Chapter 71: Breakfasting With Congregationalists The Stockwell Orphanage

Chapter 71.
Breakfasting With Congregationalists The Stockwell Orphanage

Spurgeon not fitted for Controversy—Breakfast with the Congregational Union—Address on Christian Unity—Mr. Cuff's Reminiscence.

The determined battle of the Irish Church, which was now being fought without signs of yielding or compromise on either side, was pleasantly relieved by intervals of catholic service, in which our preacher always showed to best advantage. In point of fact Spurgeon was not formed for controversy; he was most effective in opposing error when he simply proclaimed the truth. It was always felt by his best friends that such a man was given by God to the Church at large rather than to one denomination; and the young pastor himself was never happier than when he was surrounded by a gathering of those who, according to Scriptural phrase, loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. There was a mistake somewhere when anything happened to break this harmony. The special services referred to, in which Mr. Spurgeon engaged, were on behalf of young men; and then, on one delightful occasion, he breakfasted with the Congregational Union at Myddleton Hall, Islington. A sermon, "A Young Man's Vision," being founded on Acts 2:17, "Your young men shall see visions," was given at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on April 16 on behalf of the Young Men's Association in aid of the Baptist Missionary Society. On Wednesday evening, May 13, a discourse of a similar kind—"Unto you, young men," 1Jn 2:14—was given at Westminster Chapel, being the annual sermon to young men in connection with the London Missionary Society. The address to the Young Men's Christian Association at Exeter Hall has already been referred to.

Mr. Spurgeon's breakfasting with the Congregational Union, when be gave an address on "Christian Unity," was another characteristic episode of this period. The President of the Union for 1868 was Dr. Alexander Raleigh, and in accordance with a custom which certain of his predecessors had found to be productive of happy results, the President gave a breakfast to ministers and delegates on Saturday, May 16, about three hundred guests attending. After one or two leading men, such as Mr. Newman Hall of Surrey Chapel and Mr. J. Kelly of Liverpool, had spoken, Mr. Spurgeon, who was really the guest of the occasion, was greeted with deafening acclamation. It was, of course, a graceful act on the part of Dr. Raleigh to invite the most prominent Baptist preacher of his time to speak to a company of Independents on "Unity;" but while the speaker realised this, there was something else which had touched his heart—the event which had led to the invitation being given. On a certain Sunday morning in the previous year, when Mr. Spurgeon was at the Agricultural Hall, Dr. Raleigh had closed his own chapel in order to be present. Mr. Spurgeon thought that even the Americans could not have surpassed that in the department of Christian fraternity. That led to the invitation to breakfast being given, and having come, he thought he had an audience who could bear plain speaking. He continued:—

"If I have a man's friendship at all, I will only have it on the terms that he will allow me every now and then to cudgel him, on the principle that he should also cudgel me; which reminds me of Robin Hood, who admitted no man into his cave until he had first beaten him with a sound oak cudgel. I think these are times in which we must all speak out what we believe; and of course we all have our own ways of speaking it. It must not be said, 'You shall be silent on that point and not speak upon the other;' but, 'You shall speak, each one of you, just as you please and if some of you are a little ill-mannered, and cannot speak as well as others, yet you shall be borne with and pitied, but you shall afterwards be forgiven.' I think the time has gone for all the palavering and speaking of sweet things which seems so necessary for admission into the Evangelical Alliance, against which I say nothing, only this, that the moment I for one felt it my duty to speak out on a certain matter I received at once a letter from the secretary, spying that as a Christian and a gentleman I was bound to retire, and I did so of course. I think it is possible, however, among ourselves for us to differ, and differ very widely, and to have each our own say, and yet to feel the most intense respect for each other after all. I shall, if I remain in the humour I am now in, with all my might oppose anything like the absorption of our denomination into yours. I shall most earnestly assist anything that looks like the uniting of us in close bonds for common action. Anything that serves that end shall have my hearty sympathy; and you will not think any the less of me for saying what I have just said, I am sure. If I am wrong it is my misfortune as well as my fault. I shall be drifted down the stream of time, and all these wrong things do generally get right at last. None of us can stand against the current of right after all. It sets so very strongly that if we get opinions and prejudices, if they are right and true, of course they will last for ever; but if they are not true it will prove them to be wrong, and if we do not give in they will carry us with them, and leave us on some bank where we shall be prevented from doing mischief, or else drift us away into some 'quiet resting-places.' These gatherings, even to eat bread, are, I am sure, amongst the most salutary institutions of our Christian economy. It does a man a world of good to eat bread with a brother Christian. Even the mere eating and drinking has more in it than we sometimes imagine. It is not altogether a carnal thing. It is remarkable that our Saviour should have chosen a meal as one of the memorials of Himself, and it is not altogether without suggestiveness. Sometimes the meal may be a great means of promoting brotherhood, and I believe our missionaries very often miss their way through not accepting more the hospitality of Eastern people, and casting themselves more entirely upon them; for when you eat a man's salt and are received into his house, you may rest assured that you have got the nearest way into his heart. I am sure that brethren coming up from the country, younger ministers, must have derived much good during this week from meeting with those who are labouring and who are fighting the battle in more prominent places than themselves. Look into people's faces, my brother. There is more to see in a man's face, perhaps, than in any book in your library; and when our brethren know that those who are supposed to be very successful have to struggle under the same difficulties, and are the subjects of the same depression of spirits, and have to resort to the same grace for strength, and to adopt the same means for recruiting their spiritual energies, the young and inexperienced brethren go away thinking that after all the Master has not dealt with them hardly in not putting them into the front of the battle as He has the others." The ministers were then urged to strive earnestly after an increase of spiritual power, and to utilise that power more in the churches. Mr. Spurgeon was then more of a politician than he was in after days, and he spoke now as "a political Dissenter," despised as that genus might be by many of their ecclesiastical opponents. "We ought just now to be political," he said. "This is a time when the battle must be fought out. But we must not let that detract for one single moment from our earnest attention to our spiritual condition; for all the real power we have in the political will emanate from the spiritual." Their holy life, and the patience with which they bore with the injustice of a dominant Church, would be their power. It was that which had brought about the progress in which they all rejoiced, and that power needed to be maintained. Preachers should be more deeply spiritual, seeking to preach the Word with greater power, and they should see that their people did not flag, or the hour of triumph would really be a time of sorriest defeat. Then came a plea for prayer-meetings:—

"We must keep up our people's prayerfulness above all other things. The prayer-meeting is an institution which is not regarded by all ministers as being so eminent as it should be, for it is the engine-house, outside the cotton-mill, where the power is that works all the spinning-jennies in the mill. 'Only a prayer-meeting,' say some; but it is the prayer-meeting which will supply force for all the agencies of the Church, from the Sabbath-school up to the ministry itself. In a pass in Switzerland there is an immense stone or rock, and the driver told me that the devil carried it there. He was going along with it one bright morning under his arm—I do not know what he was going to do with it—but an old lady going by crossed herself and offered a prayer, and he was obliged to drop it. There has been many a big stone dropped as the result of an old lady's prayer.

'Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.'

Then we must seek to utilise our power well when we get it. I wonder whether it would be tolerated to say to our friends that we do not all of us in the government of our churches utilise the power we have?"

Something was next said about the church officers at the Tabernacle, which gave an interesting insight into the manner of managing that great congregation. Mr. Spurgeon had a high opinion of the value of good deacons, notwithstanding many representations to the contrary; but in his own exceptional case he had found it necessary to supplement this order of helpers by others who were called elders. His own notion was that deacons should be men of good business ability, and as they were the more prominent in office, taking the lead in various enterprises, it might be quite as well if they were the more wealthy. Mr. Spurgeon then showed how the eldership might be turned to advantage:—

"There is a considerable number of men in our churches who are very spiritual, men quite fit to visit the sick, to see inquirers, and to attend generally to the work of the church, who might be immensely useful if you put them in office, who probably would otherwise never associate with your deacons, being men of a somewhat different class, but who would be greatly useful if they were made officers. I do not suggest that as an alteration, but I do say of it that it has been the saving of the Church over which I preside, and that if it had not been for the eldership we must have gone to pieces years ago. They meet in their different sessions. The deacons attend to the finances, the elders to the truly spiritual things. I preside over both these courts, and we never allow one to interfere with the other. We have found that We have brought out many in the church who, perhaps, would have been unruly or sowers of dissension if we had not employed them; but who, having been put in office, have grown and expanded and become first-class men, and have helped us to carry on our vast church with something like order. Let it be a rule that there shall not be a single young man or young woman in the Church unemployed. We must bring out every single talent that God has committed to any one of His people." The subject of religious education was then touched upon; not, however, in the sense of getting more scholars, or of founding more schools, but rather of making an effort to keep lads and lasses after they have left the school. In what were called catechumen classes even elderly persons were still content to be taught, and they were taught to some advantage. As Mr. Spurgeon said:—

"We have one class of between seven and eight hundred women, and classes of men of the same kind, who become little churches inside the church, and get into methods of self-government and self-education, and become themselves workers again in all sorts of directions, making the classes the centres of their operations. I am afraid we have not quite got 'the missing link' between the Sabbath-school and the church, unless we have looked carefully after that class who are just between the church and the school. Of course Bible-classes are exceedingly useful, and could not be done without, but still a minister cannot carry on a Bible-class that would be sufficiently large to comprehend all these."

Then followed some references to the scheme of national education which seemed to be coming on; and as the schools would be secular it would be advisable to have a supplementary system for the teaching of religion, "which the Irishman described as 'having Sunday-school three days a week.'" Next came the question of denominational extension generally:—

"There ought to be a distinct invasion by us. We must not be satisfied with building old chapels over again. However, that has been got through, I hope, and now is the time for an advance. There ought not to be a single town or village, or even hamlet, that shall be unoccupied by these two denominations. We must resolve, as Christian ministers, to be willing to part with our members. The true way for a church to increase is to be willing to dimmish. We know that in the body the centre must be kept strong. Just so; but if the heart stores up its blood and gives none out the whole body will expire. But the heart becomes strong as much by its pumping out as by its pumping in. So with your churches. God always rewards generosity of spirit in Christian ministers with regard to their churches. If they can part with the valuable deacon or the excellent Sabbath-school superintendent, and that bevy of excellent ladies who contributed so much, God has secret methods of reparation. It is true that He recruits the body, and whatever it casts off is sure, by some secret process of His Holy Spirit, to come back again. We must increase. In God's name we shall increase. We have got the truth of God. We have got the right policy. Our system of congregational churches is the most workable of all systems. It is the most adapted for mission purposes, and we must prove it to be so. It will be of no use to laud ourselves generally all the way round upon our being Congregationalists; but we must prove the wisdom of the entire system by working it thoroughly out, and saturating this kingdom with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. None of us ought to be discouraged, I think, though we are all of us inclined to be so, because things go not as we would have them. I suppose when we prosper most we still lament that we have not more from God, and do not do more for God. When our sermon has been most blessed we toss to and fro upon our bed, and groan before God that we have not gone deeper into the root of the subject and pierced more thoroughly into the core of our people's souls. I am not sure that the habit of getting downcast and complaining to one's self is altogether a good one. 'The joy of the Lord is your strength.' It is delightful at Venice to hear the gondoliers singing as they row. Let us serve the Lord with gladness. We ought to tug at the par and sing at the same time. Stopping near a lake in Italy one Monday morning I heard the thundering of the cannon from various parts of the coast; and by-and-bye, when I went down to the beach and looked around, I observed that in the middle of the lake there stood an island on which was the cathedral. From every quarter of the coast of the lake, around which small towns were dotted, I saw white boats coming. They looked very beautiful indeed. There was a procession of boats with a big cross in front, and all converging to one centre; and as the oars kept time with each other the people on the boats all sang the same chant, which was rather monotonous, it is true, but still it was exceedingly musical in its rhythm, as they came nearer, and nearer, and nearer, all to meet around the island and then to march up to the shrine to worship. I thought it was very like the entire Christian Church—various bodies of Christians coming from various quarters of this great sea of providence—rowing and singing, and hoping all to meet in the one great church above, where they shall worship God, even the Father."

It was on this occasion that Mr. Spurgeon advocated the formation of a General Nonconformist Alliance—a body which would represent the united action of all Dissenters. One good result would be the production of a better literature on the principles of Nonconformity. It was thought that there ought to be a constant issue of first-rate tracts and pamphlets; for as it was they had to go a long way back before they came to any such of the standard sort. "I wish some such union could be formed," said he, and then he proceeded to give a parting word to his brethren in the faith in his own characteristic way:—

"Now, my brethren, my heartiest fraternity is with you; and I am sure I might speak, though I am not authorised to do so, in the name of the whole Baptist body, and say that we rejoice in your success. We wish that you may be more and. more abundant; we pray that you may go from strength to strength; and we always look upon you as our next of kin, our natural allies, and those who have always rendered to us the greatest kindness and fraternal charity. I again thank; Dr. Raleigh for the opportunity of being here. He wrote me a very pressing letter, as if he thought that I should not like to come. I am delighted to meet with such brethren as are around me. Till we get to heaven it may be we shall never have an opportunity of meeting with brethren who have served the Master better, and who deserve more our love, than the brethren who are here this morning."

Among the pleasant anniversaries of June, 1868, was that of Cornwall Road Chapel, Bayswater. Mr. Spurgeon preached in the morning, and then followed a dinner, at which one proposed the health of the Queen, and another that of the preacher of the day. In responding to this, Mr. Spurgeon referred to the generous feeling evinced by the Church in giving him what he might consider to be an inestimable boon—viz., the services, of his brother. He said that he believed it would be found this year that the increase to their Church at the Tabernacle had been upwards of six hundred, which was probably the largest number ever added to a Christian Church, since Pentecostal days, in the course of twelve months. He attributed it very greatly to the way in which his brother had looked up the members of the Church, and had visited cases which it was simply impossible that he could attend to. He hoped that in the providence of God the Church that had given him so good a helper would be abundantly rewarded.

Allusions were then made to Mr. Gladstone, the Irish Church, and to Bishop Wilberforce, who had mentioned Spurgeon in the House of Lords. Of the Bishop something more will presently be said. Alluding to the Irish and English Churches, Mr. Spurgeon went on to say that perhaps they might even see the two Establishments, which were being put together by the Erastians, treated in the same way as was now proposed only for one of the churches. The Humpty-Dumpty of the State Church had been set upon a wall, and Humpty-Dumpty had had a great fall; such a fall that all the king's horses and all the king's men could not set Humpty-Dumpty up again. This was the season for open-air services in which, when the weather favoured him, he still found great delight. Mr. Cuff, of the Shoreditch Tabernacle, who has already supplied some reminiscences of Spurgeon as a field-preacher, sends the following sketch of one of these pleasant meetings at which he was present:—"The next time I heard Mr. Spurgeon preach in the open air was at Stowmarket in the year 1868. He came down to preach for the Suffolk Benevolent Society, and preached in the morning in the Congregational Chapel to a crowded house. It was a truly wonderful sermon.

"In the evening the service was held out of doors because there was no place large enough for the crowd. Good Mr. Manning Prentice threw open to the public his lovely grounds. A most picturesque place was chosen for the service. It was a sort of lovely dell—long, narrow, sloping down one way, and gracefully tapered up the other to a kind of semicircle end. Beautiful shrubs and evergreens covered the banks on either side. From every bush, in every tree, between every shrub, there peered eager faces of all classes and conditions of men. There was a low platform at the bottom of this dell, and there Mr. Spurgeon stood, with the crowd all rising gradually above him like a strange and beautiful amphitheatre. He was quite himself, and I know he felt happy in his subject. His text was Isa 53:5, 'With his stripes we are healed.' Oh, what a Gospel sermon it was! It stands to-day a model for open-air preachers. It seems to meet every case. The title of the subject is, in Mr. Spurgeon's own words, 'The Universal Remedy.' That service was a weird, wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten scene."