Chapter 97: Another Tour In Scotland
Chapter 97.
Another Tour In Scotland The Colporteurs—The British Quarterly Review—At Dunoon—A Mistake about the Highlands—A Talk in the Study.
On the 7th of May Spurgeon drank tea at the Tabernacle with the colporteurs, and presented one of the number with "The Treasury of David" as a recognition of seven years' good service. The men, whose pay was only four shillings a day, were a very respectable body, but on the whole they possessed more physical strength than mental culture, and on this account Mr. Spurgeon was interested in discovering that a man with a college degree was among the band. On the 9th of May he preached the sermon of the London Missionary Society at Christ Church, Westminster Bridge Road, the building being densely packed with a congregation largely made up of ministers. The subject was "War: an Aggressive Church," the text being Jos 7:3; Jos 8:1. The discourse was one of great and searching power. It was a settled conviction of his that the Modern-thought men with whom he believed the Congregational body to abound were authors rather than pastors, readers and not preachers—mere littérateurs, whose sympathies scarce extended beyond their study walls. The sum collected at the Conference of this year was larger than had ever been given before; and while nearly four hundred men had gone forth from the College into the world, there were over one hundred students in course of training. Even the two sons of the President were actively engaged in Christian work, and were at this time collecting funds for the erection of a new chapel in Chatham Road, Wandsworth.
It was at this time that one of the leading Reviews again gave some attention to Spurgeon as a preacher:—
"In his way of preaching Mr. Spurgeon is intensely practical. By that we do not mean that he indulges in 'moral' preaching, which, whatever may be said to the contrary, our fathers were right in considering unprofitable and sterile. We mean that his preaching exactly meets the wants of souls. It is common enough to hear and read appeals to people to concern themselves about their salvation; what people need to be told and desire to be told is what they must do to be saved. Mr. Spurgeon, more minutely and more patiently than any preacher we know, explains the way of peace. It need not be wondered that he has been so greatly blessed; and those who have the care of souls will find no better model. Then, in preaching to Christians, he deals with the actual problems of the Christian life. The chief desire amongst Christians is to gain an assurance of God's love, and to this subject Mr. Spurgeon constantly recurs, not dismissing it with a wave of the hand, but taking it up fully and elaborately. Many excellent sermons act merely as a mental stimulus. They instruct, and even to some extent excite, but they do not meet the deep needs of the soul. It is, we are convinced, one of Mr. Spurgeon's chief sources of power that he devotes himself almost entirely to the great concern. It is this that has made his writings so dearly prized by the dying. There is no more enviable popularity than the popularity which this illustrious minister has amongst those who are in presence of the profoundest realities. When cleverness and eloquence have lost their charms, we have often found the dying listening hungrily to Mr. Spurgeon's writings, when nothing else, save the Word of God, had any charm or power. While other preachers have produced far more brilliant sermons than he, we have no hesitation in saying that he is the best model for preachers, and that those who care for usefulness rather than for fame will choose him as their truest inspirer and guide." In June he was in an improved condition of health, and early in the month laid the memorial-stone of a chapel in Trinity Road, Upper Tooting, towards which he had given £250.
Consequent on the recurrence of his complaint he was compelled to give up a number of engagements. But on his birthday, at the Orphanage, on the 19th of June, he was in excellent spirits and, for him, in good health. On the morning of the day he had received a large number of letters with birthday offerings. There were some thousands of persons present, who were apparently all in an enthusiastic mood. When he attempted to move about the grounds the President was beset by numbers of people anxious to speak a word and to have the honour of a shake of the hand. At night the grounds were illuminated. Mr. Blake, M.P. for Leominster, made an excellent chairman, and good speeches were delivered by various other friends. Mr. Spurgeon's speech was followed by addresses by Canon Hussey and others. In the summer he went northward, and appears to have been absent from his own pulpit during two Sundays—the 22nd and the 29th of July. He was once more the guest of Mr. Duncan, of Benmore, the house occupying a charming site near two lochs, and not far from Helensburgh, where the beloved John Anderson had died some years previously. Mr. Spurgeon was persuaded to preach at the Dunoon skating-rink on Sunday, July 22nd. The day opened with wind and rain; but at two o'clock, when the preacher appeared, the weather was fine, and a crowd of some seven thousand persons, made up of visitors and others, was gathered. An hour before the time for commencing, the place was so thronged that there was some danger of the platform being forced down. "Presumably all the church-going folk in Dunoon were present, for all the churches were closed in the afternoon, and from the surrounding villages and the other side of the water there were great streams of people. Some of the congregation came as far as from Garelochhead, a journey involving a walk of about twenty-two miles, and crossing and re-crossing of two lochs." The subject of the sermon was the "Ministry of Reconciliation" (2Co 5:18). In the evening, the weather being fine, and the atmosphere being exceptionally clear, the scene in the grounds at Benmore was still more striking, on account of the extreme beauty of the surrounding scenery. During the afternoon streams of people were seen wending their way along the roads on both sides of Holy Loch, while steam and sailing yachts had brought others long distances in order to be present. An eye-witness gave at the time this graphic description of the scene:—
"If the weather were to prove unpropitious the new United Presbyterian church in the town had been agreed upon as the meeting-place. Several boats containing occupants were lying in the bay. When Mr. Spurgeon ascended the platform, he advanced to the front of it, and in a clear, ringing voice remarked that, as most of his audience were standing, he would not make the service very long, to which he added that he should have to stand also. This seemed to tickle his listeners, and though the day was Sunday, and the scene the shores of a Scotch river, a general laugh could be heard. Then in a most solemn manner the reverend gentleman opened the proceedings with prayer. When finished he announced the 89th Psalm. This he read out, and having asked the crowd to watch the time in singing, the precentor led to the tune of 'Martyrdom.' The effect was very grand, for the vast concourse of people seemed to be impressed by the Christian associations which the meeting recalled, and they sung the psalm with great earnestness, Mr. Spurgeon beating time with his psalm-book. Another prayer followed, and in it the Deity was addressed as the 'God of the Covenanters,' and a special appeal was made on behalf of those in the congregation who were unconverted. So well did Mr. Spurgeon speak that at some distance from the shore his voice was distinctly heard, and one remarkable feature was that the echo was so perfect that the words could be understood almost as well as when the speaker uttered them. During the sermon a large number of ladies fainted owing to the great heat and crush; but, in spite of the fears which at an earlier stage of the proceedings were entertained as to the stability of the front wall of the rink, the meeting was unattended by any mishap." On the evening of Sunday, the 29th, he preached at Oban to a congregation of three thousand, who belonged to Oban itself, and to Easdale, Benderloch, Kibninver, and other villages. On the preceding afternoon he had preached at Fort William, the banks and public offices being closed during the service. When, the next day, the preacher appeared, he not only seemed to be fagged, but confessed that he was not up to the mark; and it may have occurred to some of his friends that such a way of spending "a holiday" was not likely to bring health and strength.
"The place selected for the gathering was the slope of the Oban Hill, adjacent to the Free Church, and overlooking the spot where only three days before that good and worthy man, Professor Keddie, dropped dead. In front of the speaker's platform the scene presented a beautiful picture. On a gentle slope were gathered the large mass of people; while immediately behind, the hill rose like a huge wall clothed in the richest verdure." A Scottish paper gives the following description of the event:—
"Long before the hour appointed for the commencement of the service the hill-side was well-nigh filled with people, many of whom came a long distance—some twenty and thirty miles—to hear the distinguished preacher.... From the platform, which was temporarily erected, and covered with tarpaulin to protect the speaker from the weather should it prove unfavourable, Mr. Spurgeon had a full view of the congregation. Speaking of the depravity of man's heart and its antagonism to the will of God, he said that the stars in the firmament were only restrained by Omnipotence from darting baleful fires against those who were obnoxious to God. The Christian, he said, depended upon his God for his spiritual prosperity as much as the vegetable world depended upon the heat of the sun for its growth. He concluded with a most earnest appeal to his hearers to accept of God's salvation through Christ, reminding them all, young and old, that they and he would meet again when heaven and earth would be in a blaze, and on that day none of their blood would be on his head." This visit to the north excited great interest; but although the Scots accepted the great preacher's Gospel, they wished it to be understood that his references to Highland history and customs were not always to he taken without question, e.g.:—
"Mr. Spurgeon made one mistake in the Highlands. At Dunoon he delivered in his prayer an apostrophe to the 'God of the Covenanters;' and at Oban he improved upon this by speaking of the times of old when the mountains and valleys of the surrounding country had resounded with the psalms sung by the Covenanters. The worthy pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, whom we all hope to see often in this part of the world, must revise his study of Scottish history against his next visit. He will learn, on further inquiry, that the parts about Oban, instead of contributing subscribers to the Covenant, provided a pretty large proportion of that sanguinary 'Highland host' which sprinkled some of our Lowland counties with martyr graves. Happily, a great change has come over the Land of Lorne, and this was indicated at the close of Mr. Spurgeon's Oban sermon, when crowds of venerable Highland peasants, some of the women especially very far advanced in life, crowded round the great preacher to shake hands with him and invoke the blessing of God upon himself and his work. Not a few of the old dames told him how greatly they enjoyed reading his sermons at home, and Mr. Spurgeon was much affected by these tokens of friendly feeling, so fervently expressed by the sons and daughters of the Gael, no longer the instruments of despotism and superstition, but the most ardently Evangelical and Protestant section of the Scottish nation."
One after another friends continued to be removed by death. Mr. J. C. Marshman, son of Dr. Marshman, the missionary to India, died in July; and in August, one of the most promising of the men trained in the College, Mr. W. H. Priter, of Middlesbrough, also passed away, at the age of twenty-six. To the President of the College this came almost like a personal bereavement. It was at this time that an endeavour was made to get Spurgeon to visit the Australasian colonies; but his reply was similar to that which he had given to the Americans. The annual picnic of the College was held on August 7 in the grounds of Mr. Coventry, at the end of Nightingale Lane. Dr. Hodge, the American theologian, was present, and Mr. Spurgeon said the doctor was at home among them. "The longer I live," he said, "the clearer does it appear that John Calvin's system is the nearest to perfection;" and he added that "if all other divines stood on each other's shoulders they would not reach up to the Reformer's toes." Rain came on in the afternoon, so that a good deal of speaking was got through in a tent, Professor Hodge taking his turn on the hamper which served the speakers for a rostrum. The long course of afternoon speeches was closed by some forcible utterances by Mr.
Spurgeon. "Look at the condition of London and let it revive your zeal. As regards intellectual opposition to the Gospel, truth will ultimately triumph; for in the end 'God has said' will surely stand against 'Man has thought.'" In the evening I was with him in his study for a short time in company with Mr. Alabaster, the publisher, Mr, Smith, from India, and another. He was in good spirits, and related some anecdotes respecting his visit to the north. While on board Mr. Duncan's yacht, on which he had spent some days, the weather being uncongenial, the company endeavoured to make amends for rain and wind by an extra flow of spirits. Mr. Spurgeon remarked that members of the medical profession as a rule were extremely jealous of one another, and the assertion was at once resented by a surgeon who was sitting at the table. He spoke as a man who had something in himself wherewith to weight his opinions. He had been high in the profession for many years, and had seen nothing of such opposition and disagreement. Mr. Spurgeon then said something about homœopathy, at the very mention of which the other fired up, and hoped that was not considered a science at all, and indeed spoke in a strain which showed that he regarded all but allopaths as mere empirics. Mr. Spurgeon had gained his point, and, to the no small chagrin of his opponent, pointed to what had been said against homoeopathy as proof of the justice of the original assertion. In a certain Society journal at this time there appeared an article on "Mr. Spurgeon at the Tabernacle," which was exceedingly characteristic of the class the paper aspired to represent. In literary power it was far behind the brilliant sketch of The World some months previously, which the pastor himself, in my hearing, acknowledged to be magnificently done. It abounded in foreign phrases, and the affectation of ignorance as to the locality of the chapel or the "Elephant and Castle" was too forced to be even amusing. Mr. Spurgeon is put down as "the Anak of the pulpit," "the Chrysostom of Anabaptism," and so on; but still the writer evidently felt bound to qualify his compliments with a good deal of the fashionable rhodomontade which his readers expected. The impression left on the mind after reading the article was that the Society journalist understood Spurgeon about as perfectly as Spurgeon himself would have understood a prima donna at the opera.
About this time he wrote a preface to a little work—the Life of a well-known member of the Tabernacle Church—and the members of the firm which had undertaken the publication objected to proceed on account of something being said about the subject of the work being free from Plymouthism. Spurgeon's peremptory answer was that not a word should be altered or taken out; and this led to the book being published elsewhere.