It always seemed to me the great characteristic of Mr. Spurgeon was good-natured jollity. He was as full of fun as a boy. I saw him once before getting into a wagonette pitch all the rugs on his brother’s head, who naturally returned the compliment—much to the amusement of the spectators. On one occasion I happened to be in the Tabernacle when the Baptist Union dined there, as it always did at the time of the Baptist anniversaries. I suppose there would be many hundreds present who enjoyed the ample repast and the accompanying claret and sherry. After the dinner was over Mr. Spurgeon came up to where I was sitting and, laying his hand on my shoulder and pointing to the long rows of empty bottles left standing on the table, with a twinkle in his eye, said, “Teetotalism does not seem to flourish among the brethren, does it?” And he was as kind as he was cheerful. Once and once only I had to write to him. He returned me a reply addressed to me in my proper name, and then—as I was writing weekly articles under a nom de plume in a highly popular journal—added, in a postscript, “Kind regards to —” (mentioning my nom de plume). The anecdote is trivial, but it shows how genial and kind-hearted he was.
And to the last what crowds attended his ministry at the Tabernacle! One Saturday I went to dine with a friend living on Clapham
Common. Going back to town early in the morning I got into an omnibus, and was amused by hearing the conductor exclaim, “Any more for the Tabernacle!” “Now, then, for the Tabernacle!” “This way for the Tabernacle!” and, sure enough, I found all my fellow-passengers got out when we arrived at the Tabernacle; nor was the ’bus in which I was riding the only one thus utilised. There was no end of omnibuses from all quarters drawing up at the entrance. According to the latest utterance of Mr. Herbert Beerbohm Tree, in this age of ours faith is tinged with philosophic doubt, love is regarded as but a spasm of the nervous system, life itself as the refrain of a music-hall song. At the Tabernacle the pastor and people were of a very different way of thinking.
And Mr. Spurgeon was no windbag—vox et præterea nihil; no darling pet of old women whose Christianity was flabby as an oyster. He was an incessant worker, and taught his people to work as well in his enormous church. Such was the orderly arrangement that, as he said, if one of his people were to get tipsy, he should know it before the week was out. He never seemed to lose a moment. “Whenever I have been permitted,” he wrote on one occasion, “sufficient respite from my ministerial duties to enjoy a lengthened tour or even a short excursion, I have been in the habit of carrying with me a small note-book, in which I have
jotted down any illustrations that occurred to me on the way. The note-book has been useful in my travels as a mental purse.” Yet the note-book was not intrusive. A friend of mine took Mr. Spurgeon in his steam yacht up the Highlands. Mr. Spurgeon was like a boy out of school—all the while naming the mountains after his friends.
It is also to be noted how the public opinion altered with regard to Mr. Spurgeon. When he came first to London aged ministers and grey-haired deacons shook their heads. What could they think of a young minister who could stop in the middle of his sermon, and say, “Please shut that window down, there is a draught. I like a draught of porter, but not that kind of draught”? It was terrible! What next? was asked in fear and trepidation. These things were, I believe, often said on purpose, and they answered their purpose. “Fire low,” said a general to his men on one occasion. “Fire low,” said old Jay, of Bath, as he was preaching to a class of students. Mr. Spurgeon fired low. It is astonishing how that kind of preaching tells. I was travelling in Essex last summer, and in the train were two old men, one of whom lived in Kelvedon, where Mr. Spurgeon was born, who had sent the Baptist preacher some fruit from Kelvedon, which was, as he expected, thankfully received. “Did you see what Mr. Spurgeon says in this week’s
sermon?” said he to the other. “No.” “Why, he said the devil said to him the other day, ‘Mr. Spurgeon, you have got a good many faults,’ and I said to the devil, ‘So have you,’” and then the old saints burst out laughing as if the repartee was as brilliant as it seemed to me the reverse; but I leave censure to the censorious. In his early youth, Sadi, the great Persian classic, tells us, he was over much religious, and found fault with the company sleeping while he sat in attendance on his father with the Koran in his lap, never closing his eyes all night. “Oh, emanation of your father,” replied the old man, “you had better also have slept than that you should thus calumniate the failings of mankind.”
CHAPTER XII.
Memories of Exeter Hall.
As the season of the May Meetings draws near, one naturally thinks of Exeter Hall and its interesting associations. When I first came to London it had not long been open, and it was a wonder to the young man from the country to see its capacious interior and its immense platform crowded in every part. It had a much less gorgeous interior than now, but its capacities for stowing away a large audience still remains the same; and then, as now, it was available alike for Churchmen and Dissenters to plead the claims of the great religious societies, but it seems to me that the audiences were larger and more enthusiastic at that early date, though I know not that the oratory was better. Bishops on the platform were rare, and the principal performer in that line was Bishop Stanley, of Norwich, a grotesque-looking little man, but not so famous as his distinguished son, the Dean of Westminster. Leading Evangelical ministers from the country—such as James, of Birmingham, who had a very pathetic voice, and Hugh McNeile, of Liverpool,
an Irishman, with all an Irishman’s exuberance of gesture and of language—were a great feature. At times the crowds were so great that a meeting had to be improvised in the Lower Hall, then a much darker hall than it is now, but which, at any rate, answered its end for the time being. The missionary meetings were the chief attraction. Proceedings commenced early, and were protracted far into the afternoon; but the audience remained to the last, the ladies knitting assiduously all the while the report was being read, and only leaving off to listen when the speaking began. Perhaps the most crowded meeting ever held there—at any rate, in my time—was when Prince Albert took the chair to inaugurate Sir Fowell Buxton’s grand, but unfortunate, scheme for the opening up of the Congo. He spoke in a low tone, and with a somewhat foreign accent. Bishop Wilberforce’s oratory on that occasion was overpowering; the Prince’s eyes were rivetted on him all the while. Sir Robert Peel spoke in a calm, dignified, statesmanlike manner, but the expression of his face was too supercilious to be pleasing. And there was Daniel O’Connell—big, burly, rollicking—who seemed to enjoy the triumph of his own presence, though not permitted to speak. The other time when I remember an awful crush at Exeter Hall was at an anti-slavery meeting, when Lord Brougham