Mr. Spurgeon loved to give away the Bible. He once said before the British and Foreign Bible Society, "Somebody may say it is of very little use to give away Bibles and Testaments. That is a very great mistake. I have very seldom found it to be a labor in vain to give a present of a Testament. I was greatly astonished about a month ago. A cabman drove me home, and when I paid him his fare, he said, 'It is a long time since I drove you last, sir.'
"'But,' said I, 'I do not recollect you!'
"'Well,' he said, 'I think it is fourteen years ago; but,' he added, 'perhaps you will know this Testament?' pulling one out of his pocket.
"'What,' I said, 'did I give you that?'
"'Oh, yes!' he said; 'and you spoke to me about my soul, and nobody had done that before, and I have never forgotten it.'
"'What,' said I, 'haven't you worn it out?'
"'No,' he said, 'I would not wear it out; I have had it bound.'"
Besides this society, there are ten Bible classes in the Tabernacle; a Loan Tract Society, for the distribution of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons in the neighborhood, and another to spread them in country districts; a Flower Mission, Maternal Society, Mothers' Meetings, Training Class for workers, and the like. There are twenty-three mission stations in connection with the Tabernacle, and twenty-seven Sunday-schools, with over eight thousand scholars.
With all this work, Mr. Spurgeon was a voluminous writer, as well as speaker. He published thirty-seven volumes of sermons, all of which have had an immense circulation. These were regularly printed in many papers. In Australia some of these were published and paid for as advertisements, at a fabulous price, by a gentleman deeply interested in doing good.
The Rev. Thomas Spurgeon wrote home to his father, from Australia, "I received a visit, in Geelong, from a man who produced from his pocket a torn and discolored copy of The Australasian, dated June, 1868, which contained a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon, entitled, 'The Approachableness of Jesus' (No. 809). To this sermon my visitor attributed his conversion.