To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage—
The missionary, come of weaver kin,
But great by work that brooks no lower wage.
He needs no epitaph to guard a name
Which men shall prize while worthy work is known;
He lived and died for good—be that his fame;
Let marble crumble—this is Living-stone!
16. SPURGEON, PREACHER
The life-story of Charles Haddon Spurgeon is an epic of accomplishment. The eldest of a family of seventeen children—a true Rooseveltian family—he was born June 19, 1834, to Rev. John Spurgeon, minister of the Congregational Church at Kilvedon, Essex County, England, and his wife, formerly Miss Jarvis. Both parents were earnest, devout, intellectual people who gave their children all that was possible to provide on a very small salary. At an early age he went to live in the home of his grandfather, also a Congregational minister. One day a visiting minister, struck with the boy’s ability and character, said, “This lad will preach the gospel to thousands.” Having received a good education at a private academy at Colchester, at fifteen he became an assistant school-teacher. One Sunday, when he was sixteen, he visited a little Methodist church and heard a sermon on the text, “Look unto me and be ye saved.” This sermon led to his conversion. He said, “I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard the word ‘Look!’ what a charming word it seemed to me.” At seventeen he became a teacher in a classical school in Cambridge, and was often in demand for addresses to Sunday-school children. At eighteen he was known as the “boy preacher,” and became minister of the Baptist Church at Waterbeach, five miles from Cambridge, on an annual salary of two hundred dollars. This young school-teacher also preached at thirteen village stations maintained by his little church. An address at a Sunday-school anniversary was heard by a stranger, who was so much impressed by it that he recommended this young man as the pastor of a famous Baptist church in London, to which he was called at the age of nineteen. He was so eloquent, persuasive, straightforward, that he won the hearts of his hearers, and soon all London and England was talking of the youthful Whitefield. Within a year the church building had to be enlarged and overflowing congregations came to hear him in the great Exeter Hall. Then the enlarged church proved much too small to accommodate the crowds who flocked to hear him. The Music Hall of Surrey Gardens, an immense building, was rented, and it was a common thing for him to preach to ten thousand people at one service. He was ridiculed and caricatured in merciless ways by newspapers, ministers, and others, but his motto was, “Drive On! Drive On!” And in his simple and earnest preaching he drove on. In 1861 the great, classic Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened for services. It cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and seats five thousand five hundred persons, with standing room for almost one thousand more. For thirty years, or until his death, he preached in the great building with every seat and all the available standing-room occupied. His congregation included all classes—professional men, tradesmen, dock-hands, soldiers in their bright-red uniforms, men and women of title, the poor outcast with the shawl over her head, the blear-eyed drunkard, Chinamen and bronzed Indiamen, and visitors from America and other lands—all hanging on the words of this most popular preacher of the world. In appearance he was not a prepossessing man. He was below the medium height, stout, his short hair brushed back from a low forehead, small eyes, heavy lips, fat cheeks hanging over a heavy jaw fringed with a short beard. He looked like a plain, every-day business man. Instead of a white cravat he wore a little black tie. His voice was remarkable for its sweetness and purity, as well as its penetrating power. His language was simple, but a massive grandeur accompanied his simplicity of speech, which captivated every listener. There was also a peculiar directness of address that made every hearer feel that he was the person spoken to as a member of a family entering into confidence with the father of the household. Besides being “England’s greatest preacher,” as an archdeacon of Saint Paul’s Cathedral called him, he was a great philanthropist, commentator, administrator, lecturer, and writer. An orphanage for boys was begun in 1867, and one for girls in 1880, at Stockwell, London. In these orphanages five or six hundred father-less children, from six to ten years, find a comfortable home and training until they are fourteen. People of wealth entrusted to him large gifts of money for this philanthropic work, because they had perfect confidence in whatever he undertook. He built a Pastor’s College, where poor young men could receive proper training for their work as ministers or missionaries. He also edited a monthly magazine, “The Sword and Trowel”; wrote commentaries; organized a colportage association; and encouraged his wife’s “Book Fund” to provide free gifts of books for poor pastors. He wrote and published thirty-seven volumes of sermons and numberless tracts. He loved to give away Bibles. He was beloved by all denominations, and his sermons and other works, read and admired by all classes, have been translated into many foreign tongues. He was very happy in his home life with his charming wife and twin sons, who became preachers. “That word ‘home,’” he used to say, “rings like a peal of wedding bells, only more sweet and low, and it chimes deeper into the ear of the heart.” After a short illness, this great preacher and philanthropist died, at the age of only fifty-eight. That wonderful voice, which for more than forty years had swayed great multitudes with its fervid eloquence, was heard by a few listeners to say, faint and low, and almost inarticulate, “I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.” These words were inscribed on his coffin of olive-wood, the wood itself symbolic of peace.