The Rev. Richard Knill visited the family, and was shown about the garden by the young Charles. In the great yew-tree arbor the good man knelt with the lad, and, with his arm about his neck, prayed for his conversion. In the house, taking him on his knee, Mr. Knill said, "I do not know how it is, but I feel a solemn presentiment that this child will preach the gospel to thousands, and God will bless him to many souls.
"So sure am I of this, that when my little man preaches in Rowland Hill's chapel, as he will do one day, I should like him to promise me that he will give out the hymn commencing,—
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform!"
Years later the famous Charles Spurgeon preached in the pulpit of Rowland Hill, in the largest Non-conformist Church in London, before the Metropolitan Tabernacle was built, and read the hymn desired by Mr. Knill.
Charles attended school in Colchester, to which town his family had moved, and became well versed in Latin and mathematics. At an Agricultural College at Maidstone he spent a year, and then went to Newmarket, as an assistant in the school. After a year at the latter place, he removed to Cambridge, to assist a former teacher, Mr. Henry Leeding, in a school for young men. Here he taught, and carried on his own studies as well.
In January, 1850, at the age of sixteen, young Spurgeon was converted in Colchester. He had been for some time troubled at heart, and determined to visit every place of worship in the town, to see if he could not find help. "What I wanted to know," he says, "was, 'How can I get my sins forgiven?' and they never told me that. I wanted to hear how a poor sinner, under a sense of sin, might find peace with God; and when I went I heard a sermon on, 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked,' which cut me up worse, but did not say how I might escape. I went again another day, and the text was something about the glories of the righteous; nothing for poor me!...
"At last one snowy day—it snowed so much I could not go to the place I had determined to go to, and I was obliged to stop on the road; and it was a blessed stop to me—I found rather an obscure street, and turned down a court, and there was a little chapel. I wanted to go somewhere, but I did not know this place. It was the Primitive Methodist Chapel."
Spurgeon went in and sat down, waiting for the service to begin. "At last," he says, "a very thin-looking man came into the pulpit, and opened his Bible, and read these words, 'Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.' Just setting his eyes upon me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, 'Young man, you are in trouble.' Well, I was, sure enough. Says he, 'You will never get out of it unless you look to Christ.' And then, lifting up his hands, he cried out, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, 'Look, look, look! It is only look,' said he. I saw at once the way to salvation. Oh, how I did leap for joy at that moment! I know not what else he said. I did not take much notice of it; I was so possessed with that one thought."
While at Newmarket, young Spurgeon was immersed in the River Lark, at Isleham Ferry, May 3, 1850, on his mother's birthday. He had read the Scriptures for himself, and believed that they favored this method of Baptism, rather than sprinkling. At first the youth of sixteen, in his round jacket and broad white turn-down collar, felt timid at seeing the crowds on either side of the river; but once in the water, his fears left him, and he enjoyed great peace at heart.