Chapter 34: "De Propaganda Fide"

Chapter 34.
"De Propaganda Fide"

Lecture for the Young Men's Christian Association at Exeter Hall—Spurgeon in a New Character—Passages from the Lecture—The Preacher's Growth—Arrangements for visiting the United States—Visit to Scotland.

On Tuesday evening, January 4, 1859, I had the happiness of being one of the crowd that had assembled at Exeter Hall to hear Mr. Spurgeon's lecture to the Young Men's Christian Association entitled "De Propaganda Fide." The winter course of lectures had opened on November 17, the 300th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and taken as a whole the series appeared to be of somewhat exceptional interest. The appearance of the name of the young preacher of the Surrey Gardens Music Hall among the other literary or reverend magnates whose services had been secured awakened very general curiosity. This was partly accounted for by the fact that Mr. Spurgeon would appear in a new character, for since his coming to London he had not ventured to appear before the public as a lecturer. Then the title of his lecture struck people as being quite as odd as the circumstance of his lecturing at all. He was asked, "How on earth came you to choose a Latin title for your lecture?" Others who took even a more serious view of the matter asked, "What does he know about Latin?" adding with the authority of well-informed observers, "He may know a little about Saxon, but of Latin he knows nothing." Still, the lecturer, who had already begun to have more confidence in his own judgment than in that of his critics, thought there was wisdom in the phrase; and evidently he did not care to have it altogether monopolised by the Roman Catholic missionaries. Hence, when he had consented to speak to the young men of London, and was asked what the subject would be, he at once replied, "De Propaganda Fide!" The lectures had all been well attended; but no one present on this occasion could ever forget the extra excitement and the additional crowding. Long before the time of opening the doors the crowd was assembled, and the stairs leading to the great hall were blocked by the eager and expectant audience. When he came on to the platform, Mr. Spurgeon was perhaps even more cordially received than usual, for he had only recently recovered from what had been the most severe illness from which he had ever suffered. It was meet, also, to give some rounds of cheers, expressive of a little extra enthusiasm, when a young man of twenty-four was about to enter upon a new department of service. Never did a popular orator, in face of a vast audience, appear to be more self-possessed. Mr. Robert Bevan occupied the chair, and sitting beside him were such well-known personages as Dr. Campbell, Lord Ebury, the Hon. A. Kinnaird, Mr. George Hitchcock, and others.

Mr. Spurgeon remarked at the outset that he felt he should have to give a sermon, such being the force of habit in one who had contracted a strong habit of preaching; but the subject was so far a convenient one that if he wandered from it the people would be able to say that he did not understand his title. The first thing to be done was to explain what was meant by the Propagation of the Faith, a question which needed to be answered, first negatively and then positively:—

"By the Propagation of the Faith he did not mean the nominal Christianity of nations; to bring people merely nominally under the bond of the Covenant was nothing. It was in vain they were Baptists, and had Christian names given them—Chaos made way for John, or Lucius was displaced for Mary. While the Spirit of God was not in it, all was useless. The Romanists tried this, but all in vain. If it were possible to-morrow to gather all Mahomedans and heathens to bow down to the name of Christ; if they could dash down the Crescent and exalt the Cross; if all the gods of the heathen should be displaced by the idolatries of Rome, Christianity would not be advanced one inch. The Propagation of the Faith meant nothing of that sort. Nor did he mean the bringing of large numbers to make a profession of love to Christ, however pleasant that might be in the eyes of a pastor. There were some churches, he regretted to say, which, in the paroxysms of a revival, relaxed the discipline, and were not so cautious as to the character, motives, and habits of those who applied for admission, as they otherwise would have been. Now it was, indeed, of small account that they should multiply their churches, unless they were genuine Christians—if they had not the grace of God in their hearts, they were better out than in. For the effect of such a course was perilous in the extreme; first, it was a sedative to the mind of those who embraced the fallacy; it was a kind of armour with which these persons surrounded themselves when addressed as sinners: 'Oh, we are members of a Christian church.' Again, addition was not always increase. They might add much of the wrong materials, then the Church was not increased, but adulterated; they would break her down, not enlarge her; have defiled her, not increased her. The wider the gulf could be kept between the Church and the world, the better. He did not mean by the Propagation of the Faith the mere conversion of people from one sect to another. When the Church was increased, she must be increased from the world, and not from herself. Any one could see that. He had heard of an American who was so cute that he had made ten per cent, on his money by putting it out of one pocket into the other. He was sure they could not increase the Church by simply taking them out of one church into the other. If a regiment of cavalry wanted recruits, that sergeant would be a fool, and would perpetrate a robbery on her Majesty, were he to recruit from the infantry. Perhaps the army might be greatly improved by removing men from one section to another as a last resource, but to look at that first was the very height of folly. First they must 'go out into the highways and compel them to come in and fill the place.' They were to bring them to the Bible, and after that set the other matters right. To bring up their sectarianism at the present time would be absurd. If in the great movements for the cause of Christ they should say, 'Whose shall these be—shall they belong to the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Independents?' it would be useless to strive for the Propagation of the Faith. No, they should rather say they shall belong to Christ first, and then let them, as shepherds, take some little trouble to put them into the best pastures fully suited to them. The Propagation of the Faith was a person. They might ask one another's religion, but he would reply, the Gospel was a person—something solid on which they could rest. If the twelve apostles had been asked what their faith was, they would have replied, not in a long sermon, but by pointing to Christ, whose life was the Alpha and Omega of the Christian, and save in which no summary of Christianity could be obtained."

Thus to spread abroad the faith was to diffuse a knowledge of Christ; it was not an affair of cold logic, but of the heart. William Huntington and John Wesley represented the extremes; but who would dare to say that each did not effect great good? The lecturer then went on to take a review of Christian work as it was at that time, and to give some sort of an answer to the question, Was it declining or progressing?—

"There were many favourable signs, but there were many others unfavourable. The most favourable, perhaps, was the immense congregations assembling every Sabbath day to hear the Word of God. If only seven years ago they had been told that St. Paul's Cathedral would have been crowded every Sabbath evening, and Ludgate Hill blocked up, they would have disbelieved it. A pleasing feature in this had been the unity of all denominations. Nor was this all. He believed that all the Churches were more awake than ever they had been. He often wanted to steal a march on his brethren, but was unable. He wanted to do something new, something attractive; but before his idea was matured it was commenced elsewhere. In every district it was the same, and nothing was so conducive to spiritual progression; it was a neck-and-neck race who should do most good. Another good thing was the increased unity of the Church. The objects the Evangelical Alliance had been hammering at for so many years were achieved. The Dissenter thought the Churchman might have retained him if, in bygone times, the latter had been more gentle. Let them, however, now cease to talk of men being out of their pales; they should have no pale faces at all, but all be healthy and in unison. There was one thing he did not like in the special services, and that was the taking of things for texts not in Holy Scriptures. Let every man do as he chose; but he did think his brethren might find enough in the Bible alone for their use. It seemed to him a degradation, to say nothing else, of God's truth. All he knew was, that if some preachers had attempted this a few years ago, they would have been scouted as infidels. Then again there was the subject of prayer meetings. He knew there were still some large assemblies, nor did he think that the Spirit of God was not useful in them; but he was afraid to speak of their ordinary meetings, he knew they were very poor affairs. Again, preaching was faulty; the preacher lacked earnestness; he was not like Baxter, who spoke—

'As though he ne'er should speak again, As dying man to dying men.'

Again, in the Church itself there were faults; they were too worldly; there were among them men who would not keep open their shops on Sunday for fear of damnation, but who would yet hold shares in a railway whose dividends were made out of Sunday traffic—who would shrink from any false action in private, but who needed looking after when they and a few others got together." The matter of worldly conformity was then touched upon, and it was thought that there was too much of it among Christian people. Mr. Spurgeon did not profess to be a Quaker in the matter of dress, to favour the "broad brim," and so on; but nevertheless he found some satisfaction in looking back on the days when a Christian could be known, not only by the cut of his coat, but by his very brogue. He then made reference to the old Quakers, and to the then prevailing fashion of extended crinoline petticoats. "I would rather dress myself that way"—i.e., like a Quaker—"than I would wear the things some men do; and I would rather see my sisters in Christ habited as the Quakers, than that they should magnify, enlarge, and increase themselves as they now do." This produced a commotion of approval on the part of the men which seemed as though it would never end, and, as one remarked, it ought to have put an end to such a fashion. In a leading article on the meeting Dr. Campbell remarked, "The stroke was the most electric one ever witnessed in that hall. The ladies who were present—and the number was not inconsiderable—were placed in a plight most pitiable. The good-natured, yet deeply derisive, cheering was tremendous, and long, very long, continued. If that vast assembly might be taken as a fair representation of the young men of England—and we believe there can be no doubt of it—the ladies of the nation stand reprehended, laughed at, and ridiculed by gentlemen from John O'Groats to the Land's End." This matter of dress was regarded as an indication of there being something wrong; but as the ladies appeared "to have had enough of it," the lecturer went on to show that as the prophecies were sure, the triumph of the faith was sure. They must all do their part; individuals must work as such; and it mattered nothing whether the preachers came from the colleges or from St. Giles's. A somewhat gloomy view was taken of the work abroad. One thing he never could bear or tolerate, and that was the argument used whenever England went to war, "It was a providential opening for the Gospel." For his own part, he could not understand how the Devil could make way for Christ. What was war but the incarnation of all that was wicked and fiendish? To

"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,"

and then say that this was to make straight a highway, knee-deep in the gore of human beings, for the truth of the Lord, was a monstrosity. God assuredly did evolve good out of evil, but he confessed he could not see how war ever made a way for Christianity. Let any other nation go to war if it chose, and if England then sent missionaries, all well; she was not then accountable for the devastation, not having caused it; but for an English cannon to make way at Canton for an English missionary was a falsehood too glaring for him to believe. He could not, he confessed, make it out. If other nations would go to war, let them; but he blushed for his countrymen when he saw crimes committed in China—for what was the opium traffic but a crime, an enormous crime, out of which a war arose?—regarded as means by which the Gospel was to be forwarded. If he were a Chinaman he would assuredly ask the missionaries what this Christianity was like—was it anything of the opium sort? It was not this sort of propagation that foreign countries required for the propagation of the faith; they must learn to feel and believe that England loved peace; that the English nation did not delight in blood, and that its only desire was—in return for the liberty with which God had blessed it—to maintain that liberty abroad; and that if the lion was sometimes roused it was not for blood, but because it believed it was bound to defend liberty. If the world believed that, England would be everywhere regarded as the defender of the liberties of the race; but whatever they did, let them put an end to this doctrine of "opening up" places to missions. He must, however, confess that the spirit was inherent in the English nation; it was of a pugnacious spirit. If he was passing along the street and saw two boys or two dogs fighting, he always felt disposed to stand and look on, and admire the stronger in both cases. At the close of his address, Mr. Spurgeon was cheered with a good deal of enthusiasm, and it was generally thought that he had well maintained his prestige in the new character in which he had appeared. The discourse was characterised as being neither lecture nor sermon, and yet, for that occasion, something better than either.

Observers of Mr. Spurgeon's growth and progress in the Christian graces thought that he had made some advances since the illness which had overtaken him in the fall of 1858. In earlier days it had been remarked that he had shown the strength of Whitefield without that great preacher's tenderness or pathos. A change for the better had been observed in the Music Hall services, and also in the course of the "De Propaganda Fide" lecture. He seemed anxious to speak a good word to all classes while he condemned abuses and bad customs. At or about this time Mr. Spurgeon was expecting to be able to make a tour through the United States, and the Americans were eagerly anticipating the expected visit. "Mr. Spurgeon is as much an object of interest in the United States as in his native land, and there is an intense desire to see him," remarked one journal. "Our readers must not be surprised should they shortly hear that an offer has been made him of £10,000 to preach four discourses in the splendid and spacious music hall of New York." Later in the year The Baptist Messenger, which was then regarded as the organ of New Park Street Chapel, announced as a fact that the American trip would be undertaken, but the next month it was given out that the journey was abandoned "for the present year." Everybody thought that the visit was only postponed. "It is probable that he will by-and-by cross the Atlantic, but it will be on a wholly independent footing." When money was so urgently needed to pay the builder of the great Tabernacle, would it not have been easier to preach four times in New York for the magnificent honorarium the Americans offered, than toilsomely to travel about the British Isles making small collections? Mr. Spurgeon acted quite unselfishly in the matter. If he had secured any princely sum from the New World, he would not have used even a small portion of the amount for himself; all would have been given to the building fund; and if the collections were small at home, he still had the satisfaction of preaching the Gospel to a far larger number of people.

If it was not advisable to cross the Atlantic, something might be got in Scotland; and, accordingly, in February, 1859, another visit was paid to the North. At this time there was considerable excitement in the country on the question of Reform, the Administration of the then Earl of Derby having a Bill in hand which promised to be of more than usual interest as the production of a Conservative Government. Accordingly, the discourse at the Surrey Gardens on Sunday, February 13, was on Reform; but it was so far from being a political sermon that its leading ideas had nothing in common with the comprehensive scheme which Mr. Disraeli propounded in the House of Commons twelve days later. Mr. Spurgeon's Reform was sufficiently indicated by his text (2Ch 31:1), "Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all." On the following Sunday the familiar voice was not heard in the Music Hall; Mr. Spurgeon was preaching in Scotland, where he secured nearly £500 for the building fund of the Tabernacle. The Scottish tour, with its preaching engagements, occupied about all the week-days of a fortnight, the services being held chiefly in Edinburgh and Glasgow. On his return, before commencing his sermon, the preacher remarked that he had been addressing large assemblies, and that the Spirit of God had been present to bless. Mr. Spurgeon remarked further, "In visiting the North, the main object I had in view was the assistance of the fund for the new building which we propose erecting for the accommodation of the crowds who flock to hear me Sabbath after Sabbath. It always was and always will be my constant care to obtain the requisite sum, and I think I may faithfully appeal to your sympathies to help forward the project. The building would have been erected long ago if everyone who attends my ministry had acted as they ought to have done. If each would give the smallest sum, it would not be long before a building was raised where God's truth would be proclaimed for ages to come."

It was no small matter for a preacher who had such a congregation as that at the Surrey Gardens to be away from his pulpit for only one Sunday; but it was not expected to happen again soon, and when it did occur the greatest possible care was taken to obtain a suitable supply. The crowd showed no signs of falling off; eminent personages were still present, while "carriages and vehicles of all sorts, as usual, thronged the surrounding thoroughfares."

Meanwhile the young preacher's popularity was tested in various ways, and it became increasingly evident that it was growing rather than declining. On Tuesday, March 1, at noon, he attracted a full house at Whitefield's Tabernacle, Moorfields, the service being on behalf of the London City Mission. In the evening he preached again in the same place for the same object, when the crowd was so overwhelming that "to prevent conflict and confusion at the doors the gates were early closed." With such a vast enterprise in hand as the building of the great Tabernacle for his own congregation, however, Mr. Spurgeon at last found it advisable to alter his methods somewhat; and it was announced, therefore, that it was the young pastor's wish to appear in the principal chapels in London, first for the purpose of preaching the Gospel, and then of collecting funds on behalf of the vast undertaking. The influence of Mr. Spurgeon was now being felt in various ways in all evangelical denominations; and welcome evidence was seen in the great "special services for the working classes" which were becoming fashionable. The outcry, which could even make itself heard in Parliament, that the Church itself was being "Spurgeonised," found little or no sympathy with the public. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, Exeter Hall, and St. James's Hall each attracted a full congregation, some leading man preaching in each instance. These services were spoken of as representing a most remarkable feature of English religious life, and as being an evidence of progress. The movement then extended to ordinary parish churches, and the wonder was not so much that full congregations assembled as that the working classes and the poorer kind of people generally were actually attracted. Thus, when the late Dr. Tait, as Bishop of London, preached in a West-end parish church, the vicar was able to report: "All St. Giles's turned out. The church as full as it could hold; all the doorways and middle aisle blocked up with persons standing, and many had to go away. Every variety of the labouring class was here this evening." On June 26 a violent thunderstorm passed over the southern suburbs of London; a tree was struck by lightning on Clapham Common, and a man who had sought shelter from the rain beneath the branches was killed. It occurred to Mr. Spurgeon that an effective way of impressing people with the solemnity of this occurrence would be to give a sermon on the spot and make a collection for the widow of the deceased, for whom much sympathy was felt. Accordingly, a notice was circulated to the effect that the pastor of New Park Street Chapel would address whoever liked to come beneath the fatal tree at three o'clock on Sunday, July 10. About 10,000 persons assembled, the preacher being accommodated with a wagon for a pulpit. After a striking prayer, Psalm C. was sung to the Old Hundredth tune, and the discourse was founded on the words, "Be ye also ready." The collection for the distressed widow, whose fourth child was only a few weeks old, amounted to £27 10s. 4d. A deep impression was evidently produced; and as the great concourse quietly dispersed, much sympathy was expressed with the object of the meeting, and all appeared to be thoroughly well pleased.