Chapter 28: Criticism of the London Press

Chapter 28.
Criticisms Of The London Press

Wild Rumours—Violent Articles in the London Papers—Some Sample Extracts—The Other Side, as given by Friends and Impartial Observers. The cases of death were some of them touching instances of young persons going out from their homes in a state of health and expectancy, and in a few hours being carried back stiffened corpses, with features blackened by suffocation. The great building contained neither flue nor fireplace of any kind, and hence did not seem to be a place likely to become a prey to fire. On the morning after the accident the hall was found to be strewn with all kinds of garments which had belonged to men, women, or children, the quantity being so great that the police-station at Lock's Fields could hardly find sufficient storage room for them. Both inside the hall and among the crowd outside a number of thieves committed many robberies, but not one of these offenders appears to have been apprehended. During the night the wildest rumours were current throughout London, and the excitement was certainly not allayed when the newspapers appeared on the following morning with reports of the catastrophe, accompanied by leading articles which more or less misrepresented the facts of the case. It was now that the young pastor realised the advantage of having two such friends to stand by him as James Grant of The Morning Advertiser, and Dr. John Campbell of The British Banner. A correspondent of The Morning Advertiser said:—

"A variety of absurd and inaccurate statements have been made as to the causes which led Mr. Spurgeon to leave Exeter Hall, and, consequently, necessitated the use of some larger building than his own chapel, and thus eventually led him to the Surrey Music Hall, where this catastrophe occurred. Exeter Hall was taken while the New Park Street Chapel was being enlarged; but when that edifice was duly finished the Exeter Hall committee refused to allow Mr. Spurgeon the use of that building any longer. The fact is, that it would have been contrary to their rules, inasmuch as, to prevent any infringement of their non-sectarian character, they have provided that no minister or sect shall be allowed to take possession of the Hall any longer than they may be necessitated to do so by their own buildings being under repair. When, therefore, Mr. Spurgeon's chapel in New Park Street was reopened on its completion, the committee of Exeter Hall could no longer, consistently with their rules, permit him the use of it, or the building would have become identified with his name, and thus its unsectarian character, which has been so jealously guarded, would have been lost. These are the facts of the case, and they will be a sufficient answer to the divers wild imaginings of those who sought to account for a result, while they were ignorant of the circumstances which led to it." On the Monday evening there was a meeting at New Park Street Chapel, when Mr. Moore, one of the deacons, said:—

"With reference to the origin of the alarm, there is no doubt that it originated from wicked designing men. Oh, that dreadful scene! You are anxious to hear about our poor pastor—he is very bad. Very bad I say, not from any injuries or bruises he has received, but from the extreme tension on his nerves, and his great anxiety. So bad is he that we were fearful for his mind this morning. Under these circumstances, only one thing could be done—that is, to send him into the country away from the scene. As we knew that a great number of persons would call at his house during the day, we sent him early this morning, so that none of his engagements can be entered into this week. From information I have just received I am enabled to tell you that to-night he is a little better, but still very prostrate. Mr. Olney (another deacon) is still in bed. Let us be more merciful to our enemies of last night than they were to us. That wicked wretch—that man whom we are justified in calling a miscreant—who first gave the dreadful signal by which so much life was lost—let us even pray for him. Who knows but that he may one day stand in this room and own his great crime, and seek for repentance?" In referring to the accident The Freeman maintained that Mr. Spurgeon and his friends were right in hiring the hall, and dismissed as puerile "the charges of ambition or vanity against the preacher or his deacons for following what seemed to be the leadings of Providence and the dictates of Christian zeal." The Times made some strange mistakes in reference to the disaster. It was said that 20,000 persons went to a new hall to hear a preacher who was "only twenty-five;" and for whom "they are building a place somewhere to hold 15,000." The writer inferred that due care had not been taken, and that under the circumstances the accident was just of the kind that might have been expected. Some advice was then given to Mr. Spurgeon, the impression being that he was ambitious of addressing greater multitudes than had ever been spoken to before by any popular orator:—

"The human voice is limited. Stentor himself could not be heard by the whole human race. On certain occasions 20,000 people are assembled in St. Paul's, but they do not hear, or expect to hear; on the contrary, as soon as the preacher appears in the pulpit they take out sandwiches, buns, brandy-flasks, and newspapers. No church in the metropolis holds 3,000, though some have a name for more. There is something, then, very ambitious, to say the least, in the attempt to have five times as many hearers as anybody has had before. Let Mr. Spurgeon be at least content with as many as the Surrey Music Hall was intended to hold sitting in comfort and with sufficient means of exit.... Would Mr. Spurgeon be so good as to attend to the subject at once? Next Sunday, instead of 20,000, the Surrey Gardens will be blockaded from four o'clock by at least 50,000. They will expect to hear, not only Mr. Spurgeon, but also a sermon from him on the sudden fate of the victims last Sunday. The prospect is rather a serious one, and if this gentleman and his friends have the means of providing against a crush, or the effects of a panic, they will be held responsible for omitting to do so."

It may be interesting to quote some additional opinions on this terrible incident which appeared in the London papers. The Daily News had an article, and Dr. Campbell characterised its representations as "cruel in the extreme":—

"But the crowd had been assembled to collect a subscription towards the erection of such a mammoth chapel, and Mr. Spurgeon and his friends were unwilling that the opportunity should bo lost. Therefore this untimeous reminder; therefore Mr. Spurgeon's exclamation to the panic-stricken fugitives, that they were more afraid of temporal than eternal death; therefore the indecent rattling of money-boxes in their ears. We might go further, and remark on the callous manner in which Mr. Spurgeon and his friends left the meeting, without one attempt to aid or soothe the sufferers; but we are willing to make allowance for the bewilderment which such a spectacle was calculated to produce." For many years previous to Mr. Spurgeon's death, The Daily Telegraph showed a truly generous appreciation of him and his work. On the morning after the Surrey Gardens calamity, however, this journal probably exceeded all the other London newspapers in the harshness of its censure, e.g.:—

"Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher who hurls damnation at the heads of his sinful hearers. Some men there are who, taking their precepts from the Holy Writ, would beckon erring souls to a rightful path with fair words and gentle admonition; Mr. Spurgeon would take them by the nose and bully them into religion. Let us set up a barrier to the encroachments and blasphemies of men like Spurgeon, saying to them, 'Thus far shalt thou come and no further;' let us devise some powerful means which shall tell to the thousands who now stand in need of enlightenment, This is man, in his own opinion, is a righteous Christian, but in ours nothing more than a ranting charlatan. We are neither strait-laced nor Sabbatarian in our sentiments, but we would keep apart, widely apart, the theatre and the church; above all, we would place in the hand of every right-thinking man a whip to scourge from society the authors of such vile blasphemies as on Sunday night, above the cries of the dead and the dying, and louder than the wails of misery from the maimed and suffering, resounded from the mouth of Spurgeon in the music hall of the Surrey Gardens. And lastly, when the mangled corpses had been carried away from the unhallowed and disgraceful scene—when husbands were seeking their wives, and children their mothers, in extreme agony and despair—the chink of the money, as it fell into the collection-boxes, grated harshly, miserably, on the ears of those who, we sincerely hope, have by this time conceived for Mr. Spurgeon and his rantings the profoundest contempt."

After the majority of the morning papers had spoken in a strain which seemed to suit the temper of their readers, one of the most influential of the evening journals was more generous in its testimony:—

"We have inquired of respectable persons who were present, and they inform us, up to the moment, during the prayer, when the bell was heard to tinkle, and the cry of 'Fire!' was raised, no worship they ever attended was conducted with more solemnity and decorum; that the singing of a hymn by so many thousands of persons, in so vast a building, was peculiarly impressive; and that but for the intentional disturbance, the effect of the whole must have been all that could be desired. We hardly think anyone can be held responsible for not conjecturing that any even of the lowest roughs and rowdies could be found wicked enough to hazard the lives of so many persons, however willing they might have been to annoy one whom they, of course, judged a fanatical preacher." The Evening Star, then a widely circulated penny journal, also joined in the discussion with some vigour, showing that other questions than the mere structure of buildings, or the protection of excited panic-stricken multitudes from harm, were raised by the accident at the Surrey Gardens. That mishap had brought the vocation of the preacher and the secret of his power within the range of newspaper discussion. The Star then proceeded to deal with things as they were. It often happened that a curate, who preached better than his rector, gave offence rather than satisfaction to his employer. The so-called popular preacher was rarely found to belong to the common people. To go into any ordinary church or chapel was to see a middle-class congregation:—

"But where are the artisan classes—that keen-eyed, strong-minded race, who crowd the floor at political meetings or cheap concerts, fill the minor theatres, and struggle into the shilling gallery of the Lyceum or Princess's? So very scanty is their attendance upon the most noted preachers, that it is their adhesion to Mr. Spurgeon which has made that gentleman a prodigy and a phenomenon. The first that we heard of him, two or three years since, was that the Bankside labourers went to hear him on Sunday and week nights. The summer before last we found the artisans of Bethnal Green, a much more fastidious race, flocking round him in a field at Hackney. And in the list of the killed and wounded at the Music Hall are journeymen painters, tanners, and milliners' girls. It is worth while to ask the reason why.

"A simple hearing is sufficient to answer the question, supposing that the hearer can also see. There never yet was a popular orator who did not talk more and better with his arms than with his tongue. Mr. Spurgeon knows this instinctively. When he has read his text he does not fasten his eyes on a manuscript and his hands to a cushion. As soon as he begins to speak he begins to act; and that, not as if declaiming on the stage, but as if conversing with you in the street. He seems to shake hands with all round, and put everyone at his ease. There is no laboured exordium, making you wonder by what ingenious winding he will get back to the subject; but a trite saying, an apt quotation, a simple allegory, or two or three familiar sentences, making all who hear feel interested and at home. Then there is no philosophical pomp of exposition, but just two or three catch-words, rather to guide than to confine attention. Presently comes, by way of illustration, a gleam of humour; perhaps a stroke of downright vulgarity—it may be, a wretched pun. The people are amused, but they are not left at liberty to laugh. The preacher's comedy does but light up his solemn earnestness. He is painting some scene of death-bed remorse or of timely repentance; some Magdalene's forgiveness or some Prodigal's return. His colours are taken from the earth and sky of common human experience and aspiration. He dips his pencil, so to speak, in the veins of the nearest spectator and makes his work a part of every man's nature. His images are drawn from the homes of the common people, the daily toil for daily bread, the nightly rest of tired labour, the mother's love for a wayward boy, the father's tenderness to a sick daughter. His anecdotes are not far-fetched, and have a natural pathos. He tells how some despairing unfortunate, hastening with her last penny to the suicide bridge, was stopped by the sound of psalmody, and turned into this chapel; or how some widow's son, running away from his mother's home, was brought back by the recollection of a prayer, and sits now in that pew. He does not narrate occurrences, but describes them with a rough, graphic force and faithfulness. He does not reason out his doctrines, but announces, explains, and applies them. He ventures a political allusion, and it goes right to the democratic heart. In the open air someone may interrupt or interrogate, and the response is a new effect. In short, this man preaches Christianity, his Christianity, at any rate, as Ernest Jones preaches Chartism, and as Gough preaches temperance. Is it any wonder that he meets with like success? or is he to be either blamed or scorned? Let it first be remembered that Latimer was not less homely when he preached before the king, nor South less humorous when he cowed Rochester; nor Whitefield less declamatory when he moved Hume and Franklin; nor Rowland Hill less vulgar though brother to a baronet. To us it appears that dulness is the worst fault possible to a man whose first business it is to interest; that the dignity of the pulpit is best consulted by making it attractive, and that the clergy of all denominations might get some frequent hints for the composition of their sermons from the young Baptist preacher who never went to college." This was more generous and reassuring, and before many days had passed certain of the writers who had suffered their feelings to bias their judgment may possibly have discovered that they had made a mistake. The Sun, The Morning Advertiser, The Evening Star, plainly showed that Mr. Spurgeon was in no way responsible for the loss of life which had occurred; and hence it only needed the veteran divine and journalist, Dr. Campbell, to give his judgment to make the case for the defence of the young preacher complete. The Nonconformist organ spoke with no uncertain sound in regard to Mr. Spurgeon and his friends:—

"We repeat and contend that, instead of being held up to contempt and execration they deserve to be lauded for their marvellous courage, patience, and perseverance. Supposing them to have pursued a course directly contrary, such as the bulk of the Press, it appears, would have suggested; supposing them to have fled on the outburst of the storm, such flight would have increased the panic tenfold, and where there is now one death to deplore, there might probably have been a score or even twice that number. By the plan they adopted they did more than can be easily estimated to allay fear, inspire courage, and abate the tempest, and thus to prevent farther loss of life. There would otherwise, in all likelihood, have been a rush at all the doors, each contributing more or less—and all fearfully—to the mortality of the occasion! If, notwithstanding the unparalleled exertions of Mr. Spurgeon and his deacons, it was impossible so to quell the commotion as to admit of the resumption of peaceful worship, it may readily be inferred how easily the waves might have been lashed up into an all-devouring fury.

"Let Mr. Spurgeon and his friends, then, think on these things and be comforted; while they did nothing whatever to destroy, they did much to preserve the lives of their fellow-men. The death which ensued was a thing with which they were wholly unconnected; the life which was preserved, the result of an extraordinary exercise of all but superhuman manhood."

While the newspapers were thus commenting on what had occurred, and freely offering their opinions on the preacher himself and his pulpit methods, Spurgeon himself hardly heard even the faint echoes of the tumult in the quiet rural retreat to which his friends had taken him. For a time it seemed as though the powers of evil had broken loose and would overwhelm the strong man who had been recognised at so early an age as a champion of the truth. Dark and heavy was the cloud which hung over him; but suddenly it seemed to lift and pass away, He was in the garden of a friend's house, when, like a gleam of warm reviving sunshine, the truth suggested itself that Christ was still stronger than the devil, so that He who had a name which was above every name would, in the end, be conqueror. Mr. Spurgeon there and then gave thanks in prayer, and was himself again. He returned to his own house, where his wife, with her twin sons—then just about six weeks old—was the light of his home.