, I found that, but
for the gift of £100 a few hours previously, I should have been £60 in debt.
Did not the Father’s care thus keep the sparrow from falling to the ground?
A sleepless night and much distress of spirit would have resulted from my
discovery of so serious a deficit in my funds, but the Lord’s watchful love
prevented this. ‘Before I called He answered,’ and though trouble was not
very distant, He had said, ‘It shall not come nigh thee.’ O my soul, bless
thou the Lord and forget not this His loving ‘benefit’! A tumult of joy and
delight arose within me as I saw in this incident, not a mere chance or a
happy combination of circumstances, but the guiding and sustaining hand of
the loving Lord, who had most certainly arranged and ordered for me this
pleasant way of comfort and relief. ‘I am poor and needy, yet the Lord
thinketh upon me..’ A fresh revelation of His wonderful love seemeth to be
vouchsafed to my soul by this opportune blessing and a check became an
outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. “I hastened to my
dear husband that he might share my joy, and I found in him a willing
listener to the sweet old story of his Master’s grace and power. Then, after
a word or two of fervent praise to God on my behalf, he wrote the following
letter to the friend by whose liberal hand our gracious God had sent this
notable deliverance: - ‘ Dear friend, - I should like you to know why you
were sent here this afternoon, and what an angel of mercy you were to my
dear wife and so to me. The Lord bless you. Soon after you were gone my
wife’s quarter’s bill for books came in for £340, and she had only £28o
:apart from your check. Poor soul! she has never spent more than her income
before, and if you had not come, I fear it would have crushed her to be £6o
in debt. How good of the Lord to send you in the nick of time! We joined our
praises together, and we do also very gratefully join our prayers for you.
God bless, you, and make up to you your generous gifts above all your own
desires. I could not refrain from telling you this; it is one of the
sparkling facts which will make happy memories to help to stay our faith in
future trials if they come again. God bless you. - Yours heartily, C. H.
SPURGEON.’” Exactly a week after the above entry in Mrs. Spurgeon’s diary we
find another of similar purport. “£20 from a new friend today! My heart
keeps whispering, ‘ Indulgent God, how kind!’ At the beginning of this week
I had hesitated about sending my usual order for books, having less in hand
than would justify a large increase of stock, but I ventured, and lo! the
Lord has sent me all I need for present wants, and with it a firm assurance
to, my son that ‘those who trust in Him shall never be ashamed.’”
Money now
began to be received in considerable sums. Gifts of twenty-five and fifty
pounds from single individuals were by no means uncommon, and from the great
Silver Wedding Testimonial presented by tire Tabernacle Church to C H.
Spurgeon the Book Fund received £100, and the Pastors’ Aid Fund another
£100. Of course there were disappointments, but the trials only increased
the faith. Thus after losing an expected bequest of £200, Mrs. Spurgeon
wrote: “A legacy of £200 left to the Book Fund by an old and much loved
friend becomes null and void in consequence of legal inaccuracies in the
will; and thus though the dear deceased’s tender remembrance of me is
inalienable, I lose the splendid help to my beloved work which she intended
should partly alleviate my grief at her departure and in some measure
compensate for the cessation of her constant loving aid. I try to bear my
disappointment bravely and sink my own sorrow in sympathy with the President
in the far heavier loss sustained in like manner by the Pastors’ College,
and though I felt at first to some extent ‘ bowed down’ by the, unexpected
failure of my promised good fortune, I am since upholden and comforted
exceedingly, for I know that ‘the Lord is able to give me much more than
this,’ and this puts all thought of murmuring from me, and enables me to
look up again from human help to that infinitely more certain portion with
which the Lord supplies all my need as it arises. Perhaps I needed such a
lesson, and shall do well to learn it off ‘by heart.’ It is quite possible
that I felt too elated on hearing of the generous bequest and counted up my
riches with somewhat of carnal pride mingling with the gratification which
was allowable; certain it is that I once reckoned upon a grand total at the
end of the year quite eclipsing all former amounts, and it may be that the
Lord saw this was not good for me, and that the reception of too much
treasure laid up on earth would have disturbed and imperiled that lovely
posture of constant dependence on my God which He has taught me to delight
in, and has so graciously honored and rewarded. I think also I may learn
from this untoward event to bless and praise Him more humbly and heartily
for His grand and immutable ‘Will’ and that ‘His ways are not our ways.’”
After her own comparative recovery in 1879 Mrs. Spurgeon’s husband fell ill,
and had to go to the South of France, whence frequent bulletins were cabled,
giving news of his condition to the anxious wife at home. The work of the
Book Fund, however, kept her from brooding over her sorrow. A note-book
entry in December says,” Blessed be God! Better news comes now. The
telegrams have ceased and letters written with unsteady pen by poor pained
hands, yet inexpressibly precious, have arrived. In this trying time hard
work has been a benefactor to me, for the urgency of the daily
correspondence admits of no comfortable nursing of grief, and Book Fund
management knows no cessation while the Lord sends so many needy
applicants.” The gifts were not confined to poor preachers in Great Britain,
although naturally the majority of parcels were distributed in the homeland.
But many a missionary has been helped in his work by a grant from the Book
Fund, and native preachers in the West Indies, Africa, and elsewhere, have
participated in the benefits of the Fund. In June, 1879, the Bishop of
Sierra Leone, Dr. Cheetham, who had heard of the good work which Mrs.
Spurgeon had instituted and was carrying on, called upon her at Helensburgh
House and solicited the gift of “The Treasury of David” for one of his
colored pastors. Mrs. Spurgeon readily promised to give these books, and
also some others, and the Bishop before he left enrolled his name as at
donor to the Fund. In Jamaica the gifts of books were greatly appreciated by
both the English missionaries and the native pastors. Chapter 12 - Continued Success of the Book Fund
To give
anything like a history of Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund in these pages is quite
out of the question. Those who wish for a detailed account of how the work
grew and thrived and developed year after year will find it in the volumes
of reports which Mrs. Spurgeon herself prepared, “Ten Years of My Life” and
“Ten Years After.” That the work did grow and did thrive and did develop a
comparison of the statistics for succeeding twelve months will clearly show.
Thus in 1881 the number of volumes distributed was 7,298, and 10,517 single
sermons by C. H. Spurgeon were sent off in parcels for free distribution. In
1883 the books for the year had increased to 1,351; in the following year
the number stood at 9,149 and the sermons at 11,981, whilst three years
later the annual distribution included 10,311 volumes and 21,227 sermons.
The numbers have varied in the different years since that time according to
the state of the finances, and owing to the growing infirmity of Mrs.
Spurgeon the work has receded somewhat from its high-water mark of 1883. The
last report issued by her, that for the years 1901 and 1902, showed that
10,113 volumes had been distributed during the two years, and that in the
twenty-seven years since the Fund was started a total of 199,315 valuable
theological works had been put into the hands of ministers, preachers and
missionaries too poor to purchase them. It is indeed a marvelous record of
service done by an invalid lady, and to find a parallel would be difficult.
The whole of the work entailed by the Book Fund and its branch organizations
was attended to by Mrs. Spurgeon personally, and some idea of how heavy was
the correspondence alone may be gathered from the fact that the average
number of letters received per month was about five hundred, and in two
periods of four weeks each the numbers were 657 and 755 respectively. Nor
was the work all composed of “pleasant fruit and flowers,” for, as Mrs.
Spurgeon tells us, in referring to the fact that her lemon tree had
developed a few sharp thorns, there were in connection with the Book Fund
some thorns concealed here and there which wound the hand that inadvertently
touches them. Some ministers, whose behavior showed either that they greatly
misunderstood the nature of the 52 Book Fund or that their characters were
strangely out of keeping with their office, would write in such a strain as
practically amounted to a demand for books whilst others quite ignored the
conditions on which the volumes were given and loftily declined to say
whether their incomes were under the £150 per annum, which was laid down as
the limit. One man, who had requested a grant without saying anything as to
his financial condition, when asked kindly whether his income brought him
within the sphere of the work, replied angrily, “Permit me to say I have no
wish to be considered a pauper.” “Ever since the Master gave me this charge
to keep,” wrote Mrs. Spurgeon when mentioning the above incident, “He knows
I have tried to minister in gentle, kindly fashion to His servants, but
occasionally the spirit of my service is overlooked by them, and my gifts
are either claimed as a right or disdained as a charity. Few and far between
are these ugly thorns on my beautiful tree; tender and loving
acknowledgments of my work are the rule and when an exception comes I can
well afford to forgive and forget it. Were it not that a chronicler is
required to be faithful and give fairly both sides of the history he is
writing, I should have left unrecorded this painful part of a most pleasant
and blessed service. It is truly wonderful that being so often prostrated,
Mrs. Spurgeon was able to keep the Book Fund in so flourishing a condition.
Over and over again she was completely laid aside, and when once more
convalescent her weakness was such that none but a woman whose whole being
was given up to service for the Lord could have sustained the mental and
physical stress of such a great work. In his preface to “Ten Years of My
Life,” the substantial profits from which owing to the generosity of the
authoress and publishers were given to the Book Fund, C. H. Spurgeon wrote:
“I gratefully adore the goodness of our Heavenly Father in directing my
beloved wife to a work which has been, to her, fruitful in unutterable
happiness. That it has cost her more pain ‘than it would be fitting to
reveal is most true; but that it has brought her a boundless joy is equally
certain. Our gracious Lord ministered to His suffering child in the most
effectual, manner when He graciously led her to minister to the necessities
of His servants. By this means He called her away from her personal grief’s,
gave tone and concentration to her life, led her to continual dealings with
Himself, and raised her nearer the center of that region where other than
earthly joys and sorrows reign supreme. Let every believer accept this as
the inference of experience that for most human maladies the best relief and
antidote will be found in self-sacrificing work for the Lord Jesus.”
The
writer went on, however, to say that his wife’s increasing weakness was not
equal to continuing the work at its present increasing rate. “From this date
the beloved worker feels that she must slacken. The business has overpowered
her: the wagon is running over the horse. A measure of this ministry must
pass into other hands, for, to my great sorrow, I have seen that
overpressure is now causing a growing sense of weariness. It cannot long be
possible to wake up every morning with a dread of that pile of letters; to
sit all day with scarce an interval, writing and bookkeeping; and to go to
bed at night with a sigh that the last stroke has hardly been made before
the eyes have closed. However brave an invalid may be, love will not always
allow such incessant toil to grind down a willing spirit. As the embodiment
of loving prudence I feel that I must place an urgent veto upon the
continuance of this labor at its present rate.” But although there was a
slight diminution in the work, Mrs. Spurgeon remained at her post, and with
the exception of one period in the. year 1888, when she was so seriously ill
that her severe physical suffering deprived her of all ability to continue
her labors or even to open her letters, she carried on the Book Fund to the
end of her life. Often the persistent and steady labor taxed her energy to
its utmost limit, but the work was done and done well. No distinction as to
church or creed was made in the distribution of books, and among the 25,000
or more ministers who have benefited by the Fund up to the present time are
those, belonging to the Church of England, the Baptists, the
Congregationalists, all kinds of Methodists, the Presbyterians, the
Moravians, the Society of Friends, the Unitarians, the Irvingites, the
Waldensians, the Nestorians, the Plymouth Brethren, the Lutherans, the
Sweden-borgians, the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connection, and the
Morrisonians, besides a very large number of evangelists and missionaries.
In the earlier days of the Fund’s history it was always a grief to, Mrs.
Spurgeon that she ‘was unable to accede to the pathetic requests for books
made by poor local preachers, as the applications from regular ministers
were more than sufficient to absorb all her grants. She mentioned this
matter in her report for 1887, and, after quoting from a letter, said “This
is a real cry for help; will it not touch the heart of any who can respond
to it?” The appeal did touch the heart of a willing worker, Mr. Sydney S. Bagster, of the Conference Hall, Mildmay Park, who, organized a successful
Auxiliary Book Fund for the free distribution of theological works among
poor lay preachers. The work of sending off parcels commenced on May 1st,
1888, and by the end of that year 126 preachers had received 1,142 volumes.
Mr. Bagster continued to carry on the Auxiliary Book Fund until 1891, when
it was handed over to Mrs. Spurgeon, and became a part of the regular work
carried on at her home. On an average, about sixteen hundred volumes have
been distributed annually among the poor local preachers up to the present
time. As year followed year there were increasing developments, which added
to the labors of the devoted founder of the Book Fund. The monthly grant of
copies of The Sword and the Trowel, already referred to, assumed large
proportions. Many thousands of C. H. Spurgeon’s sermons and other pamphlets
were sent out each year to preachers both at home and abroad, and there have
been for a long time past a Fund for General Use in the Work of the Lord
which bore the expense of the translation of C. H. Spurgeon’s sermons into
foreign languages and their publication, as well as supplying help to
preachers and others in need, to chapels handicapped by a debt, and various
missions needing monetary assistance. The Pastors’ Aid Fund became an
established institution, and each year Mrs. Spurgeon was able to distribute
an average of over three hundred pounds among the pastors and their families
who had needs more pressing than ordinary. The grants of bonnets, shawls,
and other articles of clothing has also been an important offshoot and
auxiliary of the Book Fund. Up to the last Mrs. Spurgeon regarded her lemon
tree with a rare affection as being a remarkable symbol of her work. At the
conclusion of the volume, “Ten Years After,” she ‘wrote: ‘The great central
stem is, metaphorically, The Book Fund itself, out of which all the branches
have naturally grown, and with which they all continue to be vitally
connected. Springing from the main trunk, and almost rivaling it in strength
and usefulness, is the largest limb of the tree, which represents The
Pastors’ Aid Fund. This, in its ‘turn, has thrown out the widely-spreading
branch from which the well-filled boxes of The Westwood Clothing Society
have dropped into many a poor pastor’s home. Peering between the
thickly-interlaced foliage I spy a sturdy bough bearing the inscription Home
Distribution of Sermons, and an equally vigorous offshoot dedicated to The
Circulation Of the Sermons Abroad, while the topmost twigs, on which I can
plainly read the words Foreign Translations of Sermons, bid fair to rival in
all respects their older companions. To me, their rapid growth is most
cheering, for their leaves contain so much of the essential oil of the Tree
of Life that they are in a very literal sense for the healing of the
nations. One shoot of the lemon tree, which drooped awhile, but now
flourishes as freely as the other branches, symbolizes The Auxiliary Book
Fund, another reminds me of The Sword and Trowel distribution, while the
many thousands of tracts and pamphlets which are circulated by the Fund are
we’ll represented by the twigs and leaves which spring from the larger
stems. All through, Mrs. Spurgeon was herself a most generous donor to the
Book Fund finances, her personal services being supplemented by monetary
gifts far greater than is generally supposed; while by her will the Fund
benefits to a considerable extent. Chapter 13 - Last Years of Married Life
In 1880 Mr. and
Mrs. Spurgeon removed from Nightingale Lane, Clapham, to “Westwood,” Beulah
Hill, Norwood, their last home on earth. The remarkable circumstances
attending the sale of the old house and the purchase of the new have been
told fully in “The Life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon,” and it is unnecessary
to repeat the story here. The new home was a great improvement on the old;
not only was it situated farther from the smoke and noise of London, but the
rooms were much more ample and convenient than those of Helensburgh House,
and the grounds covered nearly nine acres. The actual changing, however, was
a time of much discomfort, although Mrs. Spurgeon’s health was far better
than it had been for a long time past. “What a stirring up of one’s quiet
nest this removal is,” she wrote in her diary, “and how tenderly one learns
to look on familiar objects from which we are to be parted for ever. The
heart yearns over a place endeared by an intimate acquaintance of
twenty-three years and full of happy and solemn associations. Every nook and
corner, both of house and garden, abounds with sweet or sorrowful memories,
and the remembrance of manifold mercies cling like a rich tapestry to the
walls of the desolate rooms. On this spot nearly a quarter of a century of
blissful wedded life has been passed, and though both husband and wife have
been called to suffer severe physical pain and months of weakness within its
boundary, our house has been far oftener a ‘Bethel’ to us than a ‘Bochim.’
The very walls might cry out against us as ungrateful did we not silence
them by our ceaseless thanksgiving, for the Lord has here loaded us with
benefits and consecrated every inch of space with tokens of His great
lovingkindness. The sun of His goodness has photographed every portion of
our dear home upon our hearts, and though other lights and shadows must be
reflected there in coming days, they can never obliterate the sweet images
which grateful memory will jealously preserve. Tender remembrance ‘will
render indelible the pictures of the sick chamber - which so many times had
almost been ‘the gate of heaven’ to our spirit; the little room, tenderly
fitted up by a husband’s careful love, and so often the scene of a scarcely
hoped-for convalescence; the study - sacred to the Pastor’s earnest work and
silent witness of wrestlings and communings known only to God and his own
soul; the library - where the shelves gladly suffered a constant spoliation
and renewal for the blessed work of the Book Fund. “It is hard to leave all
these sympathetic surroundings and dwell in the house of a stranger, but we
believe we have seen the cloudy pillar move, and heard our Leader’s voice
bidding us ‘go forward,’ so in trustful obedience we strike our tent and
prepare to depart to the place of which He has told us. And our new home may
be to us a ‘Tabor’ if our Lord will but dwell with us there.” After the
removal, Mrs. Spurgeon was delighted with her new home. “In spite of the
turmoil and trouble caused by the painful process of removal,” she writes,
“our first fortnight on Beulah’s Hill has been a time of great and
unaccustomed joy. Blest for this period with a singular accession of health
and strength, the new owners together visited the various spots of interest
in their little kingdom, making pleasant discoveries every day; now tracing
a winding garden path to some unexpected opening, now looking with growing
admiration upon the glorious views of earth and sky, ever breathing the
bright, clear air with a lively sense of exhilaration and refreshment, and
constantly pausing to marvel at the goodness of God in choosing such an
inheritance for them. It seems almost like living a new life, and as if pain
and sickness were left ‘behind in the valley for ever ..... These bright
days and golden hours may not last long, but they are very precious in
present possession, and will leave blissful memories behind them.”
On
Saturdays, here, as in their other homes, husband and wife would work
together in the preparation of the sermon which the former was to deliver on
the coming morning, and happy indeed were the times thus spent. Sometimes
when the preacher had been unable to settle upon a text, he would say,
“Wifey, what shall I do? God has not given me a text yet,” and Mrs. Spurgeon
would comfort him as well as she could. Perhaps she would be able to suggest
a suitable passage, in which case her husband, after preaching, would give
her due credit in referring to the sermon by saying: “You gave me that
text.” When the lady was called into the study on these Saturday evenings by
her husband there was always an easy chair, she tells us, drawn up to the
table by Mr. Spurgeon’s side, and a number of open books piled one upon
another from which she used to read as directed by her husband. “‘With these
old volumes around him he was like a honey-bee amid the flowers; he seemed
to know how to extract and carry off the sweet spoils from the most
unpromising-looking tome among them. His acquaintance with them was so
familiar and complete that he could at once place his hand on any author who
had written upon the portion of Scripture which was engaging his attention;
and I was, in this pleasant fashion, introduced to many of the Puritan and
other divines, whom otherwise I might not have known.” The change to
Norwood, it was anticipated, might be of benefit to C. H. Spurgeon’s health,
and render unnecessary those annual winterings at Mentone. But this did not
prove to be the case. His painful ailment continued, and the sad partings of
husband and wife had to go on year after year, he thinking of her in the
lonely house in England, she full of anxiety for the loved one away on the
Riviera, whose agony from the gout was oftentimes beyond endurance. But even
then his letters to his wife were full of humor so as to cheer her and make
things seem as bright as possible. “I feel as if I were emerging from a
volcano,” he once wrote at the commencement of a convalescence, and on the
notepaper he had sketched a hill from the crater of which his head and
shoulders were rising. As time went on the preacher’s illnesses became
longer, and the painfulness of his malady more acute. In November, 1890, he
went to, Mentone full of hope, and on arriving wrote to Mrs. Spurgeon: “What
heavenly sunshine! This is like another world. I cannot quite believe myself
to be on the same planet. God grant that this may set me all right! Only
three other visitors in the hotel - three American ladies - room for you.”
But the next day the dreadful gout attacked the patient’s right hand and
arm. Even then he wrote: “The day is like one in Eden before our first
parents fell. When my head is better I shall enjoy it. I have eau de Cologne
dripped on to my hot brain-box; and as I have nothing to do, but to look out
on the perfect scene before me, my case is not a ‘bad one.” The attack,
however, increased in virulence, and for eight days he was unable himself
to, write to Mrs. Spurgeon; but he sent a message through his private
secretary: “Give her my love, and say I am very bad, and I wish I were at
home for her to nurse me; but as I am not, I shall be helped through
somehow.” Then came a, letter, almost unreadable, so difficult a task had
the tracing of the characters been: “Beloved, to lose right hand is; to be
dumb. I am better except at night. Could not love his darling more. Wished
myself at home when pains came, but when worst this soft clear air helps me.
It is as heavens gate. All is well. Thus have I stammered a line or two. Not
quite dumb, bless the Lord! What a good Lord He is! I shall yet praise Him.
Sleeplessness cannot so embitter the night as to make me fear when He is
near.” The letter was signed, “Your own beloved Benjamite” - a humorous
reference to the fact that it had been written with the left hand. After
this, progress was slow, but such expressions as, “Oh, that you were here!”
clearly show how he longed to have his wife by his side. On December 8th he
wrote, gleefully: “Today I dressed myself,” and concluded, “You write so
sweetly. Yours is a hand which sets to music all it writes to me. God bless
you! But you don’t say how you are. If you do not, I will write every day.”
Mrs. Spurgeon had lovingly sought to conceal her own weakness, so as not to
give any additional pain to her husband. When the English winter proved to
be very cold, he wrote: “Poor darling to be so cold. The Lord will soon hear
prayer and send the soft South wind upon you, and then I also shall get
well, and go out for walks and praise His Name. I wish I could think of
something to cast a gleam of sunlight over ‘Westwood’ If my love were light
you would live in the sun. I shall send you some roses tomorrow, and they
will prophesy of better days,” and a few days later: “I keep on praying for
change of weather for you and the poor and sick. I wish I could send you a
brazier of the coals of my heart, which have a most vehement flame.” Such
was the correspondence which passed between this devoted couple in the
closing days of their united lives, for although Mrs. Spurgeon’s own letters
are not available, it is clear from a reference here and there in her
husband’s replies that they were of a like, loving character. Christmas was
passed by the preacher in much pain, which, however, did not prevent him
“digging away at books and letters.” Then on New Year’s Day, 1891, he
writes: “A happy New Year to you, my sweetest and best! I would write it in
the biggest of capitals If that would show how happy I wish this year to be’
.... I have been for a drive in the delicious summer sunshine. Oh, that you
had been at my side! I have just read your sweet, sweet letter. You
best-beloved of my heart, how I wish I could change your weather! I can only
pray but prayer moves the hand which moves winds and clouds. The Lord
Himself comfort you and bear you up under all troubles, and make up to you,
by His own presence, the absence of health, warmth and husband!” Then on
Mrs. Spurgeon’s birthday she received a letter in which her husband said: “I
trust this will reach you on your own dear birthday. Ten thousand
benedictions be upon you!... What an immeasurable blessing you have been to
me and are still. Your patience in suffering and diligence in service are
works of the Holy Spirit in you for which I adore His Name. Your love to me
is not only a product of nature, but it has been so sanctified by grace that
it has become a spiritual blessing to me. May you still be upheld, and if
you may not be kept from suffering, may you be preserved from sinking!”
All
this time, although suffering so severely herself, Mrs. Spurgeon was working
indefatigably to help others. The Book Fund and the Pastors’ Aid Fund were
in full swing, and in order to give some relief to the poor of Thornton
Heath, who were thrown out of work and in dire straits on account of the
prolonged frost, she opened a soup kitchen at Westwood, and distributed
coals freely among the people. C. H. Spurgeon hearing of this, wrote: “I am
so glad you feed the poor; spend £10 for me, please; don’t stint anything.”
At last on February 2nd the patient, apparently much improved in health,
started for England, writing to his wife on the same morning a note which
concluded with the words, “Blessed be God that we are spared to each other.”
But the apparent improvement was far from being real or permanent. This is
not the place in which to give a detailed account of C. H. Spurgeon’s final
days in England. He preached at the Tabernacle for the last time on Sunday
morning, June 7th, 1891, and then directly afterwards his illness took an
alarming turn, and a fatal issue was feared. Mrs. Spurgeon was an
indefatigable nurse, and the sympathy of the whole nation went out to her in
her sore trial. Mr. Gladstone wrote: “In my own home, darkened at the
present time, I have read with sad interest the daily accounts of Mr.
Spurgeon’s illness, and I cannot help conveying to you the earnest assurance
of my sympathy with you and with him, and of ray cordial admiration, not
only of his splendid powers, but still more of his devoted and unfailing
character. May I humbly commend you and him in all contingencies to the
infinite stores of the Divine love and mercy.” Many other distinguished
people, including a number of the Bishops, also wrote to Mrs. Spurgeon. The
patient did not get better, and on October 26th he started for Mentone,
accompanied this time by his wife, as well as by a number of friends. Later,
Miss E. H. Thorne, Mrs. Spurgeon’s companion and friend, joined the party,
and these two ladies took it in turns to nurse the invalid who at first
seemed to benefit by the warm Southern sun. But on January 20th serious
symptoms set in and Mr. Spurgeon had to take to his bed, from which he never
again rose. After remaining unconscious for five days he passed away on
January 31st, 1892, in ‘the presence of his wife and four intimate friends.
The loss, as may be imagined, was a terrible one for the devoted wife, but
she was sustained by the knowledge that sooner or later she would join her
husband where there are no more partings. In the death chamber, so soon as
the first shock was over, the: little party knelt down, and Mr. Harrald, the
preacher’s private secretary, offered prayer, being followed by Mrs.
Spurgeon, who thanked the Lord for the precious treasure so long lent to
her, and sought at the throne of grace strength and guidance for the future.
Later she was able to cable to her son Thomas, in Australia, “Father in
Heaven Mother resigned.” From all parts of the world messages of condolence
reached her, those from England including expressions of sympathy from our
present King and Queen. The body was removed to this country for burial
without delay, and Mrs. Spurgeon sent with the remains a number of palm
branches from Mentone to be placed round the coffin while it stood in the
Tabernacle. Mrs. Spurgeon herself remained on the Riviera for some time
longer as the guest of Mr. Hanbury at La Mortola. “There amid the
olive-groves and rose-covered terraces,” she says, “the dear Master taught
me His estimate of true affection by recalling to my mind His own words to
His disciples, ’If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go to the
Father,’ and thus He made me understand that the thought of my darling’s
everlasting bliss must overcome and banish my own selfish grief and sorrow.”
Chapter 14 -
Mrs. Spurgeon’s widowhood lasted
close upon a dozen years, and in a sense, her life, since 1892, must have
been a singularly lonely one, although she had her two sons always near to
comfort and cheer her, and the many friends of her late husband were ever
ready to meet any wish she might express. Grief, however, did not occupy her
to the exclusion of useful and thoughtful work. In fact, her last years
were, taking into consideration her growing age and infirmity, her busiest.
The Book Fund was never allowed to flag; the Pastors’ Aid Fund was ever
ready to help deserving ministers in sore financial straits, and all the
other branches of the original organization were kept in a flourishing
condition. Then Mrs. Spurgeon gave a good deal of time to literary work, her
magnum opus of course being “C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, compiled from
his Diary, Letters and Records,” in which she had the assistance of Mr. Harrald. This, as is generally known, is a monumental work in four large
volumes, and it occupied Mrs. Spurgeon several years in the preparation, all
her husband’s correspondence, sermons and books being carefully sifted, in
order to provide the material for the autobiography. Mrs. Spurgeon herself
wrote the chapters dealing with the home and conjugal life of her husband,
and these in many places show the pathetic longing she always had to join
him. “Ah! my husband,” she says in one passage, “the blessed earthly ties
which we welcomed so rapturously are dissolved now, and death has hidden
thee from my mortal eyes; but not even death can divide thee from me or
sever the love which united our hearts so closely. I feel it living and
growing still, and I believe it will find its full and spiritual development
only when we shall meet in the glory-land and worship together before the
throne!” This was written in 1898, and a comparison with a passage from her
Book Fund report for 1891 will show how time and work had helped her to a
holy resignation in waiting for the longed for reunion. “Oh! my husband, my
husband,” she wrote in the earlier year, “every moment of my now desolate
life I wonder how I can live without thee! The heart that for so many years
has been filled and satisfied with thy love must needs be very empty and
stricken now that thou art gone!” As a writer, Mrs. Spurgeon had a rare
literary gift, and her style was not unlike that of her husband. It was at
C. H. Spurgeon’s suggestion that she undertook, while yet Miss Susannah
Thompson, to assist him in compiling a little book of extracts from the
writings of the Puritan divine, Thomas Brooks. Her lover had asked her to go
through “an ancient, rusty-looking book,” marking all the paragraphs and
sentences that seemed particularly sweet, quaint or instructive, and with
much fear and trembling the young girl complied. The result was a small
volume entitled “Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks,” and this book,
Mrs. Spurgeon’s first literary effort, has just been reprinted by Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster. “Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book
Fund,” and “Ten Years After,” have already been referred to, but perhaps the
best of Mrs. Spurgeon’s literary work will be found in three dainty little
devotional volumes entitled respectively, “A Carillon of Bells to Ring out
the Old Truths of Free Grace and Dying Love’”; “A Cluster of Camphire; or,
Words of Cheer and Comfort for Sick and Sorrowful Souls”; and. “A Basket of
Summer Fruit.” Each volume is perfect in its way. In a “Carillon of Bells,”
for instance, one can hear the very bells ringing on every page, and in the
whole range of devotional literature it would be difficult to find anything
sweeter or having a truer ring than the opening words “He that spared not
His own Son . . . how shall He not with Him also, freely give us all
things.’ Dear Lord, faith’s fingers are joyfully touching the keys of this
carillon of sweet bells this morning, and making them ring jubilantly to the
praise of Thy gracious name! ‘How shall He not!’ ‘How shall He not!’ ‘He
that spared not!’ ‘How shall He not!’ “What a peal of absolute triumph it
is! Not a note of doubt or uncertainty mars the Heavenly music. Awake, my
heart, and realize that it is thy faith which is making such glorious
melody! Thou canst scarcely believe it for gladness? Yet it is blessedly
true, for the Lord Himself hath given the grace, and then accepts the
tribute of gratitude and praise which that grace brings. Press the tuneful
keys again and again, for faith holds festival to-day and the joy’ of
assurance is working wonders. ‘He that spared not!’ ‘How shall He not!’
“Hear how the repeated negatives gloriously affirm the fact of His readiness
to bless! These silver bells have truly the power to scare away all evil
things.” In addition to these volumes, Mrs. Spurgeon is the author of a
number of “West-wood Leaflets” on devotional and other topics, and she has
been for years past a very frequent contributor to The Sword and the Trowel,
for the conduct of which until recently she was responsible. Another work in
which she took a great and prayerful interest was the selection of the daily
texts for “Spurgeon’s Illustrated Almanac,” and the preparation of that
little booklet for publication. For about thirty years she chose the
passages of Scripture, and this was no light work, when year after year
fresh texts had to be found, which would fulfill the two necessary
conditions of being short and also helpful when taken apart from their
contexts. Other kinds of work, too, Mrs. Spurgeon did, and did with all her
accustomed zeal. In 1895, for instance, when “Westwood” was being
redecorated, she went to Bexhill to, stay for a time, and learning that the
town possessed no Baptist Chapel, she began to pray and work for the
establishment of one. As the result of her efforts a school-chapel was first
opened, and in 1897 Mrs. Spurgeon herself laid the foundation-stone of a
fine sanctuary, “To the glory of God, and in perpetual remembrance of her
beloved husband’s blameless life, forty years public ministry and still
continued proclamation of the Gospel by his printed sermons.” This chapel
was opened free of debt in the following year. In 1899, again, during the
collecting of subscriptions for the erection of the present Metropolitan
Tabernacle, which was to take the place of the first building, Mrs. Spurgeon
not only generously contributed to the Rebuilding Fund, but on a certain day
- February 8th - she held a reception in the basement of the Tabernacle, and
at one sitting received from those who attended about £6,367 towards the
Fund. In the summer of 1903 Mrs. Spurgeon had a severe attack of pneumonia
which prostrated her, and from this she never recovered, being confined to
her bed. One or other of her sons visited their mother almost daily to
comfort and cheer her in the closing days of her life. Gradually she sank,
and in the first week of September the flame of life seemed so feeble that
it was expected to flicker out. Even then Mrs. Spurgeon manifested her
strong faith in the God whom she had trusted for so long. “Though He slay
me, yet will I trust in Him,” she said feebly, and quoted the lines “His
love in times past forbids me to think He’ll leave me at last in trouble to
sink.” asking those in the room to complete the verse. But there was a
tenacity of life about this weak woman which was little expected. Week after
week she lingered, though getting weaker as each day passed. On October 7th
she gave her parting blessing to her son Thomas. “The blessing, the double
blessing of your father’s God be upon you and upon your brother,” she said,
and then a few moments later, “Good-bye, Tom; the Lord bless you for ever
and ever! Amen.” When very near the end she clasped her’ feeble hands
together, and, her face aglow with a heavenly radiance, exclaimed: “Blessed
Jesus! Blessed Jesus! I can see the King in His Glory!” Mrs. Spurgeon passed
away peacefully at half-past eight on the morning of Thursday, October 22nd,
1903. She was buried at Norwood Cemetery in the grave where her husband’s
remains lay, and Pastor Archibald Brown, who spoke such beautiful words at
the interment of C. H. Spurgeon, joined with Pastor Sawday in conducting the
funeral service over the remains of the great preacher’s wife. Chapter 15 - Conclusion Mrs. Spurgeon has gone, but her
work remains. Her last thoughts were for the Book Fund, and for the poor
ministers who are benefited by its aid; and by her will she left a sum of
money for the assistance of the work which owed its inception and its
continued success to her untiring zeal. Further, she had expressed a wish
that her friend and companion of forty years, Miss E. H. Thorne, should
carry on the Book Fund with its various branches, in conjunction with Pastor
J. S. Hockey Miss Thorne has willingly agreed to do this, and her enthusiasm
for the work being second only to Mrs. Spurgeon’s, it will be a matter for
satisfaction to all Christian people who followed with interest the efforts
of the deceased lady, that there will be no cessation in the conduct of the
Book Fund. C. H. Spurgeon once wrote: “This good work of providing mental
food for ministers ought never to cease till their incomes are doubled. May
Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund become a permanent source of blessing to ministers
and churches!” The work must not flag for lack of funds, and as the demand
has always been so much greater than the supply, the wherewithal to provide
the books cannot be received too quickly. That the devoted woman who
originated the ‘Fund, who conducted it with such splendid success for so
long, and who gave so generously in her lifetime of her services and
substance, has left some money for the Fund, will doubtless only act as an
incentive to other “stewards of the Lord” to give liberally, so that this
important effort may more and more cope with the need which led to its
institution. As a tribute to the memory of Mrs. Spurgeon, what could be
better than a gift to the Book Fund which will still bear her name? If
greatness depends upon the amount of good which one does in the world, if it
is only another name for unselfish devotion in the service of others - and
surely true greatness is all this - then Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon will go down to
posterity as one of the greatest women of her time. 1892 Mr. Spurgeon passed
away at 11:00 pm. on Sunday, January 31st. The news was headlined in the
London newspapers on the following Monday morning. According to French law,
the body was required to remain in the hotel for 24 hours. A service was
conducted at the Scottish Presbyterian Church in Mentone. The telephone
wires were blocked with messages of condolence from all around the world.
The body was shipped back to London and lay in view at the Common Room of
the College, while some 50,000 people passed by. Five funeral services were
planned at the Tabernacle, four of them on Wednesday, February 10th. The
first was for all the church members; the second, for ministers and
students; the third, for the “Christian workers”; and the last one, for the
general public. Another service was held the following morning before the
body was transported to Norwood Cemetery. Hundreds of thousands lined the
route. At the orphanage a stand had been erected for the children to stand
on to sing while the body passed, however, they could only weep. Barriers
had been placed around the tomb, within which 1,000 mourners assembled, and
beyond which several thousand crowded. The last words were spoken by
Archibald Brown, a graduate of the College. Others who joined in the funeral
services included Dr. A. T. Pierson, Dr. Alexander MacLann, Dr. F. B. Meyer,
and Ira D. Sankey on behalf of D. L. Moody, who was conducting meetings in
Scotland and was unable to attend. After 57 years of living, 40 years of
preaching, and 14,692 baptisms which led to membership at the Tabernacle,
the “silver bell” was silenced, his “pen” still preaching to millions in our
generation. If he is doing what he predicted, he is now standing on some
street comer in the celestial city, proclaiming to passing angels “the old,
old story of Jesus and His love.”
Chapter 1 - Early Years
MRS. SPURGEON was born on
January 15th, 1832, and her girlhood days were spent partly in the Southern
suburbs and partly in the City of London, which had not then, as now, ceased
to be residential. In the political world the times were stirring; there
were wars and rumors of wars, but probably little of the turmoil of the
nations was known to the young maiden, for English girls were not then
allowed to read morning and evening newspapers and encouraged to give their
opinions upon the latest events of the day. Her father, Mr. R. B. Thompson,
and her mother attended New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, from time to
time, and their daughter Susannah used to accompany ‘them, so that with ‘the
ministry of the Pastor, James Smith (afterwards of Cheltenham) she was
familiar. “A quaint and rugged preacher, but one well versed in the blessed
art of bringing souls to Christ,” is how Mrs.. Spurgeon describes him.
“Often had I seen him administer the ordinance of baptism ‘to the
candidates, wondering with a tearful longing whether I should ever be able
thus to confess my faith in the Lord Jesus. I can recall the old-fashioned
dapper figure of the senior deacon, of whom I stood very much in awe. He was
a lawyer and wore the silk stockings and knee-breeches dear to a former
generation. When the time came to give out the hymns he mounted an open desk
immediately beneath the pulpit; and from where I sat, I had a side view of
him. To the best of my remembrance he was a short, stout man, and his rotund
body, perched on his undraped legs and clothed in a long-tailed coat gave
him an unmistakable resemblance to a gigantic robin; and when he chirped out
the verses of the hymn in a piping, twittering voice, I thought the likeness
was complete!”
Married Life
Happiness and Service
Widowhood
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Spurgeon Collection" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
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Online since 1986