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  FROM THE PULPIT TO THE PALM BRANCH
  by C.H. Spurgeon
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A memorial work describing the final weeks and days of Spurgeon's life,
chronicling his last sermon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle and the funeral
services that followed, depicting his faith and perseverance to the end.

  Chapters: 27

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. BOOK: From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch (Memorial)
    2. Introduction
    3. Preface
    4. Chapter One
    5. Chapter Two
    6. Chapter Three
    7. Chapter Four
    8. Chapter Five
    9. Chapter Six
   10. Chapter Seven
   11. Chapter Eight
   12. Chapter Nine
   13. Chapter Ten
   14. Chapter Eleven
   15. Chapter Twelve3
   16. Chapter Thirteen
   17. Chapter Fourteen
   18. Chapter Fifteen
   19. Chapter Sixteen
   20. Chapter Seventeen
   21. Chapter Eighteen
   22. Chapter Nineteen
   23. Chapter Twenty
   24. Chapter Twenty-One
   25. Chapter Twenty-Two
   26. Chapter Twenty-Three
   27. Appendix

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  CHAPTER 1: BOOK: FROM THE PULPIT TO THE PALM-BRANCH (MEMORIAL)
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From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch A Memorial of Charles H. Spurgeon by

C.H. Spurgeon

Edited by Arthur T. Pierson (1837-1911)


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  CHAPTER 2: INTRODUCTION
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Introduction to New Edition:

"The Last Lap"

Holy Scripture depicts the Christian life as a race that must be run with
perseverance. In Hebrews 12:1-3 the picture is widened to the likeness of an
Olympic stadium full of athletes who have previously and successfully run the
marathon and who now watch with fascination as other runners come into the
stadium to complete that last lap. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the outstanding
spiritual athlete of the 19th Century. This book describes the last weeks, days
and hours of his phenomenal life as well as the funeral services and sermons
which followed.

In a sermon titled 'Sermons from Saintly Death-beds' [no. 783, preached on 1st
December 1867] on the text, "And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his
sons, he gathered up his feet into his bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was
gathered unto his people" (Genesis 49:33), Spurgeon makes the observation that
'God permits the Jordan to overflow its banks when some of his best children are
passing through, for he designs to magnify his grace in the last trial of their
faith, and thus to show to men, and angels, and devils, who are looking on, how
he can triumph in his servants when flesh and heart are failing.' Thus we would
expect a choice instrument like Martin Luther who was used massively to destroy
the dominions of Satan on earth to be put to the test in his last hours. In his
life Luther experienced colossal spiritual trials and agonies some of which were
referred to in German as infecting which means a mixture of intense spiritual
horror, doubt, terror and anxiety, bordering on despair. Luther was taken
suddenly ill at the end of three weeks spent at Eisleben the town of his birth.
The journey to Eisleben during January 1546 was freezingly cold and exhausting.
The mission was for Luther was to settle a dispute. This was exacting and tiring
but was achieved at the end of three weeks. Then suddenly Luther fell ill. The
end came in a couple of days. There were no violent conflicts. His disciples,
friends and sons who were with him were acutely aware that those loyal to the
Pope would dearly like to be able to spread the rumour that at the end of his
life Martin turned back to Rome. On the last day of his life as he became weaker
he kept repeating the words of John 3:16. In the last moments close friend and
companion Professor Jonas said to Martin, "Do you want to die standing firmly in
Christ and the doctrines you have taught?" Very clearly for all round his
bedside to hear Martin replied, "Yes!" His testimony to the teaching of
justification by faith alone was kept to his last breath.

In the exposition, 'Sermons from Saintly Death-beds' Spurgeon refers to the
deaths of many who were weak. To many saints departure has been a peaceful
entrance into the fair haven of repose. The very weakest of God's servants have
frequently been happiest in their departing moments. John Bunyan, who had
observed this fact, in the description of Mr Feeble-mind's passage across the
river, "Here also I took notice of what was very remarkable; the water of that
river was lower at this time than ever I saw in my life. So he went over at last
not much above wetshod." Heaven's mercy tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and
gives to babes no battle, because they have no strength for it: the lambs calmly
rest on the bosom of Jesus, and breathe out their lives in the Shepherd's arms.
What an encouragement this ought to be to you who are the tender ones among us!
What cheering tidings for you who are weak in faith! Like Mr-Ready-to-halt, you
shall cry, "Now, I shall have no more need of these crutches, since yonder are
chariots and crutches, since yonder are chariots and horses for me to ride on.'"

Biblical support for interest in the manner in which we end the race is provided
in 2 Kings 2:1-18. Elisha having requested of the LORD a double portion of
Elijah's spiritual endowment Elisha followed Elijah determined to be at his side
when he was taken up to heaven. When that moment came Elijah was taken up to
heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha cried out "My father! My father! The chariots and
horsemen of Israel!" or in the words of Krummacher, "thou wast Israel's
artillery and cavalry—its glittering legion, and its invincible host". In some
ways Spurgeon's departure was like that for it marked the end of a ministry of
extraordinary effective gospel preaching combined with a life of practical good
works. These works resulted in innumerable gospel ministries emanating from the
Metropolitan Tabernacle. As this book shows Spurgeon's industrious life was
industrious to the very end. He died as he had lived in the Lord's glad service.
His work of defending the faith in controversy was just as vital as the other
works foreordained by our Father for him to achieve. His was the most effective
voice for the truth (Jude 1:3) in the downgrade controversy.

Spurgeon always lived with eternity in view. Preaching from the text "The time
is short" (1 Corinthians 7:29) he urged his hearers as follows: 'Do you believe
that these eyes shall see the King in that day when he comes in his glory, and
that these bones shall rise again from the grave, and your bodies shall be
endowed with an incorruptible existence? "Yes," say you, "we do believe it, and
believe it intensely, too." Well, then, I would that you realized it as so very
near that you were expectant of its fulfillment. Who would cry and fret about
the passing troubles of a day when he saw the heavens open, beheld the beckoning
hand, and heard the voice that called him hence? Oh, that the glory might come
streaming into your soul till you forget the darkness of the way! Oh, that the
breeze from these goodly mountains would fan you! Oh, that the spray from that
mighty ocean would refresh you! Oh, that the music of those bells of heaven in
yonder turrets would enliven you! Then would you speed your way towards the rest
that remaineth for the people of God, inspired with sacred ardor and dauntless
courage.'" This whole volume will help to inspire the reader with that 'sacred
ardour and dauntless courage' necessary to complete the race of faith.

Erroll Hulse

The above Portrait of Mr. Spurgeon has been produced from the last Photograph
taken at Menton, January 8, 1892. (See page 32.)


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  CHAPTER 3: PREFACE
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Preface This volume, which was at first intended merely to be a report of the
Memorial Services held in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, while the mortal body of
its late beloved Pastor lay asleep in the Olive Wood, under the Palm Branches,
has, during its preparation, been enlarged to make a place for a brief history
of the last chapter in Mr. Spurgeon's faithful and fruitful earthly life.
Beginning with his last appearances in his pulpit, the course of the final
months, so fraught with interest, is traced through their varying events. A
short account is given of the terrible illness which caused such widespread
anxiety, and evoked such worldwide sympathy; of the gracious recovery granted in
answer to the continued prayers of God's people; of the journey to the sunny
South, and the happy months at Menton; of the entrance of the Pastor into the
presence of the King; and of the memorable days thereafter.

Since this good gift, which the Giver of all good bestowed upon the Church, and
upon the world, was to be taken from us, we are constrained to say that he could
have gone from our midst in no better way. This is not only a matter of faith,
but, having tried to imagine other methods of departure, we are compelled to
fall back on God's way as the wisest and the best. Had Mr. Spurgeon been called
suddenly, we should have been so stunned by the blow as to have been scarcely
able to stand upright beneath it: a waiting time was, therefore, in mercy,
granted to us, during which the forces at command were organized in such a way
that, with the exactness of a machine, all worked smoothly when the terrible
tidings at last came. Had Mr. Spurgeon been taken before such marvellous
solicitude was shown around his sick bed, the enemies of the truth would have
blasphemed; now they are fain to be silent, seeing that, even in this life,
fidelity to the truth, and faithfulness to conviction have been so greatly
honoured. Had Mr. Spurgeon passed away amid the fogs of London, we should have
imagined that, had he only been permitted to live beneath bluer skies, his life
would have been prolonged; now we thank God that those three bright months were
added to it, and that he was able, with his beloved wife, to have such
uninterrupted joy on earth, ere he passed to his reward in heaven. Had Mr.
Spurgeon ended his course in England, for a few days only would people have
paused to have asked the secret of his marvellous influence; whereas, under the
actual circumstances, for twelve days the attention of the civilized world was
centred in the testimony borne, not only to the servant of God, but to the
Gospel he preached, in column after column of almost every newspaper. Truly, the
Lord hath done all things well!

Many years ago, in one of his sermons, published at the time, he attempted to
picture the scene at his own funeral, and expressed his own desire concerning
it.

"In a little while," he said, "there will be a concourse of persons in the
streets. Methinks I hear some one enquiring:—"

"What are all these people waiting for?"

"Do you not know? He is to be buried today."

"And who is that?"

It is Spurgeon."

"What! the man that preached at the Tabernacle?"

"Yes; he is to be buried today."

"That will happen very soon. And when you see my coffin carried to the silent
grave, I should like every one of you, whether converted or not, to be
constrained to say, 'He did earnestly urge us, in plain and simple language, not
to put off the consideration of eternal things; he did entreat us to look to
Christ. Now he is gone, our blood is not at his door if we perish.'"

Far more abundantly than he dared to hope have his wishes been fulfilled, and
only in the day when all things shall be revealed, shall it be known how many
have been turned to the Lord by the death of the man who was so greatly honoured
to lead people to the feet of Jesus during his life.

Now he has left the Tabernacle pulpit for ever, and he stands amongst the great
multitude who are before the throne and before the Lamb, "clothed with white
robes, and palms in their hands." He is not in strange company there, for the
song of those who wave the palm-branch was ever his theme as he stood in the
pulpit: "Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."
From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch has been for him a very natural transition.
He preached Christ here; he praises Him yonder. Long ago, when the lowly Saviour
was going up to Jerusalem, they "took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to
meet Him, and cried 'Hosanna.'" When Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the humble servant
of his glorious Lord, was going up to the New Jerusalem, did not some of the
white-robed worshippers meet him also with palm-branches? If they did, he would
be the first to lay them at his Master's feet, bowing low in grateful adoration,
and giving Him all the praise.

None on earth can estimate his worth. He was the Evangelical Prophet of his age;
our modern Isaiah. Like Isaiah, he early saw "the Lord sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up;" he had his lips purged with the live coal; and when he
heard the call, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" he gladly answered,
"Here I am, send me." Beholding the Lord in His temple, he laid himself upon the
altar, and like Isaiah, he was "very bold" to declare the Word of God. Filled
with the thought of the glory of God, he lived for the good of the people; he
delighted to speak of Him who "was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised
for our iniquites;" and to invite thirsty souls to come and buy the grace of
God, "without money and without price." Like Isaiah, too, he has been sawn
asunder by some critics who would sever his philanthropy from his faith, not
recognizing that the one was the outcome of the other, and that the same clear
head and the same warm heart belonged to both. Of this man of God, who passed
away after almost fifty-eight years on earth, the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah
is a full-length portrait. In the midst of the surface religion of his day, he
obeyed the word, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and
shew My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Who more
than he dealt his bread to the hungry, and brought the poor that are cast out to
his house? Let the Orphanage and Almshouses answer. Did not he truly realize
that the secret of strength lay in not doing his own ways, nor finding his own
pleasure, nor speaking his own words? He called the Sabbath a delight, the holy
of the Lord, honourable; and God gave him a sevenfold blessing, even according
to His word. His light rose in obscurity, and broke forth as the morning. He
deliberately set his heart against seeking great things for himself, yet fair
and clear he shone undimmed before the world for forty years; shining more and
more until the perfect day.

He had many answers to prayer; his communion with God became intensely real. The
promise was fulfilled to him, "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer;
thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am." The record of his answered prayers
would, of itself, fill a volume. The Lord guided him continually; like a little
child he was willing to be led. His whole life was a series of steps, taken at
the bidding of his Master, and never was this more so than towards the end. It
seemed as if God said to him, "Thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory
of the Lord shall be thy rereward."

Fruitfulness was the result. In every good word or work he abounded, and this
other promise of the Lord was realized abundantly,—"Thou shalt be like a watered
garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." The twelfth verse of
the chapter is startling in the correctness of its application to him. In vain
men speak of Spurgeon as "the last of the Puritans." The leader of them he may
have been, and the greatest of them, but not the last of them; as long as the
age continues, God will raise up for himself a godly seed. "They that shall be
of thee" we read, and we can apply the words to both Mr. Spurgeon's sons and to
his students,—"They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou
shalt raise up the foundations of many generations." Multiplication follows on
fruitfulness.

Joy is the sixth blessing promised. "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the
Lord,"—a word which surely was fulfilled in his experience. To him living for
God was luxury, not drudgery. He could say, with a wonderful emphasis of heart,—

"How glorious is my King!

'Tis joy, not duty, To speak His beauty! My soul mounts on the wing, At the mere
thought, How Christ my life has bought."

Last of all comes honour. "I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the
earth." No stronger comment on this is necessary than the record of the
following pages. "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it," and the hand of the
Lord hath performed it. Honour came to him who sought it not, who even counted
it a light thing. Truly it is no vain thing to serve the Lord!

Added to this sevenfold promise of blessing, a name is given in the twelfth
verse to him who lives such a life. No more suitable title could be selected for
the sainted man, of whom this volume is a very inadequate memorial.

"Thou shalt be called, 'The Restorer of Paths to dwell in.'"


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  CHAPTER 4: CHAPTER ONE
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Chapter 1.

"Adieu to the Tabernacle"

Standing in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the scene for so many years of his
marvellous ministry, Mr. Spurgeon, on Lord's-day morning, May 3rd, 1891,
commenced his sermon upon Psalms 40:7 : "Then said I, Lo, I come" (No. 2,203),
with the following memorable statement:—"To my great sorrow, last Sunday night I
was unable to preach. I had prepared a sermon upon this text, with much hope of
its usefulness; for I intended it to be a supplement to the morning sermon,
which was a doctrinal exposition. The evening sermon was intended to be
practical, and to commend the whole subject to the attention of enquiring
sinners. I came here feeling quite fit to preach, when an overpowering
nervousness oppressed me, and I lost all self-control, and left the pulpit in
anguish. I come hither this morning with the same subject. I have been turning
it over, and wondering why it was so. Peradventure, this sermon was not to be
preached on that occasion, because God would teach the preacher more of his own
feebleness, and cast him more fully upon the divine strength. That has.
certainly been the effect upon my own heart. Perhaps, also, there are some here
this morning who were not here last Lord's-day evening, whom God intends to
bless by the sermon. The people were not here, peradventure, for whom the
eternal decree of God had designed the message, and they may be here now. You
that are fresh to this place, should consider the strange circumstance, which
never happened to me before in the forty years of my ministry; and you may be
led to enquire whether my bow was then unstrung that the arrow might find its
ordained target in your heart. The two sermons will now go forth together from
the press; and perhaps, going together, they may prove like two hands of love
wherewith to embrace lost souls, and draw them to the Saviour, who herein saith,
'Lo, I come.' God grant it may be so!"

Although probably no one suspected it at the time, this was "the beginning of
the end" of that noble life that closed at Menton on January 31st, 1892. The
preacher was at the time terribly overworked, and applications for additional
services were continually coming. He struggled on bravely, however, and on May
17th, preached a sermon on the text: "My times are in Thy hand" (No. 2,205),
which many people regarded as almost prophetic of the great illness he was about
to suffer. He was even then attacked by that terrible scourge, misnamed
"influenza"; and on the following day, Dr. R. M. Miller, of Upper Norwood, who
was called in to attend him, forbade his venturing to the Tabernacle. He was,
indeed, closely confined to the house for nearly three weeks; but at the end of
that time, on Lord's-day morning, June 7th, he preached from 1 Samuel 30:21-25,
the sermon afterwards published under the title of "The Statute of David for the
Sharing of the Spoil" (No. 2,208). This will ever be a most memorable discourse,
for it was practically the Pastor's farewell to the Tabernacle. He was never
inside the building again, until all that remained of him was brought from
Menton, in the olive-wood casket, amid universal mourning.

C. H. Spurgeon and J. C. Houchin. On Monday morning, June 8th, Mr. Spurgeon went
into what he called, in his preface to Memories of Stambourne, "my grandfather's
country." One object he had in going was that he might obtain photographs to
illustrate that little work. In that he succeeded. We have reproduced, on page
15, one of the views taken by Mr. Nash, representing C. H. Spurgeon and J. C.
Houchin, the present pastor at Stambourne, as they appeared on June 10th, 1891.
In the preface already mentioned, Mr. Spurgeon wrote:—"On the Thursday of the
week, an overpowering headache came on, and I had to hurry home on Friday, to go
up to that chamber wherein, for three months, I suffered beyond measure, and was
often between the jaws of death." From that time Dr. Miller was again in
constant attendance; and on June 24th, Dr. Joseph Kidd was called in for
consultation. For a time, all that medical skill, patient watching, and careful
nursing could do, appeared of no avail for the beloved sufferer's recovery.
Meanwhile, prayer without ceasing was made to God for him, the world over, in
ordinary meetings and in special gatherings. As soon as the critical condition
of the Pastor was made known, the Church at the Tabernacle constituted itself
into one great protracted prayer-meeting. Not only did thousands gather together
for a day of prayer; but for weeks special prayer-meetings were continued two or
three times daily. Also, in many other places, meetings for earnest supplication
on Mr. Spurgeon's behalf were held, showing, in a remarkable manner, the real
unity of the One Church of Christ.

Besides numerous callers at "Westwood", letters and telegrams of sympathy came
in great numbers from all sorts and conditions of men, and from all parts of the
world. The archbishops, bishops, and clergy of the Church of England were
largely represented; while Nonconformist ministers, of all denominations, were
most hearty in their sympathetic utterances; and cablegrams, telegrams, letters,
and resolutions came from almost endless Associations, Assemblies, Colleges,
Committees, Conferences, Congresses, Conventions, Institutions, Missions,
Societies, Synods, Unions, &c., including almost all the great religious and
philanthropic agencies of the Metropolis, the United Kingdom, and many parts of
the Continent and the English Colonies throughout the world.

(We have not given here any list of the thousands of friends who thus expressed
their sympathy with Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon during the trying months that the
Pastor was lying in such a critical condition at "Westwood"; nor of those who
united in the hearty congratulations that greeted his partial recovery. They
were duly recorded at the time in The Sword and the Trowel; but at the end of
this volume we have printed a list of the Churches and Societies from which
resolutions of sympathy have come to Mrs. Spurgeon or the Tabernacle since the
"promotion to glory" of the beloved Pastor. It was quite impossible to make any
record of the telegrams and letters from individuals; that would have expanded
the list into a Memorial Volume by itself. The present list, lengthy as it is,
must necessarily be incomplete, for the letters from distant parts will,
doubtless, continue to arrive for a long time to come; but it is as correct as
it can be made up to the date of publication.) The letter to the congregation at
the Tabernacle, dated August 9th, of which, a reduced facsimile appears on the
next page, was the first Mr. Spurgeon was able to write with his own hand after
his long illness:—

In The Sword and the Trowel for October appeared a long note from Mr. Spurgeon,
thanking "the thousands of friends, of all ranks and religions", who had
expressed their sympathy with him in his long and trying affliction. On October
3rd, Mr. Spurgeon and his private secretary, Mr. Harrald, went to Eastbourne, in
the hope that a short stay at the seaside might bring to him sufficient strength
to enable him to take the journey to Menton. Mrs. Spurgeon also went for a few
days; and the experiment appeared quite satisfactory, so that, when the Pastor
returned to "Westwood", on October 16th, he was so much stronger that the
arrangements for starting for Menton were completed. On Monday, October 26th,
Pastor and Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, Pastor and Mrs. J. A. Spurgeon, and Mr. Harrald
started on their thousand miles' journey to the sunny South. They were
accompanied as far as Calais by two of the Tabernacle deacons, Messrs. Allison
and Higgs. It has been very widely published that Baron Rothschild placed his
saloon carriage at Mr. Spurgeon's disposal; but the fact is, that Messrs.
Alabaster, Passmore, & Sons, and Mr. John M. Cook most generously defrayed the
cost of the saloon carriage from Calais to Menton, and so enabled the whole
party to travel in ease and comfort, and to arrive at their destination on
Thursday, October 29th. Dr. FitzHenry at once took charge of his illustrious
patient, and aided him greatly by his wise and kindly advice. The appearance of
Mr. Spurgeon, from this time until a few days before he was called home, led
many beside himself to hope that a long rest by the sunny shore of the
Mediterranean would complete his restoration. He gradually gained strength, and
his weekly letters to the church at home continued to be an unfailing source of
interest to thousands. Not, however, until the last day of the old year, was he
able to conduct a service. Then, to a little group of delighted friends, he gave
the following memorable address:—


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  CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER TWO
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Chapter 2. Breaking the Long Silence "Two Brief Addresses delivered by C. H.
Spurgeon at Menton" On the East Evening of 1891

Dear Friends,—I am not able to say much to you at present. I should have gladly
invited you to prayer every morning if I had been able to meet you; but I had
not sufficient strength. I cannot refrain from saying a little to you, on this
the last evening of the year, by way of Retrospect, and perhaps on New Year's
morning I may add a word by way of Prospect.

We have come so far on the journey of life; and, standing at the boundary of
another year, we look back. Let each one gaze upon his own trodden pathway. You
will not need me to attempt fine words or phrases: each one, with his own eyes,
will now survey his own road.

Among the striking things to be noted are the dangers we have escaped. After
Bunyan's pilgrim had safely traversed the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
morning light dawned upon him, and sitting down, he looked back upon the
terrible road which he had passed. It had once seemed an awful thing to him that
he had marched through that valley by night; but when he looked back, and saw
the horrors he had escaped, he must have felt glad that darkness had concealed
much of its peril when he was actually in the midst of it. Much the same has it
been with us: thank God, now that we clearly see the perils, we have passed them
in safety.

During the year which closes this night, certain of us have been very near to
the jaws of death, and some of us may also have skirted the abyss of despair;
and yet we live and hope. Our path has been full of trials and temptations, and
yet we have not been permitted to fall. Our heart has been torn with inward
conflicts, and yet faith has proved victorious. No one of us knows how near he
has been to some great sin, or some false step. A single act might have changed
the whole aspect of life to us; but from that act we have been preserved. Others
have stumbled, and sadly fallen; and we are of like passions with them: blessed
be the hand which has held us up! The Greek liturgy speaks of the Saviour's
"unknown sufferings." Doubtless they were the greatest of all his woes. We may
with equal accuracy speak of our "unknown dangers," for probably they have been
the greatest of our perils. The Lord saw what we could not see, and kept us
where we could not have kept ourselves.

I would remind you that to have evils averted is a choice favour. A Puritan
father met his son by arrangement. They had each travelled several miles to
reach the appointed spot, and when they came together, the son thankfully
observed, "Father, I have experienced a most remarkable providence on the road;
for my horse stumbled three times, and even threw me, and yet I am unhurt." His
father answered, "It is well; but I also have enjoyed a remarkable providence on
the road, for my horse came all the way without stumbling once." Truly, to be
kept from danger is as great a privilege as to be kept in danger; but we forget
this. Let us thank God for preserved lives, continued comforts, and unspotted
characters; for these wares are marked "Fragile" and that they are not broken is
a marvel of grace. Since last we met, how many have died! Plagues and deaths
have been flying around us, like shots in the heat of an action; and only he
who, of old, covered David's head in the day of battle, could have kept us from
death. Our spiritual life still survives, and only he who holds the stars in
their courses could have maintained us in our integrity. It ought to bring tears
of gratitude to our eyes while, to quote the language of the Song of Solomon, we
"look from the top of Hermon; from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the
leopards." For my own part, I dare not omit from my retrospect the sins of the
past year, of which I would unfeignedly repent. He who does not know himself to
be sinful does not know himself at all. He who does not feel his own
unworthiness must surely have grown callous or conceited. Sins of omission are
those which trouble me most. I look back, and remember what I might have done,
and have not done; what opportunities of usefulness I have not seized; what sins
I have allowed to pass unrebuked; what struggling beginners in grace I have
failed to help. I cannot but grieve that what I have done was not done better,
or attended with a humbler dependence upon God. I now perceive, in my holy
things, faults in their beginning, faults in their carrying on, and faults in
their ending. Delay to commence, slackness in the act, and pride after it,
defile our best service. What an endless list our faults and failings would
make! Oh, friends, when we examine one year of life carefully, looking into the
thoughts and motives and secret imaginings of the soul, how humbled we ought to
be! As I rode through the streets of Menton this day, I felt bowed down with a
sense of sin; and on a sudden it flashed into my mind, "Yes, and therefore I
have my part and lot in the work of the Lord Jesus, for he said expressly, 'I
came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" Note that the words "to
repentance" are most properly omitted from the Revised Version (Mark 2:17).

Why did Jesus die? He died for our sins: he would not have needed to die for men
if men had not sinned. Where there is no sin, there is no share in the
sin-offering. If we have no sin, we have no connection with that Saviour who
came to save his people from their sins. For whom does Jesus plead? He makes
intercession for the transgressors: if I am not a transgressor, I have no
assurance that he pleads for me. The whole mediatorial system is for sinful men;
and as I am conscious of guilt, so am I assured, by faith, that I am within the
circle of divine grace. My faith places her hand upon the head of him who was
our Substitute and Scapegoat, and I see all my sins and all the sins of all
believers for ever put away by him who stood in the sinner's place. Let your
tears fall because of sin; but, at the same time, let the eye of faith steadily
behold the Son of man lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, that those who are bitten by the old serpent may look unto him and
live. Our sinnership is that emptiness into which the Lord pours his mercy.
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners." On that blessed fact I rest my soul.
Though I have preached Christ crucified for more than forty years, and have led
many to my Master's feet, I have at this moment no ray of hope but that which
comes from what my Lord Jesus has done for guilty men.

"Behold him there! the bleeding Lamb! My perfect, spotless Righteousness, The
great unchangeable, 'I AM,' The King of glory and of grace."

A flood of light breaks over the scene if we look back upon our mercies! Now for
your arithmetic! Now begin to make your calculations! Think of major mercies and
minor mercies; fleeting mercies and eternal mercies; mercies by day, and mercies
by night; mercies averting evil, and mercies securing good; mercies at home, and
mercies abroad; mercies of bed and board, of city and field, of society and
seclusion. Mercy affects every faculty of the mind, and every portion of the
body. There are mercies for conscience, and fear, and hope; mercies for the
understanding and the heart; and, at the same time, there are mercies of eye,
and ear, and head, and hand. The whole landscape of life is golden with the
light of mercy. In the love of God we have lived, and moved, and had our being.
We see mercies new every morning, mercies old as the eternal hills; streams of
mercy; oceans of mercy; mercy all, and all mercy.

God has been specially good to me. I think I hear each heart whisper, "That is
just what I was going to say." Dear friends, I will not monopolize the
expression; it is most true from me; I doubt not that it is also true of each
one of you. Can we conceive how God could have been more gracious than he has
been? If you are familiar with the Lord of love, so that you dwell in him, and
his Spirit dwells in you, you will join me in abundantly uttering the memory of
his great goodness. How wonderful is his lovingkindness! How free! How tender!
How faithful! How lasting! How everlasting! No, I cannot even attempt an outline
of the Lord's goodness to us during the year which is now waning: we must each
one review the record for himself. "How much owest thou unto my Lord?" is an
enquiry which must be personally answered by each one as an individual.

One thing more before I close. What are the lessons which our gracious God has
intended us to learn by all that has happened during the year? Each one of us
has had his own order of discipline and line of learning; but all have not had
the same. It is written, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord," but all
the children are not leading from the same page, at the same moment. Have we not
learned to expect more of God, and less of men? To make fewer resolutions, but
to carry out those which were wisely and devoutly formed? Have we not seen more
of the instability of earthly joys? Have we not learned more fully the need of
using time present, and ability possessed? Are we not now aware that we are
neither so good, so wise, so strong, nor so constant as we thought we were? Have
we been taught to go down that Jesus may rise, after the manner of John the
Baptist, who cried, "He must increase, but I must decrease"? These are truths
worth learning. I have neither time nor strength to suggest more of those
lessons which experience teaches us when our hearts are made ready for the
divine schooling. We ought to have learned much in 365 days. I hope we have.
Permit me only to hint at a truth which has come home to me.

During the past year I have been made to see that there is more love and unity
among God's people than is generally believed. I speak not egotistically, but
gratefully. I had no idea that Christian people, of every church, would
spontaneously and importunately plead for the prolonging of my life. I feel
myself a debtor to all God's people on this earth. Each section of the church
seemed to vie with all the rest in sending words of comfort to my wife, and in
presenting intercession to God on my behalf. If anyone had prophesied, twenty
years ago, that a dissenting minister, and a very outspoken one, too, would be
prayed for in many parish churches, and in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's
Cathedral, it would not have been believed; but it was so. There is more love in
the hearts of Christian people than they know of themselves. We mistake our
divergencies of judgment for differences of heart; but they are far from being
the same thing. In these days of infidel criticism, believers of all sorts will
be driven into sincere unity. For my part, I believe that all spiritual persons
are already one. When our Lord prayed that his church might be one, his prayer
was answered, and his true people are even now, in spirit and in truth, one in
him. Their different modes of external worship are as the furrows of a field;
the field is none the less one because of the marks of the plough. Between
rationalism and faith there is an abyss immeasurable; but where there is faith
in the Everlasting Father, faith in the Great Sacrifice, and faith in the
Indwelling Spirit, there is a living, loving, lasting union.

I have learned, also, that when the one church pleads with hearty entreaties,
she must and will be heard. No case is hopeless when many pray. The deadliest
diseases relax their hold before the power of unanimous intercession. As long as
I live, I am a visible embodiment of the fact that, to the prayer of faith,
presented by the Church of God, nothing is impossible. It is worth while to have
been sore sick to have learned this truth, and to have proved it in one's own
person. In this little circle, probably one and another may say, "These are not
exactly the lessons that we have learned this year." Perhaps not. But if you
have learned more of Jesus, and of his love, which passes knowledge, it
suffices. Be thankful if you have learned even a little of Jesus. Do not judge
yourself by the attainments of others who are older or more experienced; but
rejoice in the Lord. Bless God for starlight, and he will give you moonlight;
praise him for moonlight, and he will give you sunlight; thank him for sunlight,
and you shall yet come to that land where they need not the light of the sun,
for the Lord God giveth them light for ever and ever. May this year close with
blessing! Amen. On the First Morning of 1892 In the morning the friends came
together again, and Mr. Spurgeon sat as before, and spoke with them; this time
more briefly.

Passing at this hour over the threshold of the New Year, we look forward, and
what do we see? Could we procure a telescope which would enable us to see to the
end of the year, should we be wise to use it? I think not. We know nothing of
the events which lie before us: of life or death to ourselves or to our friends,
or of changes of position, or of sickness or health. What a mercy that these
things are hidden from us! If we foresaw our best blessings, they would lose
their freshness and sweetness while we impatiently waited for them. Anticipation
would sour into weariness, and familiarity would breed contempt. If we could
foresee our troubles, we should worry ourselves about them long before they
came, and in that fretfulness we should miss the joy of our present blessings.
Great mercy has hung up a veil between us and the future; and there let it hang.

Still, all is not concealed. Some things we clearly see. I say, "we"; but I mean
those whose eyes have been opened, for it is not everyone who can see in the
truest sense. A lady said to Mr. Turner, "I have often looked upon that
prospect, but I have never seen what you have put into your picture." The great
artist simply replied, "Don't you wish you could see it?" Looking into the
future with the eye of faith, believers can see much that is hidden from those
who have no faith. Let me tell you, in a few words, what I see as I look into
the new year.

I see a pathway made from this first of January, 1892, to the first of January,
1893. I see a highway cast up by the foreknowledge and predestination of God.
Nothing of the future is left to chance; nay, not the falling of a sparrow, nor
the losing of a hair is left to hap-hazard; but all the events of life are
arranged and appointed. Not only is every turn in the road marked in the divine
map, but every stone on the road, and every drop of morning dew or evening mist
that falls upon the grass which grows at the roadside. We are not to cross a
trackless desert; the Lord has ordained our path in his infallible wisdom and
infinite love. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and he
delighteth in his way."

I see, next, a Guide provided, as our companion along the way. To him we gladly
say, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel." He is waiting to go with us through
every portion of the road. "The Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will
be with thee, he will not fail thee." We are not left to pass through life as
though it were a lone wilderness, a place of dragons and owls; for Jesus says,
"I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you."

Though we should lose father, and mother, and the dearest friends, there is One
who wears our nature, who will never quit our side. One like unto the Son of man
is still treading the life-ways of believing hearts, and each true believer
cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon the Beloved. We feel the presence of
the Lord Jesus even now, in this room, where two or three are gathered in his
name; and I trust we shall feel it through all the months of the year, whether
it be the time of the singing of birds, or the season of ripe fruits, or the
dark months when the clods are frozen into iron. In this Riviera, we ought the
more readily to realize our Lord's presence, because the country is so like "thy
land, O Immanuel!" Here is the land of oil olive, and of figs, and of the
clusters of Eshcol. By such a blue sea he walked, and up such rocky hills he
climbed. But whether here, or elsewhere, let us look for HIM to. abide with us,
to make this year truly to be "a year of our Lord."

Beside the way and the Guide, I perceive very clearly, by the eye of faith,
strength for the journey provided. Throughout the whole distance of the year, we
shall find halting-places, where we may rest and take refreshment, and then go
on our way singing, "He restoreth my soul." We shall have strength enough, but
none to spare; and that strength will come when it is needed, and not before.
When saints imagine that they have strength to spare, they turn sinners, and are
apt to have their locks shorn by the Philistines. The Lord of the way will find
the pilgrims with sufficient spending-money for the road; but he may not think
it wise to burden them with superfluous funds.

God all-sufficient will not fail those who trust him. When we come to the place
for shouldering the burden, we shall reach the place for receiving the strength.
If it pleases the Lord to multiply our troubles from one to ten, he will
increase our strength in the same proportion. To each believer the Lord still
says, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." You do not yet feel that you have
grace to die with: what of that? You are not yet dying. While you have yet to
deal with the business and duty of life, look to God for the grace which these
require; and when life is ebbing out, and your only thought is about landing on
the eternal shore, then look to God your Saviour for dying grace in dying
moments. We may expect an inrush of divine strength when human strength is
failing, and a daily impartation of energy as daily need requires. Our lamps
shall be trimmed as long as they shall need to burn. Let not our present
weakness tempt us to limit the Holy One of Israel. There is a hospice on every
pass over the Alps of life, and a bridge across every river of trial which
crosses our way to the Celestial City. Holy angels are as numerous to guard us
as fallen ones to tempt us. We shall never have a need for which our gracious
Father has furnished no supply.

I see, most plainly, a power overruling all things which occur in the way we
tread. I see an alembic in which all things are transformed. "All things work
together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according
to his purpose." I see a wonder-working hand which turns for us the swords of
disease into the ploughshares of correction, and the spears of trial into the
pruning-hooks of discipline. By this divine skill, bitters are made sweet, and
poisons turned to medicines. "Nothing shall by any means harm you," is a promise
too strong for feeble faith; but full assurance finds it true. Since God is for
us, who can be against us? What a joy to see Jehovah himself as our banner, and
God himself with us as our Captain! Forward then into the New Year, "for there
shall no evil befal you."

One thing more, and this is brightness itself: this year we trust we shall see
God glorified by us and in us. If we realize our chief end, we reach our highest
enjoyment. It is the delight of the renewed heart to think that God can get
glory out of such poor creatures as we are. "God is light." We cannot add to his
brightness; but we may act as reflectors, which, though they have no light of
their own, yet, when the sun shines upon them, reflect his beams, and send them
where, without such reflection, they might not have come. When the Lord shines
upon us, we will cast that light upon dark places, and make those who sit in the
shadow of death to rejoice in Jesus our Lord. We hope that God has been in some
measure glorified in some of us during the past year, but we trust he will be
glorified by us far more in the year which now begins. We will be content to
glorify God either actively or passively. We would have it so happen that, when
our life's history is written, whoever reads it will not think of us as
"self-made men," but as the handiwork of God, in whom his grace is magnified.
Not in us may men see the clay, but the Potter's hand. They said of one, "He is
a fine preacher"; but of another they said, "We never notice how he preaches,
but we feel that God is great." We wish our whole life to be a sacrifice; an
altar of incense continually smoking with sweet perfume unto the Most High. Oh,
to be borne through the year on the wings of praise to God; to mount from year
to year, and raise at each ascent a loftier and yet lowlier song unto the God of
our life! The vista of a praiseful life will never close, but continue
throughout eternity. From psalm to psalm, from hallelujah to hallelujah, we will
ascend the hill of the Lord; until we come into the Holiest of all, where, with
veiled faces, we will bow before the Divine Majesty in the bliss of endless
adoration. Throughout this year may the Lord be with you! Amen.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: CHAPTER THREE
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Chapter 3.

The Last Month

January 1892 On the first morning of January, 1892, Mr. Spurgeon gave the
delightful address which occupies the preceding pages. "Great mercy," he said,
"has hung up a veil between us and the future: and there let it hang." None who
heard that address, and but few who read it as it was reproduced in the February
number of The Sword and Trowel, thought that the immediate future would be for
us so heavy with trial, or for him so bright with joy.

On the last day of the same memorable month of January, the dearly-loved
speaker, who uttered such wise and weighty words, "fell asleep in Jesus." During
the darkness the news flashed round the world, and when February dawned,
millions of hearts were saddened to learn that C. H. Spurgeon lived on earth no
more.

Many friends will like to know how that last month on earth was spent; and by
means of a diary, begun by Mr. Spurgeon, and continued under his direction, much
interesting information can be given. In future numbers of The Sword and the
Trowel, "Mr. Spurgeon's Last Drives at Menton" will be described, with
illustrations prepared from photographs, taken either under his personal
supervision, or by his special request. The frontispiece of the present volume
will be a peculiarly sacred souvenir of the sunny South, for Mr. Spurgeon is
there represented as he appeared as late as January 8th, when this portrait, the
last that was ever taken of him, was secured by his friend, Mr. W. C. Houghton.
A pathetic interest must ever be attached to this picture, which will be
treasured by all his friends, as a parting memento.

Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon. On the first Sabbath evening in January, most of the guests
in the Hotel Beau Rivage remained downstairs in the salon after dinner. Mrs.
Spurgeon played the piano, while the friends sang some of her favourite hymns
from Sacred Songs and Solos, and Mr. Spurgeon closed the engagements of the
evening with a prayer that will be long remembered by all who were present.

Jan. 9—Mr. Spurgeon completed the revision of the MS. of sermon on Psalms
105:37, "A Stanza of Deliverance" (No. 2,241). Never did he revise a sermon with
greater ease or more delight. His pen seemed to fly along the pages; and many
times he paused, that he might tell us of the joy-bells ringing in his heart, as
he recounted the glorious story of the wonder-working Jehovah: "He brought them
forth also with silver and gold; and there was not one feeble person among their
tribes." How little he or anyone else thought that he would never revise another
sermon for The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit I

Jan. 10.—During the week preceding this Sabbath, several fresh guests arrived at
the hotel; and not knowing whether all would approve of hymn-singing and prayer
in the public salon, the Pastor's friends in the house were invited to meet,
after dinner, in his sitting-room. (This room is at the right-hand side of the
picture, underneath the lower of the two balconies. Only the top of the window
is visible, as the rest is hidden by the palm-trees.) There were nineteen
present, and a very hallowed season was spent. Prayer was presented by Deacon
Thompson, Mr. S. D. Waddy, Q. C., and Mr. J. W. Harrald. Mr. Spurgeon read and
expounded Psalms 73, and afterwards read part of his printed sermon, entitled
"Let us Pray" (No. 288), on the twenty-eighth verse of the Psalm. The portion
selected contained the three sub-divisions:—(1) Prayer explains mysteries. (2)
Prayer brings deliverance. (3) Prayer obtains promises,

Jan. 15.—A day of mingled gladness and sadness—Mrs. Spurgeon's birthday, and
also the day on which the rumours as to the death of the Duke of Clarence were
proved to be only too true. Remembering the kind enquiries of the

Hôtel Beau Rivage, Menton.

Prince of Wales during his illness, Mr. Spurgeon telegraphed to express his
sympathy with the sorrowing parents; and he was especially pleased when he
received a telegram conveying the Prince's "heartfelt thanks."

Jan. 17.—This afternoon, while arranging the hymns for the evening, Mr. Spurgeon
said:—"I am going to give a short address to-night." Fearing that he was not
well enough to do this, the friends who were present persuaded him to read
something that he had already written. They knew that he was doing more mental
work than he ought, though he assured them that he was only amusing himself, and
that it was much worse for him to be idle than to employ his time in such
literary labour as he felt able to perform without effort or weariness. He
yielded to their entreaties, though he evidently wanted to have another
opportunity of addressing the little company! Mr. Harrald, his faithful
"armour-bearer", found out, afterwards, what text he had selected, and the
divisions of the subject that he had made. Here is an exact facsimile of the
outline he had prepared; what would we not give to know what he would have said
then upon this topic, or what he could say upon it now?

"The God of patience."—Romans 15:5.

The first hymn sung was the Scotch version of Psalms 103—

"O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord!"

Then the Pastor read and expounded Psalms 103, and called on his secretary to
pray. The next hymn was—

"Jerusalem the golden!"

Mr. Spurgeon then read to the twenty-one friends assembled his exposition of
Matthew 15:21-28, which

Mr. J. W. Harrald, Mr. Spurgeon's "Armour-Bearer." will appear in his
forthcoming "Commentary on Matthews' Gospel", a work on which he spent most of
his time during the last month. Prayer was presented by Pastor G. Samuel, of
Birmingham, and Mr. Spurgeon announced the last hymn he ever gave out. How
appropriate that choice poem, founded on some words of the sainted Samuel
Rutherford, was to his approaching end—

"The sands of time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks, The summer morn I've
sighed for,— The fair, sweet morn awakes.

Dark, dark hath been the midnight, But dayspring is at hand, And 'glory, glory
dwelleth In Immanuel's land.'"

His closing prayer was peculiarly impressive; and well it might be, for it was
the last act of worship at the last service he ever conducted on earth.

Jan. 20.—Mr. Spurgeon went to Monti for his last drive this morning. (See Sword
and Trowel, May, 1890, for his own description of the scenery along the road.)
In the evening, his hand was so painful from gout that he went to bed early; and
from that bed he never rose.

The following day, gout in the head gave increased anxiety concerning the
beloved patient, and from that time until the end, it was needful that he should
be lovingly attended and carefully nursed both day and night. This service was
most cheerfully and willingly rendered. No one anticipated that the illness
would assume such a terrible form, although the dear sufferer assured those
around him that his head ached just as it did when he returned from Essex in the
summer, and he feared that he was going to be as ill as he had been at
"Westwood" during those anxious months last year.

It was about this time that Mr. Spurgeon said to his armour-bearer, "My work is
done," and spoke of various matters that showed that he felt his end was
approaching. Still, all clung to the hope that he would be spared, and even
permitted to preach again; but on Tuesday morning, January 26th, Dr. FitzHenry
was obliged to report his patient's condition as "serious." This was for many
reasons, a memorable day, for it was the time appointed for bringing to the
Tabernacle the thankofferings for the Pastor's partial recovery. (A full account
of what took place at Menton that morning and afterwards, will be found in Mr.
Harrald's address at the Tabernacle on Wednesday morning, February 10th, fully
reported on pages 109 to 115.)

Little can be added about the following anxious days and trying nights. Dr.
FitzHenry did all that medical skill, constant attention, and loving care could
suggest; Mrs. Spurgeon, Miss Thorne, Mr. Harrald, Mr. Allison, and Mr. Samuel,
were unceasingly, watchful for opportunities of helping the beloved sufferer;
but alas! for most of the time he was completely unconscious, and unable to
communicate any parting word to the loved ones who waited eagerly for the
faintest syllable from his dear lips. He could utter no "dying testimony"; his
forty years' ministry made that unnecessary. If there is a regret that he passed
away without being able to give any word of farewell, there is also the
satisfaction of knowing that there was, on his part, no pain at parting from his
beloved wife and family and friends, and no anxiety as to the Church, College,
Orphanage, Evangelists, Colporteurs, and the many works and workers he was
leaving behind him. At five minutes past eleven on Lord's-day, January 31st,
1892, the beloved Pastor entered heaven.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: CHAPTER FOUR
========================================================================

Chapter 4.

Home in February

"I shall be home in February," was, for a long time, the Pastor's reply to
everyone who asked him when he thought of being back, and he was home in
February, in a far more real sense than any of us had supposed when we heard the
words. Home! How sweet it sounds, and especially for him who, after a sojourn in
the South, was ever so eager, when he turned his face homewards, to reach as
quickly as possible his happy home on earth! With what intense joy he must have
entered his glorious home in heaven!

Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, who has been most marvellously sustained by the grace of
our tender Lord, beautifully says:

"His 'abundant entrance', the 'Well done, good and faithful servant!' of the
Master, the great throng of white-robed spirits, who welcomed him as the one who
first led them to the Saviour, the admiring, wondering angels, the radiant
glory, the surprise of that midnight journey which ended at the throne of God;
all this, and much more of blessed reality for him, has lifted our bowed heads,
and enabled us to bless the Lord, even though he has taken from us so
incomparable a friend and pastor. All that was choice, and generous, and
Christlike, seemed gathered together in his character, and lived out in his
life. He was pre-eminently 'the servant of all'; yet he served with such
humility and wisdom, that, with him, to serve was to reign. All are feeling now
the power he wielded over men's hearts; and because a prince of God, and a
leader of men, has passed away, 'our houses are left unto us desolate.' I must
not attempt to speak of his worth; words would utterly fail me; but the tears of
multitudes, all over the world, testify to the irreparable loss they have
sustained.

"I will tell you of one fact which has greatly comforted me in my deep grief; it
will ever be a precious memory to me, and a theme of praise to God. It may
rejoice your hearts also to have such an assurance from my pen. It is that the
Lord so tenderly granted to us both three months of perfect earthly happiness
here in Menton, before he took him to the 'far better' of his own glory and
immediate presence! For fifteen years my beloved had longed to bring me here;
but it had never before been possible. Now, we were both strengthened for the
long journey; and the desire of his heart was fully given him. I can never
describe the pride and joy with which he introduced me to his favourite haunts,
and the eagerness with which he showed me each lovely glimpse of mountain, sea,
and landscape. He was hungry for my loving appreciation, and I satisfied him to
the full. We took long daily drives, and every place we visited was a triumphal
entry for him. His enjoyment was intense, his delight exuberant. He looked in
perfect health, and rejoiced in the brightest of spirits. Then, too, with what
calm, deep happiness he sat, day after day, in a cosy corner of his sunny room,
writing his last labour of love, The Commentary on Matthew's Gospel! Not a care
burdened him, not a grief weighed upon his heart, not a desire remained
unfulfilled, not a wish unsatisfied; he was permitted to enjoy an earthly Eden
before his translation to the Paradise above. Blessed be the Lord for such sweet
memories, such tender assuagement of wounds that can never quite be healed on
earth! Up to the last ten days of his sweet life, health appeared to be
returning, though slowly; our hopes were strong for his full recovery, and he
himself believed that he should live to declare again to his dear people, and to
poor sinners, 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.'

Mr. Spurgeon's "Cosy Corner." (See page 41.)

"But it was not to be, dear friends. The call came with terrible suddenness to
us; but with infinite mercy to him. The prayer, 'Father, I will that they also
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.,
was answered in his case. His Saviour wanted him up higher, and could spare him
to us no longer. He is gone to his everlasting reward, and the hallelujahs of
heaven must hush and rebuke the sobs and sighs of earth.' Looking up, with
tear-dimmed eyes, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can say,
'Even so, Lord, for thou hast made him most blessed for ever. Thou has made him
exceeding glad with thy countenance.'" A very favourite hymn of the departed
Pastor's was, "Come, thou fount of every blessing." It was sung by the little
company in the train that conveyed the Pastor and his beloved wife and friends
from Herne Hill to Dover, on October 26th, 1891, and during the hallowed service
at Menton, on January 10th, it was sung again.

What a new meaning has been given to the second verse:—

"Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by thine help I'm come; And I hope, by thy good pleasure, Safely to
arrive at home"!

Now, by the "good pleasure" of the Lord, whom he served so faithfully, he has
safely arrived at home, and who are we to question the wisdom and love of him
who hath taken him to himself? To the praise of the Lord's providential
arrangements, it ought to be recorded, that the very first letter opened by Mr.
Spurgeon's secretary, after his leader fell asleep in Jesus, contained the
notice of a legacy of £500 for the Stockwell Orphanage. Was not this a gracious
indication that the Lord would still continue to provide for the five hundred
fatherless children in "Mr. Spurgeon's Orphanage"? God buries his workers; but
his work goes on. Doubtless he will move many of his stewards to bring of the
substance with which he has entrusted them, that all parts of the work that he
inspired his now glorified servant to undertake may be maintained with equal or
increased efficiency.

One bright reminiscence may be given. Mrs. Spurgeon had been looking at the
planets, Jupiter and Venus, which were unusually bright, even for Menton, where
the stars generally shine with a brilliance unknown in our dear dull
island-home. Speaking of her beloved, she said, "I wonder what he thinks of
those planets now." Mr. Harrald replied, "If they are inhabited, he has asked
the Lord to let him go, that he may preach the gospel there." "No doubt of it,"
she added, "for how often he said that, when he got to heaven, he would stand at
the corner of one of the streets, and proclaim to the angels the old, old story
of Jesus and his love! "This was his interpretation of the text—"To the intent
that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by
the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Mr. Spurgeon's Bedroom After His Removal.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: CHAPTER FIVE
========================================================================

Chapter 5.

Two Characteristic Illustrations

During the early days of January, Mr. Spurgeon wrote the following short pieces.
He was always on the alert for illustrations of spiritual truth; and these last
paragraphs, one of them referring to Christian experience, and the other to
Christian practice, may well be pondered now that the hand that wrote them is
palsied in death. The second should especially remind us that the Institutions,
formerly under the care of Mr. Spurgeon, and which will be carried on as
heretofore, are still in need of generous support. Let every mercy prompt an
offering from thankful hearts. The handwriting of both articles is as distinct
as anything the beloved author ever penned; and those who read them will at once
perceive that his mental eye was not dim, nor his spiritual force abated, when
he wrote as follows:—

New Year's Day, 1892

"At Menton, the first day of the year was as one of the days of heaven upon the
earth. Almost cloudless and windless, beneath the bluest of skies, the day was
warm and bright with the glorious sun. Did we draw the inference that, all the
world over, New Year's Day was like summer? Did we disbelieve the paragraphs in
the daily journals which told another tale of other lands? We were not so
foolish.

"A certain brother has an exceedingly rapturous experience, full of confidence,
communion, and conquest. Does he, therefore, conclude that all true Christian
experience

From Harper's Magazine.—Copyright, 1883, by Harper & Brothers. View of Menton,
from the Boulevard Victoria. must necessarily be of this delightful order? Does
he cast a doubt upon the sincerity of others, whose spiritual weather is
clouded, and even darkened with storms? Let us trust that he will not be so
uncharitable, so unjust.

"But if a friend, from a land of fogs and frosts, should insinuate that our
report of the New Year at Menton was fanciful and fictitious, because he had
experienced far different weather, would he not be very ungenerous? So the
brother of sombre spirit and troubled experience is not acting as he should do
when he judges the cheerful as being frivolous, condemns the rapturous as
excitable, and looks upon the confident as presumptuous. He has no right to set
up his painful experience as the standard by which to discern the people of God;
neither is he justified in denying the possibility of unbroken peace because he
has never long enjoyed it.

"We may not judge others by ourselves. We may not infer general facts from
individual cases. We must take into consideration a thousand things, and many of
these we do not know: wherefore, let us not judge, that we be not judged."—C. H.
S.

Provocatives of Generosity

"The mail from India brings news of the narrow escape from death of the ruler of
the State of Morvi, on the 18th November, 1891. It is said that his Highness was
at his stables on the evening of that day, and found his grooms searching for a
snake that had been seen half-an-hour before. The pursuit was, however, given
up, and the Prince drove out as usual. On the way, he suddenly felt a warm
sensation on his chest. He had put on an overcoat; and as he unbuttoned it, a
black, venomous cobra fell to the ground in a heavy coil, and glided away. His
Highness drove back at once to the palace, and distributed a sum of Rs. 500
among the poor, and gave feasts the following morning.

"We, too, have seen a deadlier serpent drop at our feet; but have we been as
practical in our gratitude as this Indian Prince? The deadly thing was coiled
about our heart, and only by a miracle of grace have we been delivered from its
venomous tooth: have we shown our thankfulness to Christ Jesus our Lord by
helping his poor people with our substance? Have we made feasts for his saints
by the utterance of the Lord's goodness?

"Every time we have a providential escape, or a gracious rescue from temptation,
let us think of the Rajah of Morvi, and make haste to celebrate the happy event
by bountiful liberality. If such were the case, one could see a new reason for
the existence of black cobras, and other dangers: they would become provocatives
of generosity."—C. H. S.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: CHAPTER SIX
========================================================================

Chapter 6. Memorial Service at Menton When it was finally decided that the
remains of the beloved Pastor were to be laid to rest in England, it was felt
that there must be a Memorial Service in the little town where he had spent so
many winters, and had been so great a blessing to many people in various ways.
It was also felt that there was no place so suitable for such a service as the
Scotch Presbyterian Church, for Mr. Spurgeon had preached at the opening of that
building, just about a year previously, the sermon which was afterwards
published under the title of "Redemption through Blood, the Gracious Forgiveness
of Sins" (No. 2,207). The minister of the church, Rev. J. E. Somerville, B.D.,
made all the arrangements, in consultation with Mr. Allison and Mr. Harrald, and
in accordance with the wishes of Mrs. Spurgeon.

Thursday, February 4th, was "a real Menton morning"—not a cloud could be seen in
the bright blue sky, the sun made the Mediterranean glisten like "a sea of glass
mingled with fire", and everything in nature seemed to remind us of the joy into
which our loved and lost leader had entered, in the land where—

"Everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers."

There were many sad hearts among the representatives of all sections of the
Christian church, who gathered around the olive-wood casket enclosing the
precious body. Canon Sidebotham and the Rev. A. M. Topp, the ministers of the
two Episcopal churches, were there, with Rev. Talbot Greaves, M.A., vicar of
Clifton, Revs. Arthur W. Phelps, R. Logan, and other clergy from "The House of
Rest"; Rev. J. Lings, a constant Menton visitor, and friend of Mr. Spurgeon; Mr.
C. E. Faithfull, the sailors' friend, from Marseilles: M. Palmaro, the British
Vice-Consul, Dr. FitzHenry (Mr. Spurgeon's medical attendant and faithful
friend), Mrs. Hanbury, and all of the Menton circle who could possibly attend.

Many friends sent very beautiful wreaths, for the dear one went home from the
land of flowers; but Mrs. Spurgeon contributed palm-branches, as the most
appropriate emblems of the victory of her beloved, as he stood with the great
multitude "before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and
palms, in their hands, and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." The hymn beginning—

"Give me the wings of faith to rise," was sung. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr.
Murray Mitchell of Nice; and Mr. Somerville read Isaiah 40:1-8, 1 Corinthians
15:19-26; 1 Corinthians 15:53-57; 2 Corinthians 4:17—v. 10; and Revelation
7:9-17; and then delivered the following address:—"In the presence of the dead,
words of man seem inappropriate, and eulogy is out of place. A prince and a
great man is fallen in Israel. We meet, today, a company of mourners, and we
desire to join in their mourning, the family, the congregation, and that wide
circle who have sustained so sore a bereavement; for Charles Spurgeon belonged
not to the Metropolitan Tabernacle only, nor to London, nor to England, but to
all English-speaking countries, and to many others besides.

"In him, God bestowed upon our age and on the world a great gift; and we are
thankful that for so many years he was permitted to witness with such
fearlessness, eloquence, and power, for the Lord, whom it was his delight to
serve; and that he was honoured to be the instrument of salvation to multitudes,
many of whom never saw his face.

"That active life is over here. No more shall that mellow and wondrous voice
(the first that was heard in this church) plead with men, nor the ready pen
counsel and delight. The labourer rests. The warrior's 'sword' lies idle, the
'trowel' has fallen from the workman's hand, because the Master has said 'Come.'
'Charles Haddon Spurgeon is dead,' many are saying today; nay, not dead, but
entered on life more abundant. The chamber of suffering has been exchanged for
the land where the inhabitant shall no more say, 'I am sick.' He has gone from
us; but he sees the King in his beauty.

"Shall we lament because another voice has been added to the chorus of the
redeemed above, that the servant has been rewarded, that the victor has been
crowned? Gone home, not gone away, he is present with the Lord. In one more the
Saviour has seen of the travail of his soul.

"Only four days ago we prayed that he might be spared to us, and be allowed to
labour longer; but Jesus prayed, 'Father, I will that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.' We cannot now
wish that that prayer had been denied.

"Shall we selfishly grudge the Lord satisfaction over his redeemed, or our
brother the blessedness and joy of the Master's welcome, 'Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'?

"He has been called away in his prime, when to us his presence Seemed necessary,
and when he gave promise of years of usefulness. But his work was done, and we
must learn to say—

'Just when thou wilt, O Master, call, Or at the noon or evening fall; Or in the
dark, or in the light, Just when thou wilt, it must be right.'

Funeral Cortège at Menton Station. So we bow the head, and say, 'The will of the
Lord be done. Hallelujah!'"

Pasteur Delapierre, of the French Evangelical Church, spoke in French concerning
the great influence exerted by our departed friend over the French-speaking
churches, and bore testimony to his fidelity to the revealed Word, his practical
charity to all men, and his humility and love, which endeared him to so many. M.
Delapierre also offered prayer for the bereaved family, friends, and church. Mr.
Harrald delivered Mrs. Spurgeon's message to the congregation: "If you want to
tell them anything from me, say—

'He hath done all things well,'" and gave some touching reminiscences of his
beloved leader's last days. Pastor G. Samuel, of Birmingham, spoke on behalf of
the 800 ministers trained in the Pastors' College, and especially referred to
the tenderness and gentleness of the departed President. The hymn—

"For ever with the Lord," was solemnly sung, and then all stood while the coffin
was carried to the open hearse, which proceeded at once to the railway station,
followed by probably a larger and sadder company of mourners then ever gathered
for a Protestant funeral at Menton.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: CHAPTER SEVEN
========================================================================

Chapter 7.

The Bereaved Church

Almost as soon as it became known in London that our beloved Pastor had entered
heaven, the meetings of the bereaved church at the Tabernacle began. Monday, the
first of February, had previously, at his suggestion, been set apart as a day of
prayer that the epidemic of influenza, which then prevailed, might be removed.
The prayer-meetings were held, and a very speedy answer was given, for the
disease abated the same week; but little did anyone imagine that the gatherings
thus arranged would be turned to such solemn purpose as they were that day. With
but little interval, the people met together during the morning and afternoon;
and in the evening, an immense prayer-meeting was held, one of the largest ever
known, even at the Tabernacle, and, amidst the hush of stricken hearts, God
visited his people, and spoke peace to many. Mr. Spurgeon's own version of the
thirty-ninth Psalm, often used at these Memorial gatherings, was then sung with
deep feeling, for the first time.

Every succeeding day, informal meetings were held, and on Thursday, February
4th, Dr. Pierson, who has stood like a giant, strong in faith, all through the
trying ordeal, preached from Psalms 90:16-17, a sermon for which everyone who
heard it afterwards expressed the utmost gratitude. It was just such a steadying
message as was needed at this great crisis in the history of the church. The
little-faith of many was rebuked; and new hope born that, though the chief
worker was removed, the work of God would be established; and that the beauty of
the Lord would yet be given instead of mourning, ay, even in the midst of the
sorrow.

Lord's-day morning, February 7th—the first Lord's-day without a Pastor—dawned
grey and misty. Many an aching heart turned wistfully towards the place of
solemn assembly, with mingled feelings of faith and fear. Very early, meetings
for prayer were convoked, and the spirits of those who attended them were thus
braced for the more public gatherings. A great crowd, dressed in deep mourning,
filled the building in every corner.

Rev. James A. Spurgeon opened with the following prayer: "Our Father, which art
in heaven, whither thou hast taken the beloved pastor of this church, we cling
to thine unseen arm; hold us up.

"Hallowed be thy name; it is everlasting.

"Thy kingdom come; it shall have no end.

"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven—not our will, but thy will be
done.

"Give us this day our daily bread, for our hearts are hungry. Break, through thy
dear servant, our brother Pierson, the bread of life to us today.

"Forgive us our trespasses, and let the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us from
all sin; as we here today forgive all that have trespassed against us.

"Lead us not into temptation. Though thou hast tried us as silver is tried, yet,
with all our trials which have abounded; thy consolations have much more
abounded, praise be to thy name.

"Deliver us from the evil one, and from every evil thought, word, or act, in
connection with this thy hand and dispensation, or anywhere, lifelong.

"For thine is the kingdom; and we bless thee for it, and

Pastor James A. Spurgeon. thou shalt reign whose right it is, from sea to sea,
and from the river to the ends of the earth. And thine is the power; hold us up
in our weakness, and the widow and the fatherless and the mourner everywhere,
and specially those on our hearts here today. And thine is the glory, for we
glorify thee in the fire now and for evermore. Amen."

Though the tension of heart and mind was intense, Dr. Pierson, evidently helped
by our Covenant God, upon whom he had cast himself without reserve, was able in
the reading, and in prayer, to speak comfortable words to the people, and in the
sermon he led the people away from their own loss to their Pastor's exceeding
gain. On the evening of the Lord's-day, such crowds flocked to the familiar
rallying-point, that, before the time of service, the Tabernacle was densely
thronged with a subdued, black-robed congregation. The number of those unable to
gain admission was so great as to fill the open space inside the railings in
front, and to reach across the road. Dr. Pierson again preached with great
power. The great Communion Service followed. He who has missed seeing one of
these services at the Tabernacle, has missed a sight unique in Christendom. The
body of the building, and half the first gallery, filled with communicants, and
the rest of the space occupied with interested spectators, is almost an
overwhelming spectacle at any time. But now, with the Pastor's chair empty, it
was quite overpowering. With few words, and quiet movement, the simple emblems
of our Lord's death were taken in token of his body broken and his blood shed
for his people. As Christ's death has become the gate of life, it was felt then
that perhaps the removal of C. H. Spurgeon might become, by the overruling grace
of God, a deep and widespread benediction.

Dr. A. T. Pierson. At the close of the Communion Service, Deacon Thomas H. Olney
read a statement to the church, which gave universal satisfaction. By unanimous
voice of the officers, Rev. James A. Spurgeon had been desired and had consented
to continue as Pastor in charge, and Dr. Pierson had also, in response to an
earnest appeal to that effect, expressed his willingness to continue as
Officiating Minister. Only one sentiment prevailed in reference to this
temporary arrangement, and that was deep gratitude. We all thanked God that,
though one brother had been taken, the other was left. As we had never known how
much we loved our departed Pastor until he was called away from us, we never
knew how much we esteemed and valued his brother until he was left alone. Nobly
has he fulfilled his part, and as, between him and Dr. Pierson, for whom we
devoutly thank God, there exists a most fraternal union; and between them both
and the church, the heartiest sympathy; long may the ministry continue, which
has so auspiciously begun!

(This arrangement was unanimously ratified at the Annual Church Meeting held on
March 1st.)


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: CHAPTER EIGHT
========================================================================

Chapter 8. The Blessedness of the Holy Dead A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Arthur T.
Pierson, D.D. In the Metropolitan Tabernacle On Lord's-day Morning, February
7th, 1892

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest
from their labours; and their works do follow them."—Revelation 14:13. From the
beginning of this great sorrow there is one text, and one only, to which my mind
has turned, and which therefore I take to be the message of God to his bereaved
people.

Very seldom in the course of human history has a voice ever been heard from
heaven, but never unless some most august and important announcement was to be
made. Heaven is not opened in vain: and the celestial voice that speaks with
divine authority is never heard unless the occasion justifies the utterance.
There are three remarkable signs that something is contained in this verse which
is of no ordinary moment and magnitude. First, there is the voice from heaven:
secondly, there is the command to record the message, for permanence, in the
body of Holy Scripture, "saying unto me, Write": and thirdly, there is the "Yea"
of the Holy Spirit, as though the Spirit must add his emphatic testimony, that,
in the mouth of two witnesses, both of them divine, every word shall be
established. One feels a certain sense of awe in approaching a text surrounded
by such magnificent evidences of its superlative importance: a voice from
heaven; a command to write; and the "Yea" of the Holy Spirit. Let us therefore,
in the spirit of little children, seeking not so much to frame a discourse, as
to open our ears while God discourses, look at the individual phrases of this
remarkable text.

I. In the first place, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth." That latter expression, "from henceforth," is one of the most
difficult that exegetes, or expositors of the Bible, have ever confronted. It
may refer to a new point of departure with regard to the blessed dead; it may
refer to a new point of departure with respect to the revelation of that
blessedness; and it may refer to a new point of departure in reference to the
testimony of the Spirit. We may connect it with the second part of the verse
instead of the first. "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write,
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; Yea, saith the Spirit, from
henceforth; that they may rest from their labours." But you perceive that, while
there is some doubt as to the application of the phrase, we are in this case
embarrassed by riches, for the applications of the phrase are so many and
possibly so varied. It may be that, being put in the middle of this verse, it
looks both backward to the beginning of the verse and forward to its conclusion,
so that it indicates somehow, alike in the redemption of God, and in the
revelation of Christ, and in the testimony of the Spirit, a new point of
departure—"from henceforth."

Certainly there is one very conspicuous fact, namely, that the resurrection of
Jesus Christ appears to mark a new epoch with respect even to the terms used
about the departed saints of God. Stephen was the first martyr, and, in fact,
his death was the first which is placed on record in the pages of Holy
Scripture—the first recorded death of a believer in Jesus—subsequent to Christ's
resurrection. And, notwithstanding the agony in which he must have died, under
the stoning of his enemies, his death is manifestly a typical death, and the
description of it has a typical significance. For we read, He, being full of the
Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing on the right hand of God; and said, Behold, I see the heavens
opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." "And they stoned
Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "And when
he had said this, he fell asleep." Three marked features are there, evidently
typical: in the first place, a vision of heaven and of Christ; in the second
place, perfect peace of mind, even amid the agonies of a violent death; and in
the third place, a new term applied to death—"he fell asleep." From the time of
the resurrection of Christ to the last chapter of the Apocalypse you will
scarcely once find the death of a believer referred to as death, without some
qualifying phrase attached to it. There is one exception. In the ninth chapter
of the Acts of the Apostles we read of the death of Dorcas, or Tabitha, and the
word "died" is used with reference to her, although she was a believer. But the
reason is obvious. Peter was about, in the name of Christ, to call her back from
death to life, and therefore it was important that the actual fact of her death
should be unmistakably stated. Had it been said of her that "she fell asleep,"
it might have been thought that Peter simply roused her from a trance; but when
it was declared that she "died," there could be no doubt of her actual
miraculous resuscitation from the dead. But in every other case that I have been
able to trace in the New Testament the death of a believer is never once
referred to as "death," except with some such qualifying phrase as we find in
this text—"die in the Lord," which at once separates such death from the death
of an unbeliever. So important is this fact, as bearing upon the phrase "from
henceforth" in this text, that it will amply repay us to examine more fully and
in detail the terms used to describe the decease of God's saints. For instance,
take the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 15, which contains a long
discourse on the subject of death and the resurrection. In the sixth verse we
read that Christ "was seen of about five hundred brethren at once, of whom the
greater part remain unto this present but some are fallen asleep." Then in the
twentieth verse, we read, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and is become
the first-fruits of them that slept." Then, again, in the fifty-first verse,
"Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, in a moment." In the second epistle to the Corinthians, fifth chapter,
we have another reference to the death of a believer, but again the word,
"death," even the thought of death, is avoided: "For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved"—a tent falling to pieces, and the
inhabitants going out to take another habitation. "Not for that we would be
unclothed, but clothed upon": the death of a believer is being unclothed as to
the vesture of mortality, and being clothed upon with the vesture of
immortality. And then, again, in the eighth verse, "We are confident, I say, and
willing rather to be absent from the body"—out of home from the body—"and to be
present with the Lord"—at home with the Lord. Then we turn to Paul's letter to
the Philippians, chapter first, and the twenty-first verse, "For to me to live
is Christ, and to die is gain." There the word "die" is used, but in connection
with gain; and immediately, as it were, Paul abandons the word "death," and says
in the twenty-third verse," For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
depart and to be with, Christ, which is far better." And then, again, in the
first Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter four, thirteenth and fourteenth
verses, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him." Then we turn to the second epistle to Timothy, and in
the fourth chapter and the sixth verse, we read, "I am now ready to be offered,
and the time of my departure is at hand." The Greek word for departure means to
let loose, in order to depart, as the cables that hold a vessel to her moorings
are loosed, in order that she may sail out for her haven. "I am ready to be
offered; and the time when my bark unloosens from her fastenings that she may
enter the eternal harbour, is close at hand"; and yet he was looking forward to
decapitation in the arena under the orders of Nero. And once more—without
further prolonged study of this topic—Peter says in his second epistle, chapter
1 verse 14, "Knowing that shortly I must put off," or lay aside, "this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me." This somewhat
detailed examination may help my fellow believers in this congregation to
appreciate the fact, which possibly they have never appreciated before, that the
resurrection of Jesus Christ marks a new departure in the death of believers, as
least, as to the revelation of the blessedness and the glory into which they
have entered; so that, after Christ died and rose again, it was necessary to
have a new nomenclature, a new set of terms, to describe the departure of the
saint to be with his Lord. It would no longer do to call it "death," for there
has been a new apocalypse of the glory of those that "die in the Lord."

II. In the second place, notice that qualifying phrase, "in the Lord." It is no
exaggeration to declare of that one phrase, "in the Lord," that no more
important single phrase is to be found in the New Testament Scriptures. Any
student of the Word of God in the original tongues will know that the little
phrase, ἐν Χρἰστῷ ("in Christ"), is the key to every epistle of the New
Testament. The magnificent thought, suggested by those two or three little Greek
words, is something beyond the power of any man to set forth properly: "in
Christ Jesus." Christ seems to be imagined and pictured forth by the Holy Ghost
on the pages of Holy Scripture as a great divine sphere, vast as immensity and
eternity, vast as the love and grace of God. And the circumference of that
sphere marks the difference between sin and holiness, between condemnation and
justification, between hell and heaven. By faith in Jesus, the penitent believer
enters into that sphere, and thus crosses the line of circumference that
separates between a state of sin and condemnation and judgment, and a state of
holiness and justification and salvation. He is now henceforth "in Christ." We
have no term to express the grandeur of this thought—insphered in Christ. "Who
is he that can harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?" What dart or
arrow can penetrate the circumference of that sphere in which the believer is
embraced and hidden with his Lord? "The Only Begotten of God keeps him that that
Wicked One toucheth him not." And if you are thus in Christ Jesus, you are
saved, already saved. The moment that you enter into that sphere you are in God.
The world is outside of you, the broken law outside of you, the gulf of
perdition outside of you. You are in holiness if you are in him, you are in
justification if you are in him, you are in sanctification if you are in him;
you are already, virtually, in heaven if you are in him. And so in the epistle
to the Ephesians we have that strange expression, ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις translated
into "heavenly places." But there is no word for "places" in the original; it is
"in the heavenlies." We are not in the heavenly places yet; we are in the
earthly places. But if you are a child of God and a believer in Christ, you are
introduced to the heavenly states and experiences and joys and privileges; and,
when you go to heaven itself, there will be scarcely a joy absolutely new to
you, except the actual sight of your Master himself; for you will have had, as
in gentle droppings from above, a foretaste and an earnest of what you are going
to have in fall perfection there. That phrase, "in the Lord," must have at least
three great interpretations. In the first place, a redemptive interpretation, to
which we have referred. The penitent believer goes from the world, and from sin,
and from Satan, and from condemnation, redemptively, into this divine sphere of
safety, holiness and happiness. In the second place, actively and actually; for
a believer's life is taken into the life of Christ, his work taken up into the
work of Christ, his destiny taken into the destiny of Christ, his life-plan
embraced in the eternal plan of God. So the apostle says (Romans 14:7-8.): "None
of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live, we
live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live,
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." Oh, the magnificence of the thought!
Would to God we could rise to it, and feel its glorious reality! While you live
you are in this sphere in Christ Jesus. Are you any less in that sphere when you
die, when you fall asleep as to your body, and, as to your spirit, you are at
home with the Lord? The apostle says, that the disciple that lives unto the
Lord, dies unto the Lord; the Lord has not surrendered his control of him when
death comes upon him. Neither has the believer lost his identity and unity with
Jesus when he falls asleep. We are thus redemptively in the Lord, and actively
and actually in the Lord. And what shall I call this other, but being immortally
in the Lord? We are still in the Lord when we fall asleep, and it is unto the
Lord that we die, even as it is unto the Lord that we have lived.

III. But we turn now to look at the concluding part of this great text, "Yea,
saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do
follow them." The first part of this statement, "they rest from their labours,"
is to occupy our thoughts hereafter more fully, and we may pass it now with a
word. There is absolute rest, for every believer who is at home with the Lord,
from everything of the nature of vexation, of task, of toil, of physical,
intellectual, moral, and spiritual limitation; from infirmity, sickness,
disappointment, and disaster. All these and all else, which mar the perfection
of our service in this world and interfere with the perfection of our joy in
God, we leave behind us when, absent from the body, we are present with the
Lord. But let us fasten our thoughts for a moment on the last expression, "and
their works do follow them." That is another difficult phrase to interpret:
difficult, as has been said before of another phrase—only because of the
embarrassment from the various applications which may be made of it. There are
three prominent applications which may be suggested. One is that the works,
which are done in Christ Jesus, survive the departing saint and remain as his
memorial and monument in this world. A second suggestion is, that the works
which he has done here follow after him into eternity as witnesses before the
throne of God to his fidelity, and as the means of increasing the measure and
glory of his reward. And there is a third interpretation, which I venture to
propose, and which, I believe, will commend itself to your approval. The Greek
word translated "follow" may mean "to follow as one who goes immediately behind
and treads in another's footsteps—to accompany." It is like the following of a
disciple, close on the heels of his Master just before him; the following of
companionship and fellowship. This interpretation is both suggested and
confirmed by the difference in the terms of the original, which appears also in
the English translation: "they rest from their labours;" but "their works do
follow them." What is the difference between labour and work? Labour, both in
the Latin and in the English word derived from it, as also in the original Greek
word in this text, suggests the idea of toil amid hindrance and difficulty and
weariness—burden bearing. It suggests the thought that one is doing a task that
taxes his strength, and fatigues him so that he comes from his work, wearied and
worn; it carries the notion of strength unequal to the task, so that one faints
at times, or feels himself circumscribed with limitations that he is impotent to
throw off. But the word "work" means simply activity, doing, endeavouring,
performing.

How blessed is the thought that the Holy Ghost suggests to us! When a saint of
God falls asleep as to his body, and enters into the presence of his Lord, as to
his spirit for evermore, the labours, the toils, the vexations of this world, he
leaves behind him; but he carries with him into immortality his service. He goes
to carry on his work for God, for that is as immortal as God himself. He goes
where no limitations exist, where no vexations and hindrances circumscribe his
activity, where "they rest not," because they are never tired nor fatigued;
where, as they wait on the Lord, they renew their strength, mount up with wings
as eagles, run and are never weary, walk and never faint. The tireless and
endless activity of a redeemed soul partakes of the tireless energy of an
untiring God. Let us not suppose, for a moment, that when a man who has spent
his life in seeking to serve God, who has stored his mind with all manner of
accumulations, and, with the tension of persistent effort, sought to acquire and
achieve all that is possible for his Master; who has laid the foundation-stone
of great institutions, has scattered abroad throughout the world the testimony
of his faith and his courage for his Master's sake—let us not suppose for a
moment that, when such a man falls, as we say, at the blow of death, his service
ceases. God is a better οἰκονόμος, economist, housekeeper, than that. He is no
such wasteful keeper of his eternal house. When a saint departs to be with
Christ, instead of leaving service behind, he enters on a new sphere of service,
where, instead of sacrificing acquisitions and attainments, he rather finds an
absolutely perfect scope for the exercise of them all; instead of ceasing to
work for his Master, he rather begins his work anew in the tirelessness of
celestial energy.

What man may think about this is of no consequence; what does the Word of God
testify concerning it? I have gathered together some few of the precious
testimonies of the Word on this subject for my own comfort, and for your comfort
as well. In the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verse 38, Jesus Christ,
rebuking the errors of the Sadducees, who said there was no resurrection, and no
separate existence of angel or spirit apart from the body, says, referring to
Moses, who at the bush called the Lord the God of Abraham and of Isaac and
Jacob, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all (even all the
dead) live unto him." That phrase, "Live unto him," is used scores of times in
the Word of God to express the idea of service. "Whether we live, we live unto
the Lord," &c. In this Book of Revelation itself testimonies are massed upon
this subject. In chapter 7, verse 15, John gets one of the first and most
glorious glimpses into the blessedness of departed saints when the elder
answers, when asked as to the white-robed throng, "They are before the throne of
God, and serve him day and night in his temple." In the fourteenth chapter of
the Book of Revelation we find the text itself: "Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from
their vexatious toils: but their activities go with them." In chapter 22, the
closing chapter, we find the sevenfold description of the glory of the heavenly
host and the heavenly home. "And there shall be no more curse"—perfect
sinlessness. "But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it"—perfect
government. "And his servants shall serve him"—perfect service. "And they shall
see his face"—perfect communion. "And his name shall be in their
foreheads"—perfect resemblance. "And there shall be no night there"—perfect day.
"And they shall reign for ever and ever"—perfect glory. In the midst of this
sevenfold description there stands that central and commanding sentence, "And
his servants shall serve him." Surely service is the centre of the blessedness
of heaven, service in its perfection! This congregation is today staggering
under the weight of an irreparable loss. It is admitted, on all sides, that the
century in which we live has seen no other man that, as a gospel preacher, was
the equal of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I am profoundly convinced that we shall
never again see another like him. I should be untrue to myself and untrue to you
if I attempted in the slightest degree to conceal the fact that the shadow of an
almost inconsolable grief has fallen upon the largest congregation of believers
within the bounds of Christendom. But it is not the office of a Christian
minister to aggravate such grief. We are bidden to "comfort one another with
these words" of God, and I have sought, being providentially thrust into this
responsible position without my own will, to point you to the testimony of the
Word of God, that it might be possible, leaning on the arm of a divine and
unfaltering strength, to avoid being utterly prostrated and wrecked in hope by
this unspeakable loss. Suffer me, beside those words of comfort which I have
already brought to you from the precious Word of God, to suggest two or three
closing reflections.

We are not now attempting to exhaust the testimony to this beloved Pastor. This
day is but the beginning of a week of funeral services, at which the tributes to
him will cover every department of his character and his career. But just now,
in sympathy with the theme we have considered, may I pluck a few sweet "apples"
from God's blessed tree of consolation, and put them into your hand?

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." It is all "the Lord's doing." A
gardener walked through the conservatory and looked upon the valuable plants
that had just come into bloom, and, seeing one of the flowers freshly plucked
from its stem, he said to his servant, "Who plucked that flower?" The servant
said "The master," and the gardener held his peace, and answered never a word.
"I was dumb with silence, I opened not my mouth because thou didst it." The
Master has plucked one of the fairest flowers of the century, and we must answer
never a word. We bow in awe before what is, perhaps, the most mysterious dealing
of God with his church that has come to our knowledge in this generation. But,
blessed be God! what is a mystery to us is no mystery to him. And he says to us,
"What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." It is God's
doing. It behoves us to keep silence; to accept the mystery and wait patiently
for its explanation. But your departed Pastor belongs from henceforth to the
blessed dead which die in the Lord. It will go far to wipe the tears away from
your eyes, to think of your Pastor as having been seven days in heaven. He knows
more today than all the philosophers and wise men on the face of the earth. Even
the knowledge that he had, in this world, of his Saviour, has comparatively
vanished away, for now he stands face to face with him in the glory. He has
kissed the feet that were pierced for him; and, full of the ecstatic vision of
the Master whom he loved, not even the wants and woes of this congregation would
bring him, from that hidden glory, down to the toils and vexations of earth
again. His works have gone with him, and they are already rewarding him in the
presence of God.

Think of the meeting there at midnight, on the thirty-first day of January, when
Charles Haddon Spurgeon heard the voice from heaven, saying, "Come up hither,
and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter!" In 1816, William A. B.
Johnson, missionary of the Church Missionary Society, went down to Sierra Leone,
to labour among the refuse population of that colony of rescued slaves. In 1821,
after five years of careful, prayerful toil, he had built his model state and
had organized these slaves, gathered from the holds of slave-ships, into a
well-ordered and thriving Christian community, where honourable trades and
callings and learned professions were represented, and where the colonists,
clothed and in their right mind, occupied their own neat, beautiful and
well-ordered homes, and assembled in the house of God for praise and prayer.
Another cargo of slaves, 217 in number, being landed at the colony, they were
sent to Regent's Town, where the model state had been organized, that they might
enter as constitutent elements into that colony, under the control of Mr.
Johnson. He tells us that, on that day in May, 1821, he saw a sight that, for
pathos and for grandeur, eclipsed anything that he had ever seen before. As
those hundreds of rescued slaves arrived in the town, the members of the colony,
with one mind and heart, rushed forth from their houses to afford these
newcomers a cordial Christian welcome; and, as Mr. Johnson was passing along the
street, he heard shouts of acclamation that made the very heavens seem to
resound with their echo; and his converted colonists came running to him, and
one after another said, "Oh, Mr. Johnson! there is my brother! there is my
sister! yonder is my father! yonder is my mother! my son! my daughter!" In those
freshly rescued slaves, these men and women, who had been redeemed from the
filth, the misery, the poverty of their depraved, degraded condition, recognized
their long-lost relatives and friends. When the Pastor entered the glory that
midnight on last Lord's-day, one can almost imagine that shouts rent the air of
heaven, as thousands and tens of thousands who had been brought to Christ, by
that loving voice which we are never to hear on earth again, and by those
printed sermons that, like leaves of the tree of life, have been borne away as
on the wings of the wind for the healing of the nations—that thousands and tens
of thousands—and it may be hundreds of thousands—of whom he had never heard, who
had found a blessing through his voice or his pen, and had found their way into
heaven before him—were at the gate ready with their acclamations to welcome him,
through whom they had also "found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets
did write: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Your Pastor's reward has,
seven days ago, begun in the higher and heavenly sphere. Think not that I make
light of your grief. God knows I owe too much to Charles Haddon Spurgeon myself
for whatever little power there is in my ministry, or strength in my faith, or
courage and confidence in my espousal of neglected and despised truths, not to
share most keenly in this sorrow. But the time has come for us to look up; we
must not look down; we shall go down if we look down. And if we look up by faith
we may see the door opened in heaven, and see there that beloved man who shall
never more know weakness or infirmity, from whose eyes all tears have been
forever wiped away, who shall never henceforth find it difficult to serve his
Master, and whose work shall never more be a vexatious and wearisome toil. To
him already there have been disclosed the sheaves of a vast harvest, whose seed
he sowed beside all waters; much of the seed that he thus scattered was borne
away from his own sight, and the results of his own unselfish husbandry were
disclosed only when he stood before his Master in the ecstasy of the heavenly
life.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."
God is saying to this congregation today: "Be up and doing; work while the day
lasts; whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And especially
is God saying to the unconverted members of this congregation, "Remember the
words that he spake unto you, being yet present with you." If his voice did not
bring you to Christ while he lived, will you not let that voice which speaks to
you from his coffin persuade you to come to the Christ that he still presses on
your believing and affectionate choice? Will you not help to accumulate his
reward, even now when he has gone from you, by coming within the circumference
of the great sphere of grace, in Jesus Christ? "Being dead, he yet speaketh"; he
beseeches you with celestial earnestness to live unto the Lord from this day,
and die unto the Lord when the summons comes to you. Then, with him, you shall
fall at the feet of your common Saviour in the ascriptions of endless praise.
Amen.


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  CHAPTER 12: CHAPTER NINE
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Chapter 9.

A Door Opened in Heaven

A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. In The Metropolitan
Tabernacle On Lord's-day Evening, February 7th, 1892

"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first
voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said,
Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter."—Revelation
4:1. This book is called the "Apocalypse," because it is the opening of hidden
things, the revelation of mysteries kept secret from the foundation of the
world. The first three chapters are prefatory and introductory. They contain a
salutation, and then an account of the personal vision of the ascended and
glorified Christ, with a record of the messages which he dictated to his servant
John to be written to the seven churches of Asia Minor. This fourth chapter
opens with the words, "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in
heaven." That is to say, at the beginning of the fourth chapter we start with
the Apocalypse proper, or the unfolding of the marvellous mysteries of heaven.
"A door was opened in heaven"—it is the first time a door was ever opened into
those great mysteries, and a believer bidden to "come up hither and behold the
things that shall be hereafter": the first time, except, perhaps, when the
apostle Paul was caught up to the third heaven. Certainly to the same degree and
with the same explicit declaration of these mysteries, we have no other such
vision of heaven in the Word of God: if a believer had ever before had knowledge
so complete of the marvels of that celestial world, he had never come back to
earth to reveal them to men. Here is "a door opened in heaven"; a celestial
"voice" that speaks with divine authority; and a "shewing" or revelation of the
hereafter. The scene is thus transferred from earth to heaven, from the present
to the future, from the here to the hereafter. And if you will follow, step by
step, the nineteen chapters that constitute the remainder of this book of the
Apocalypse, you will find that everything proper to be communicated or possible
to be communicated, concerning that marvellous and mysterious sphere of life,
has been at least outlined on the pages of this holy record. Surely it is not
strange that, in the midst of a great sorrow like this for you, and a great
triumph like this for him who has departed, we should gladly get a glimpse of
the abode where he is, and the joy that in the future state awaits all fellow
believers. So may God help us to get out of this word of revelation the balm of
a divine comfort! Let us look through this open door, and see what John saw.

First of all he saw a throne and him that sat upon it, and a rainbow round about
the throne in sight like unto an emerald. The central object, and the central
glory in the vision of heaven, is God; and if we have not learned to think of
heaven as, first of all, not the place where our departed friends, however dear,
are gathered, but, first of all, as the place where God dwells, we lack the
fundamental conception of heaven. The first thing that John saw, and the first
thing to be seen, was the throne of God. The light and glory of that divine
presence makes every star grow dim, and fills the whole horizon of heaven and
the whole vision of the redeemed.

What is the significance of the rainbow round about the throne? The rainbow was
the first sign of covenant promise. When God set the bow in the cloud, he called
the attention of Noah and his family to the fact that it was to be the sign of
covenant relation. Whatever else the "rainbow round about the throne"
represents, it seems to say to me, as a believer, that the God that sits on the
throne is "my God" in covenant, and that I need not be afraid to approach him if
I approach him under the shelter of the covenant sign.

There is another equally conspicuous object that John saw there, a very curious
and complex object, too—a Lion-Lamb—the "Lion of the tribe of Juda," and the
"Lamb as it had been slain," combined in one. A lion for majesty, a lamb for
meekness; a lion for strength, a lamb for weakness; a lion as the reigning
sovereign, a lamb as the atoning sacrifice. God's Lion is a lamb, and God's Lamb
is a lion; and if any of you have ever doubted the equality of Jesus Christ with
God the Father in essence and in glory, I beg you to notice how, through these
nineteen chapters of this book of the Revelation, there is no worship paid, or
honour ascribed to God the Father, on the throne, that is not equally offered
and ascribed to that Lion-Lamb, that Lamb-Lion.

And, as there is a rainbow round about the throne, which reminds me that God is
my God in covenant, so that Lion-Lamb has about him blood that interprets the
sealed book; for in the next chapter we read of the book, written on the surface
and on the backside, and sealed with seven seals, and that no man was found
worthy to open the book, or unloose the seven seals; but this Lion-Lamb of God
prevailed to open the book and unloose its seals; and the ascription of praise
and of worship testifies that he was found worthy and competent both to unloose
the seals and to interpret the record. Oh, the interpreting power of the blood
of Christ! Is prophecy a sealed book to you? You have never applied the blood to
it, for there is not a seal there that the blood does not dissolve and unloose.
Is human history a sealed book to you? Touch the seals with the blood, and the
history is found to be the record of God's redemptive plan. Is the providence of
God a sealed book to you? Touch the seals with the blood, and the mysterious
providence of God is explained. Is this your present bereavement an event
inexplicable to you? The interpreting power of the blood shall reveal to you its
meaning in God's good time. Is the Bible a sealed book to you? From Genesis to
the Apocalypse, Christ is the light that illumines its darkest pages. And so we
have God on the throne, with the rainbow of the covenant assuring the soul; and
we have the Lion and the Lamb, with the power of his blood to interpret the Word
of God—the book of prophecy, of history, and the oftentimes more mysterious book
of God's providential dealing.

Then round about the throne there is a countless host of angels. Numbers are
exhausted to express the vastness of their multitude. "And the number of them
was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." That is, ten
thousand times ten thousand, which is one hundred millions, and thousands
multiplied into thousands, which gives us another multiplier of millions; and so
we have, at the lowest figure, hundreds of millions multiplied by millions: in
other words, absolutely countless myriads, or multitudes of angels. According to
the literal interpretation of these figures, they would more than sixty times
outnumber the entire population of the globe! Sixty spheres like this, each
inhabited by fifteen hundred millions of human beings, would give us only the
equivalent of these numbers if we take them at the lowest reckoning, and
disregard the plural form of the multipliers.

Within the circle of these angels, as though nearer in relation to God than even
the angels themselves, there is a multitude besides. In the first place, there
are those four mysterious living creatures (ζῶα which remind us of the cherubic
vision of Ezekiel. We know not what those living creatures represent, but if I
may give my personal "judgment as one who has obtained mercy of the Lord to be
faithful," I am more and more satisfied that they represent the great ruling
attributes of God, such as wisdom, and power, and love, and grace, in their
relation to the salvation of the lost race of man. But, as this matter is
encumbered with mystery, we pass it by. In close connection with these four
living creatures, there are twenty-four elders, and we shall have less
difficulty in recognizing in them the representatives of the body of believers
in the Old Testament and in the New; that is to say, the twelve tribes and the
twelve apostles, twenty-four representative elders signifying the entire body of
believers, both in the Jewish dispensation and in the Christian dispensation.
Their viols and their harps, their palms and their songs, all indicate their
individual connection with the scheme of redeeming love.

Beside these, we have, in the seventh chapter of this book, an account of the
"hundred and forty and four thousand" sealed from among the tribes of the
children of Israel. It is wonderful how the Bible interprets itself, for, in a
subsequent chapter (14), where these hundred and forty-four thousand again
appear, we are told they are the "first fruits unto God and the Lamb." First
fruits are those first gathered out from the harvest field, the specimen of the
harvest to come, but only a specimen; and these virginal redeemed ones that have
never been "defiled with women,"—and are therefore in marked contrast with the
followers of adulterous Babylon—and who, so far as they have been defiled by
sin, are washed in the blood of the Lamb and follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth,—these are "the first fruits"; and so, after this, the apostle John beheld
"a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues," sorrounding the throne of God. They represent the final
harvest, of which the hundred and forty-four thousand are only the first fruits.
As has been said, the twenty-four elders and these hundred and forty-four
thousand, and the multitude that no man could number, all stand inside of the
circle of the angelic host, as though nearer to God than the angels themselves.
And it is no exaggeration to say that a believer in Jesus Christ, in his finally
redeemed estate, will stand in closer relation to God than even the angelic
hosts; for, among all the angels, none are accounted worthy to constitute the
bride of Christ, but that bride is to be gathered out of all peoples of the
earth, and to enter into relations of espousal with the crucified but risen
Jesus. So much for the inhabitants of heaven.

Let us go a step further. What is revealed about the employments and enjoyments
of heaven?

First of all there is endless worship. Worship means worth-ship, the ascribing
of worth to Almighty God. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour
and power." And, in all parts of this book of the Apocalypse, there is the same
tireless, endless, heartfelt, adoring worship. Let us stop to consider a moment,
that, if you do not love worship, you never can enter heaven. If you do not love
worship, you are unfitted for the main activity and ecstacy of heaven, which is
endless ascription of glory and praise to God and the Lamb! And then, besides
this worship, there is endless and tireless activity, as we have already seen.
"They serve him day and night in his temple." "His servants shall serve him;"
their activity ennobled, and strengthened; their activity, in its nobler and
grander sphere of service, knowing nothing of present limitations of strength
and knowing nothing of present hindrances to activity. The service of God in
heaven will be the perfection of service.

And, then, how many elements, even beside these, enter into the enjoyments of
heaven!

First of all, the presence of God. God is in the midst of them, and is their
God. "The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead
them unto living fountains of waters." How wonderfully does John describe by the
Spirit the perfection of bliss! There is all in heaven that could be desired,
for God is there, and Christ is there; the saints are there, and the angels are
there; heavenly society, and perfect fellowship with God and the redeemed and
the angels. What opportunities for the enjoyments of the mind and the heart! for
increasing experience of divine things! What opening of the inmost soul to be
absolutely filled with the divine incoming and indwelling! And as everything is
there that is to be desired, so is nothing found there that is not to be
desired. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the
sun light on them, nor any heat." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes." "And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither
shall there be any more pain." Such words as these mean nothing less than
absolute renovation! "Behold I make all things new." It is the passing away of
everything that curses this world. The slime of the serpent is on all human joys
and pleasures; but there is no track or trace of the serpent there! The blossoms
of our human Edens all fade and fall even before we pluck them; but the blooms
in that garden never fade and never fall. Satan is cast into the lake of fire
and destroyed. Nothing enters that defiles or works abomination or makes a lie.
Sin for ever banished! No death, for death itself shall die! Perfect bliss! We
can say no more about it. The Bible says no more about it. The probability is
that the things that are there, beyond what intimations we have, are simply
"unlawful to utter." The voice that spoke to John said, "Come up hither, and I
will shew thee things that must be hereafter." They must be seen to be known.
They cannot be brought down to this sphere, even in inspired description, for we
have nothing to interpret them. We must ourselves be lifted to that sphere and
look through that open door, or we can have no appreciation of these great
things of God. Our examination would be seriously incomplete if special
attention were not called to the vision of "the holy city," which John records
in the twenty-first chapter; and that it may be before us more completely, let
me read a few verses from that chapter:—"And I John saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be
his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." In the tenth
verse also we have "The holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, having
the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a
jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high." And the city had
twelve gates; on the east three, on the north three, on the south three, and the
west three. "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there
shall be no night there."

What does all this mean? There is a heavenly city, "a city which hath
foundations whose builder and maker is God;" and what does "city" mean, but an
organized community, a place prepared, an everlasting habitation? There is a
place prepared for those who love our Lord, and when God prepares a place it is
sure to be just what is needed, absolutely adapted to all the wants of his dear
children What a place that will be for us intellectually! We are told, in the
thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians that, "Now we see
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." The bulk of our knowledge in
this world, which does not come to us by the observation of our senses, we get
through the inductive processes of the reason. For example, we reason from cause
to effect; and so we discover truths, as we say, "by inference." But there we
shall not reason doubtfully from cause to effect All knowledge will be
instinctive and immediate, like the intuitions of the human mind and soul.
Intelligence will flash on us as a lightning glance reveals objects hitherto in
the darkness; and so the present measure of our knowledge shall absolutely flee
away as the dimness of day-dawn departs when the mists of the morning flee, and
the glorious, full-orbed sun shines forth in cloudless and matchless splendour!

And, as the intellect will find in heaven a home perfectly fitted for it, so
will the heart of man, and his moral and spiritual nature, find in God's city
everything that is needed for perfect satisfaction and bliss; the union of the
aesthetic and of the moral, beauty and virtue, boundless perfection in all
surroundings with boundless perfection in our own nature and capacity to enjoy.

Notice also that the gates of this city are always open, and there are twelve
gates—three opening toward each point of the compass. What a rebuke to bigotry!
Is there any church that would pretend to say that the only entrance to heaven
is through its particular communion? Is there anyone that dares to say that
entrance to heaven is only through his particular form of theological dogma? How
John's vision of the Holy City rebukes all such intolerance and uncharity! From
all directions they come, but always moving in one direction! Mark that The
gates face toward every quarter; but from all quarters of the horizon the lines
of march which pass through those twelve gates meet at one point! It matters not
whether believing souls come from Asia or from Africa, from America or from
Europe, from remotest lands or islands of the sea. It matters not whether they
come from Jewish, Pagan, Heathen, or Moslem tribes, or from denominations of the
Christian church in Christian lands. If you have found God in Christ, if your
heart has been turned from sin towards holiness, if you have felt after God, if
haply you may find him who is not far from every one of us; if in any way you
have learned to rely on God's appointed sacrifice, and have been taught of his
precious Spirit; from whatever quarter of the earth you come, you have equal
right to enter through whatever gate of the city, and you will find your way to
the throne of God and the Lion-lamb, and have an equally assured welcome. The
gates will not be shut at all by day, and as there is no night there, they are
never shut. What is the use of a shut gate? It is to keep somebody out or to
keep somebody in; and those gates will be always open, for in heaven there is no
occasion to keep anybody out, and there is no occasion to keep anybody in; those
that are within do not desire to go out, and those that are outside could not be
induced to come in. I had lately put into my hands an infidel tract which seeks
to make ridiculous the Christian doctrine of hell; and the basis of this, as
with almost all these infidel assaults, is found in a misrepresentation. God is
conceived as drawing an arbitrary line between one class and another class, so
that, like a despot, he admits some to heaven, and remands others to hell;
whereas the Word of God teaches us that, whatever may be said about divine
sovereignty in human salvation, there is a law of spiritual affinity, which is
inseparably connected both with heaven and hell. When Judas by transgression
fell, he went "to his own place"; and, the disciples, "being let go" from the
presence of the Jewish Council, "went to their own company." God ordains in this
world a mixed society, the good and the bad together, that the good may restrain
the bad, and that the bad may even discipline the good, and so help to perfect
the goodness of his own children. But, when we leave this world, everyone of us,
being loosed, goes to his own company: and the company of impenitent and
rebellious sinners is enough to make a hell, as the company of penitent
believers would make a heaven. We must never overlook the fact of this affinity,
and its importance in its bearing upon eternal destiny. God may, with impunity,
leave the gates of his celestial city for evermore open. There is no danger of
any redeemed souls desiring to go out, unless perchance there were some message
of mercy or errand of grace still to be accomplished for our Lord and his
Christ. Nor will there be any lost soul, outside of heaven, that would desire or
even consent to come in. In my youth I heard a sentimental clergyman say, as he
concluded a sermon, "If I could stand on the battlements of hell and preach this
gospel to lost souls and fallen angels, what a jubilee there would be in hell,
and what a universal acclamation of praise to Almighty God!" There would be no
such thing. Not a lost soul or fallen angel would enter heaven if full
permission were given, for unless the Holy Ghost inclines you to worship, what
would you do where worship is the eternal and universal employment? And unless
the Holy Ghost gives you a spirit of willing and loving service for Christ, what
would you do where only his servants are found, who serve him day and night with
tireless energy? And unless you have a heart that goes out to God in the
affinity of a spiritual nature like unto himself, what would you do there, and
how could you be happy there, even though you were there? Do not deceive
yourselves. There are some birds whose eggs are laid in another bird's nest,
and, when the little birds are hatched and begin to mature, and their wings
begin to grow, if they hear the voice of the mother bird, though they may never
have seen their own mother before, they will leave the nest of the stranger and
alien, and fly to the shelter of the mother.

"Rivers to the ocean run, Nor stay in all their course;

Fire ascending seeks the sun;

Both speed them to their source. So a soul that's born of God, Pants to view his
glorious face, Upward tends to his abode, To rest in his embrace."

If you have such affinity and attraction toward God, you could go nowhere else
but to heaven; and if you have not that affinity for God, you could not go to
heaven, and you could not and would not stay there if you were there. Will you
not seek now the preparation, that makes it possible for you to enter through
the gate into the city, and go no more out?

There appears to be no building in the holy city, not even a temple! If there
were buildings seen there John has not left it on record. He tells us of the
city, of walls and gates, but there is no hint of any buildings. This is a
mystery, and I can only venture to suggest a possible solution. When the Feast
of Tabernacles was kept, the Jews were accustomed to go upon the roofs of their
houses and celebrate that feast by building booths to commemorate their pilgrim
sojourn in the wilderness. And, when their numbers became too great and the
house-tops became too small, they gathered in the temple courts, or in the open
spaces, such as the street that was before the water gate, of which we read in
the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. In some large open vacant space they erected
their booths and abode under them for eight days, that they might commemorate
their journey in the wilderness with the tabernacle of God in their midst. When
they built these booths they were directed in Deuteronomy to build them of
various materials, and four sorts of branches seem to have been interwoven into
their structure. First, there were fruit trees; second, palm trees; third,
willow trees; and fourth, evergreen trees. If we rightly interpret this record
of the Old Testament we may find types in all these. The fruit tree represents
fertility of life in service. The palm tree represents a life of victory over
temptation and trial. The willow tree, that grows only by the brook, represents
patient endurance of sorrow and suffering. And the everlasting green seems to
speak to us of a life in Christ that never fails or fades. And may not the booth
of the pilgrim have been itself a type of our future reward? Is it not possible
that, within those magnificent walls, John saw only an open space, because, so
to speak, every believer who enters heaven through the blood of Jesus Christ
nevertheless builds his own booth? Will it not depend upon the measure in which,
by grace, you have triumphed over trial and temptation, the measure in which you
have patiently borne the sorrows and the sufferings which God has sent upon you,
the measure in which you have yielded fruit in the service of a holy and active
life for him, the measure in which you have in yourself represented and
manifested the undying life of the Holy Spirit; may it not depend in some
measure at least upon your earthly triumphs and services and endurances what
kind of a booth you build within the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem in that
last great Feast of Tabernacles? In that mysterious parable in the sixteenth of
Luke we are told, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness;
that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." With all
the obscurity that surrounds that parable, there is at least a plain suggestion
in it that we should take even material possessions, like money, that have in
themselves no moral quality, and so use them, with a consecrated spirit for the
glory of God, that, by-and-by, when heart and flesh fail us, we shall find that
they have gone before us and constructed for us everlasting habitations. In
other words, while salvation is all the free gift of grace, your work has its
wages, your service has its reward, and the measure of your reward will depend
on the quantity and the quality of your service. There is an old Latin maxim
which finely represents this, affirming of good works, "non causa mercedis, sed
regula retributionis"; which in substance teaches that, while grace is the
entire ground of our salvation, our good works in Christ Jesus determine the
measure of our reward—the rule of recompense, not the ground of acceptance.

It is now a week ago, since that devoted man of God who has long preached in
this pulpit, heard that voice, "Come up hither," and, obedient to that voice,
not only looked through, but went through, the open door into heaven, and now
knows as he is known. Extended reference to him will be made hereafter. But
consider what a reward he has! What a booth was built for him by his long and
unselfish ministry to souls, even before he went into the presence of his Lord.
Think of his triumphs over temptation, and of the palm branches entwined in that
booth! Think of his patient endurance of suffering, and of the willow branches
woven into that booth! Think of the manifested life of God in him, and the
evergreen branches that helped to build that booth! Think of the fruits of his
long and consecrated ministry, and of the fruitful branches that complete that
booth!

I never knew a man whose personal love for Jesus was more tender and beautiful
than his. When he sat in this house of God, or on the platform of great public
assemblies, and brethren, of whatsoever denomination and from whatsoever parts
of the earth, spoke the language of Canaan and paid their tribute to the
personal majesty and glory of his Redeemer, the tears that ran down his face,
and the smiles that illuminated and transfigured it, showed how his heart beat
in response to every such tribute of personal love to his Lord. What must have
been the rapture of that Pastor of yours who has been withdrawn into the glory,
when for the first time he looked on the face of Jesus! His ecstacy must have
surpassed words and even surpassed imagination. He now stands with the
white-robed throng, and has struck his harp to a nobler song than was ever sung
on earth. He loves somewhat as he was loved. He has dropped sin in the
perfection of holiness that knows no blemish; sorrow, in the perfection of bliss
that knows no alloy; pain, in the perfection of the health that knows no
disease; and for him death has died!

Oh, let us, through this solemn week, look from the open grave to the open
heaven, and turn our eyes away from earthly ashes to heavenly beauties; let us
seek to get up where, through this open door, we may get a glimpse of him who
sits on the throne, come within the shelter of the Bow of the Covenant, and
touch the Blood that has redeeming and sanctifying power; let us henceforth do
whatsoever we can in the Name and Power of God to accomplish the whole will of
our Master, and so accumulate for heavenly service and heavenly blessedness all
those good works which, wrought in Christ Jesus, prepare everlasting habitations
for God's saints!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: CHAPTER TEN
========================================================================

Chapter 10. The First Day of the Second Week At eleven o'clock, on Monday
morning, February 8th, the precious burden from Menton was expected to arrive in
London. The officers of the church and a few friends gathered at Victoria
Station in good time; and as the appointed hour drew nigh, many of the public
began to loiter about. A plain hearse and a few ordinary carriages were in
waiting, and a very few minutes past the time the train from Newhaven drew
slowly up to the platform. The coffin, which had crossed from Dieppe during the
night, and, in answer to the prayers offered the previous evening, had arrived
safely, had been taken from its outer case at Newhaven. There, and also at
Lewes, informal meetings were held by the ministers of the town. As the
beautiful olive-wood sarcophagus was quietly and reverently lifted into the
vehicle, the crowd eagerly pressed forward to look at it. With bared heads, and,
in many cases, with streaming eyes, the people stood, while the magnificent
palm-branches, which had been sent by Mrs. Spurgeon all the way from the South
of France, were placed above the coffin. Then, through the crowd, which now
numbered thousands, the solemn procession passed on its way to the Pastors'
College. The rain soon came down in torrents, and those who were weeping thought
it meet that the English skies should weep, too, for him who had fallen in the
fight. Along the route there were many who recognized the meaning of the hearse
and palm-branches, and when the cortege turned into Temple Street, immediately
at the back of the Tabernacle, there was a great hurrying to secure a place near
the College gates. The beloved body was at once borne to the Common Room of the
College; common, that is to say, in the sense of being open to all the students,
but not "Common" even in that sense that day, and in any other sense common
nevermore, since it was the first resting-place in England of the mortal body of
the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The room had been beautifully prepared for the
reception of the remains, plants of the palm species, and white arum lilies
being placed in profusion around the room; and now there lay that most
suggestive olive-wood casket, with the official black seals of the Vice-Consul
and the Commissary of Police, which had been placed upon it at Menton, still
clear: within it—ah! how the tears came—there was all that was mortal of the
beloved Pastor, the honoured President, the revered friend; the "man
greatly-beloved", who had the seal of God so clearly upon his forehead, that all
owned the sanctity of his life.

Immediately there was held a short and simple service, attended only by the
officers of the church and a few invited friends. The time was chiefly spent in
prayer, bowing low before our God. Then a few of the students of the College
were admitted to gaze upon the coffin, and pay homage to the memory of their
leader. In the afternoon, another short service, specially for the members of
the bereaved family, was held. Of the Tabernacle prayer-meeting, in the evening,
little need be said, except that it was very largely attended, and was filled
with a sense of God's presence. We turned away saying, "How awful is this
place!" Dr. Pierson made a personal statement as to the remarkable leading of
God with reference to his present sphere; and, after reading the Word of God,
urged strongly that when God took away Moses, he always had a Joshua to lead his
people; and it was now the attitude of the hour to wait expectantly on him, who
never fails those who put their trust in him.

Several earnest prayers were offered for the remaining services of the week. It
was desired of God that hundreds might be blessed by means of them, and special
petition was made that the great throngs which would gather might be kept calm,
and free from any accident. Hearty thanks were also rendered for all the streaks
of light in the midst of the darkness, and for the last favour, in that the
sacred dust of the dear Pastor had at length been safely brought to the scene of
his many labours. Mr. Chamberlain sang the late Pastor's favourite solo, "Show
me thy face": a prayer already abundantly answered in his case. As "devout men
carried Stephen to his burial," it was appropriate that, towards ten o'clock at
night, a band of the students of the Pastors' College should carry the sacred
burden from the College to its place in the Tabernacle. They counted it an
honour to be entrusted with the task; and some pews at the front having been
removed, the lifeless clay was deposited in the great building, where the living
voice had so often been heard in loving persuasion, and in outspoken defence of
the truth.

Only those who have taken part in the arrangements for the memorial meetings
which were to follow, can have any conception of the labours involved in
carrying them so safely to a satisfactory issue. Everyone about the Tabernacle
was busy from morning to night, and sometimes all night long. Each vied with the
other in helping forward the necessary preliminaries. Until Monday night
everything was spontaneous, and without much definite pre-arrangement; but the
dimensions of the matter in hand required, for the future gatherings, the most
careful judgment and the greatest precision. Nothing was lacking. Both the cool,
clear head to plan, and the warm, eager hand to execute, were available; and
events have proved the wisdom of the plans, and the completeness of the
organization. Letters poured in literally by the thousand, demanding an answer.
A most miscellaneous assortment of tickets had to be allotted; careful
arrangements for the comfort and safety of the people had to be devised, and all
the other necessary funeral fixtures had to be made. Now, when all is over, let
it be said, to the praise of the presiding Spirit of God, that not one thing
seems to have been forgotten; not a single accident has happened; not a jarring
note has been heard. All those who shared in the services are greatly indebted
to the earnest workers who so willingly and efficiently conceived and carried
out the excellent arrangements.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: CHAPTER ELEVEN
========================================================================

Chapter 11. Tributes of Affection From seven o'clock in the morning of Tuesday,
February 9th, until seven in the evening, the Tabernacle was open, and two
continuous streams of people passed up the aisles to view the coffin enclosing
the body of him who had been the greatest spiritual force of his generation in
London, or perhaps in the world. All classes were represented, from the very
poor to the well-to-do artisan, and from the tradesman to men of the city and
suburbs. Passing the coffin, over which were triumphantly placed Mrs. Spurgeon's
palm-branches, many were moved with evident emotion. It is variously estimated
that 50,000 to 60,000 persons must have visited the spot during the day. This
was a very memorable day, and a remarkable preface to the days still more
memorable which were to follow. The precious body was enclosed in a leaden
casket, and the outer coffin of Menton olive-wood had plates at the head and
foot, bearing the following inscription:— In ever-loving memory of Charles
Haddon Spurgeon, Born at Kelvedon, June 19, 1834, Fell asleep in Jesus at
Menton, Jan. 31, 1892.

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

Around the coffin were many beautiful tributes from loving hearts. First came a
graceful anchor, composed of lilies and hyacinths, from the Rev. John Robertson
and the congregation of Gorbals Tabernacle, Glasgow, with the quotation from one
of Mr. Spurgeon's most recent letters, "The sun shines at length." Next to this
was a beautiful wreath, "In loving and grateful remembrance," from the children
at the Stockwell Orphanage. Side by side with this testimony of affection was
the large floral harp, formed of lilies, with golden strings, one of which was
significantly broken, which had been sent from the sister isle. It was
inscribed, 'He being dead yet speaketh,' Hebrews 11:4. A loving tribute to the
memory of Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, from the Baptist churches of Belfast." Attached
to this were a sword and trowel fashioned in violets, and accompanied by the
following extract from a memorial poem written by Mr. Maxwell:—

"Oh, master-builder thou, on Zion's wall Thy busy Trowel knew no cankering rust!

Thy Sword was keen and double-edged withal To smite th' invading foemen to the
dust."

Pastor A. G. Barley, on behalf of Pasteur R. Saillens and Christians in Paris,
brought a magnificent wreath.

Flowers and wreaths would have been sent in almost incalculable numbers, but it
was specially requested that the memory of the glorified Pastor should be
honoured by gifts to the College and Orphanage. In many instances this has been
done right heartily, and doubtless other friends will yet be moved to present
similar tokens of esteem and gratitude. At the coffin sides were several cards,
which attracted the notice of many. That from Mrs. Spurgeon read: "'With Christ,
which is far better.' I will follow thee, my husband. Undying love from 'the
wife of thy youth.'" On behalf of his departed brother, Mr. James Spurgeon had a
card, "Behold, I die, but God shall be with you," Genesis 48:21. On behalf of
himself and his wife, Pastor J. A. Spurgeon had another card, "So an entrance
shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord

The Olive-Casket Under the Palm-Branches at the Tabernacle. and Saviour Jesus
Christ," 2 Peter 1:11; "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

Pastor Charles Spurgeon's card read: "His," Romans 14:8; "Now he is comforted,"
Luke 16:25; "In fondest memory of the dearest of fathers, from his son Charles."
The next card read: "Within the veil," Hebrews 6:19; "Absent.... present with
the Lord," 2 Corinthians 5:8; "In affectionate remembrance of dear father, from
son Tom." This was attached to the coffin by Mr. Charles Spurgeon on behalf of
his brother in New Zealand.

Mr. Harrald's card read: "In fondest memory of my dearest earthly friend, my
beloved Pastor and father in the faith, and 'the good soldier of Jesus Christ',
whose armour-bearer desires to be faithful unto death as his captain was." The
card of Miss E. H. Thorne (Mrs. Spurgeon's companion) read: "In loving memory of
the best and kindest friend I ever had on earth." On the black drapery of the
upper rostrum was the very significant admonition, "Remember the word that I
said unto you being yet present with you;" while, on the lower platform, the
text, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith," was inscribed None could question that it was a true description of the
life of the man of God whom they had come to honour; a marble bust of whom
looked down upon them from between the one platform and the other. On Tuesday,
as the people passed in file to view the coffin, a copy of Mr. Spurgeon's sermon
for the previous week, "God's Will about the Future" (No. 2,242), was given to
each, as an appropriate memento of the occasion.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: CHAPTER TWELVE3
========================================================================

Chapter 12. Memorial Meeting for Members of the Church On Wednesday morning,
February 10th, 1892, commencing at 11 o'clock, the service arranged specially
for members of the church and its organizations was held, the Tabernacle being
filled. The chair was taken by the Rev. J. A. Spurgeon, pastor in charge.

Deacon S. R. Pearce, Superintendent of the Metropolitan Tabernacle
Sunday-school, opened the meeting with a sympathetic prayer, which gave a
fitting keynote to the meeting which was to follow; after which Rev. William
Stott, formerly assistant pastor, announced the hymn, "All hail the power of
Jesus' name," which was sung with solemn feeling.

Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D., Principal of Regent's Park College, who was introduced
by the Chairman as "a former pastor of this church, my venerated tutor and
lifelong friend," then said: "Of all meetings connected with these services, I
deem it the greatest privilege to be allowed to take part in this. You are
assembled today as a Christian Church, and you have reckoned me as still, in
some sense, one of your members. I believe, that on your church-roll, my name
will be found at the close of the year 1837. I was then only a lad; had just
finished my course in Edinburgh; and was invited to become your pastor. For two
years the pastoral relationship was sustained, amid the kind love and prayers
and counsel of a devoted people. At the close of those years my happy pastorate
closed with deep regret on my part, and with very hearty sympathy on the part of
the people. In those two years one hundred and twenty members were added to the
church.

"There were then, I remember, in connection with the church, the families of
Warmington, Richards, Gale, Pewtress, Olney, and Burgess—names still fragrant in
this place; their children and their children's children have been for years
connected either with this church or with sister churches. Nothing done in.
those days can be compared with your recent history; but in the faith, the love,
and the devoted work of that day, there was everything to cheer the heart of the
pastor. When I was called to become secretary of our Mission it was one of the
severest wrenches I have ever known. For fifty years now I have been severed
from the church, working elsewhere, but I have been in constant touch with some
of its members and with its pastor. I have shared your sorrows, and your
success; and I feel that it is a fitting thing that I should be here today, in
this deepest sorrow of all, to commend the church and all its agencies to the
guidance and blessing of our divine Lord. As I stand here I see before me the
faces of the dead almost as distinctly as the faces of the living; it is a
blessed memory and a blessed spectacle!

"I have been struck by the appropriateness of the Scripture text which you have
inscribed over your beloved friend: 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished
my course, I have kept the faith.' As soldier, as runner, and as steward, he has
no reason to be ashamed. We thank God for all his faithfulness, and we gather
from his life fresh incentive to completer consecration. May I venture to
suggest a motto appropriate to your condition as a church, which, I trust, may
commend itself to your hearts: 'Remember them who are your leaders, who have
spoken to you the word of God, whose faith copy, considering the end of their
conversation.' One thought besides. We are here this morning to show our
affection and respect for all that was mortal of our beloved friend. We mean to
follow his bier tomorrow to the grave, but please remember, now, that your
pastor is not here at all. All that was mortal of him is here; but he himself
has become immortal. Sometimes men speak of following Christians to their tomb;
sometimes they adopt language still more heathenish, and speak as if our loved
ones were resting peaceably in their graves; but I affirm that the Christian man
is never put into his grave at all. 'Absent from the body,' he is forthwith
'present with the Lord.' We cannot but feel the deepest affection for all that
was mortal of our dear friend, and pay our homage to his name; but he is no more
here: he is 'for ever with the Lord.' I believe that he misses his family; I
believe that he misses his orphans so dear to his heart; I believe that he
misses his students who are so greatly indebted to him. He misses his church,
which was, in a large degree, the source of his strength; he misses the
enquirers and the converts who were the joy of his heart, as they are the joy of
the heart of every true minister. I cannot but believe that he misses them all,
and it may be that in that land he knows as little about them as we know about
him. But whatever be the disadvantages of the loss of the earthly relationship,
to be with Christ is far better. His sins are behind him; his weakness is behind
him; his cares and distractions are behind him; and he is for ever with the
Lord. 'Wherefore comfort one another with these words.'"

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., announced by the chairman as "My dearly loved
colleague in the service of this great people, a man whom to know is to trust up
to the hilt," said:—This is a unique gathering. It is the one meeting that I
would rather be at, of all the gatherings of this week, for now the family meet
round the bier to weep and pray and talk together about the spiritual father and
brother who a few days since was in the land of the dying, but is now in the
land of the living. I thank you that you have included me in the family
gathering, if not as "one born out of due time," yet as one that you have so
gently and generously adopted into your family circle, and who shares deeply in
your profound grief. But, before I say what God has put in my heart, I must
unburden myself of the last message at hand from dear Mrs. Spurgeon, who cannot
be here today, and from whom, perhaps without design on her part, I have only
this morning received a beautiful, tender, and sisterly letter, a portion of
which certainly belongs to you. I will omit all the personal references in it,
and read only what she says about her beloved and herself. The letter was
written last Lord's-day, and is as follows:—

Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon's Letter to Dr. Pierson

"I want to tell you how perfectly happy my beloved was during the three
delightful months of his residence here. The joy of bringing me to the place he
loved so well, and showing me eagerly all the beautiful scenery in which he so
delighted, was greatly enhanced by the assurance that you were standing in his
place at home. How little we thought what God meant to do with his dear servant
when he called you from beyond the seas! but our faith shall not fail. 'He hath
done all things well'; and though the future, both to you and to me, may seem
clouded and uncertain, we will trust and not be afraid. With me it is an
absolute necessity that I keep looking up. 'He is not here; he is risen,' is as
true of my beloved as of my beloved's Lord. To-day he has been a week in heaven.
Oh, the bliss, the rapture, of seeing his Saviour's face! Oh, the welcome home
which awaited him as he left this sad earth! Not for a moment do I wish him
back, though he was dearer to me than tongue can tell. I shall pray much for you
all during the week of grief. I feel myself like a shipwrecked mariner who has
with difficulty reached the shore, and now looks with streaming eyes and
fainting heart on others still struggling through those awful waves of sorrow.
With Christian love and intensest sympathy, Your grateful friend, Susie
Spurgeon."

We have shut the doors this morning against the world and the churches at large,
that this great family may have a little familiar and close intercourse about
the dead. This beloved man of God was to us in this family circle a preacher of
the gospel. What a preacher! I am persuaded that the century has known no man
that was his equal in the simple and persuasive utterance of the gospel message.
It was a heroic resolve on his part 'not to know anything amongst you, save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' But it was a rarer success on his part that,
knowing nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified, he gathered and held the
largest congregation within the bounds of the Christian world, for over forty
years.

There are some, in these days, that would depreciate him, as a man that had no
broad horizon—as a man whose range and scope were narrow. But such a verdict
reacts upon those who depreciate him, for it shows how little they appreciate
the genius of his ministry. The Campsie fiddler, when he heard Paganini, went
home and broke and burned his own fiddle, not simply because that master
violinist had brought out of his wooden box the most marvellous melodies and
harmonies that he had ever heard, but because on one string he had executed
melodies and harmonies that no other living performer had been able to bring out
of all four strings. And the glory of Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his preaching
of the gospel was that, from one string, 'Christ, and him crucified,' he evoked
the melodies and harmonies to which a whole orchestra of intellectual
instruments is not equal. The vibrations of that chord ran from the depths of
the most profound mysteries to the heights of the most celestial glories. The
combinations and the variations that he executed upon that one string have held
the church of God entranced, and the world in awe. I pray you to notice that the
limitation of his ministry was the glory of his ministry. He had the bravery not
to know a thousand things that he might have known. He had the bravery to make
the Bible the one book that he studied, and the Christ of God the one theme on
which he discoursed. And you who for forty years have listened to his ministry
will have found that out of that one string he brought every strain of
instruction, every voice of consolation, every message, tender, pathetic,
sublime, and beautiful, that is needful for the mind, the heart, the conscience,
or the spirit, of a child of God. And I would have you notice also, in uttering
these simple tributes to his memory, that he was not only a great preacher and
evangelist, he was also a great Pastor. There are many evangelists that have the
advantage that they only preach, and that they preach to audiences so different
that they can use the same material over and over again, repeating, and
completing as they repeat. Whitefield preached the same sermon over, fifty or
one hundred times, improving it at every delivery; but Charles Haddon Spurgeon
could not in this manner repeat himself. For thirty-seven years he has given his
sermons to the public, and when they have been pronounced in this place they
have been, in a sense, lost to him for future use, for they have been given in
the wider pulpit of the press to a more magnificent audience than it was
possible for him to reach even here. Notwithstanding the fact that the
conditions of his ministry thus forbade the ordinary repetition of sermons, he
has gone on speaking with perpetual freshness on this one perpetual theme; and
yet the ministries of the last year among you were more precious than the
ministries of any previous part of his life. Was not the secret of his ministry
in two little utterances that he emphasized in his words, and especially in his
life? When Dr. McAll went to Paris to begin his great work for the
evangelization of the French people, he could speak only two sentences in
French, and those not with Parisian accent either. One was 'God loves you' and
the other was 'I love,' you.' Upon those two sentences Charles Haddon Spurgeon
built his ministry. His whole gospel preaching was a proclamation, 'God loves
you;' and his whole pastoral and personal life was the affirmation, 'I love
you.' The people learned of the love of God through his lips, and were drawn to
him by the personal love that he had to souls, as exhibited in all that he did
and in all that he said.

I would remind you also that he was a great organizer and leader. Fifty mission
halls or benevolent organizations, in some way or other connected with this
church, yet survive, which owe their existence, under God, to his suggestion and
organizing power. I need not remind this family of God, of his dear brother,
James A. Spurgeon, who has been so marvellously fitted to complement and
supplement all his labours, and has been so closely associated with him, as John
Wesley and Charles Wesley were associated, a little more than a century ago. Nor
need I remind you how these two beloved men of God, like right hand and left
hand in the service of the Master, have founded the Pastors' College, which has
had eight hundred students in its halls, and is represented on every continent
of the globe. I need not tell you how these two brothers have likewise
originated and maintained, through God, the Stockwell Orphanage, which at
present has over four hundred boys and girls within its walls, doubly orphaned
now that another father has been taken from them. Nor need I remind you of the
Almshouses and the multitude of other noble and philanthropic works which owe,
if not their existence, their subsistence, to this manly and Christian heart
which now has stopped beating.

We have nothing to say today about the work accomplished by our departed brother
beyond the bounds of this church. That will come in review on some subsequent
occasion. I limit myself now to what he was to this church, with its
organizations and its institutions.

There was nothing in which C. H. Spurgeon shone more than in his character as a
true Christian believer. First and last, what he was as a preacher, what he was
as a pastor, what he was as a worker, he owed to what he was as a believer in
Christ Jesus. I do not wonder that the children in the Orphanage and in the
Sunday-school were all drawn to him. I do not wonder that they understood him,
for I never knew a Christian believer who was more, in the very best sense,
himself a little child. Yes, it was a child that died on the 31st of January,
nearly fifty-eight years old. He never lost his child-likeness, though he had
lost his childishness; he carried all that is most sublime from childhood into
the period of his manhood and into his maturer years. Do you ask me what was the
secret of his power as a Christian believer? I think that the answer to that
question is exceedingly simple. We shall not lose it even in analysis, for, at
the bottom of all, it was that he had an overwhelming sense of the powers of the
world to come. The invisible things were visible to his faith. The future and
eternal were like present and temporal to him. He went into his closet and
handled God, he saw that it was he himself, and he came out with the vivid
impressions of communion with the invisible and the eternal. If you will take
that single secret you will find that it underlies every other secret of his
personal life and personal ministry. We need not look very far to find out why
he was what he was. He took the Bible, and the whole Bible, as the inspired book
of God; he took Christ, and the whole Christ, as the justifier, sanctifier and
redeemer; he believed with all his heart; and every utterance was a speech born
of deep conviction. To the ingenuity of intellectual genius, he added the
ingenuousness of moral genius, and produced first and foremost, upon all who
heard him, the impression that what he said he believed, and what he believed he
believed with all his heart. Hence, as a great ocean steamer draws smaller craft
in its wake, even unbelievers and sceptics were in a measure brought to fall
into the line of his teaching, because of the positiveness of it, which was born
of a defined and confirmed faith.

Suffer me to say one word more. I may the more fitly speak of his sick and dying
bed, because I belong to another nationality and to another branch of the
Christian church in a distant land. Round about that sick and dying bed, from
May last to the end of January of this year, for more than eight months, the
whole Christian church was bowed in solicitude, as round about his bier today,
from all quarters of the earth, Christian believers bow in tears. I think that
not since Christ ascended has there been a more pathetic illustration of the
power of one believing child of God to attract to him millions upon millions of
believers, upon whose faces he has never looked. Ten thousand messages and
letters of sympathy, sets of resolutions and telegrams of enquiry came to his
home here and in Menton during the time I have specified. There was not a branch
of the Christian church that did not furnish representatives in this pathetic
instance of condolence, either by personal calls or by communications through
telegraph or post. From the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, down to the
humblest vicar and curate, tributes have been paid to him; from all the branches
of the Baptist, Methodist, Congregational and Presbyterian churches, and from
every other denomination of Christians, expressions of sympathy have been
received. Yea, even the Jewish rabbi begged him to understand that the Jews were
lifting prayer to the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob for his
restoration. There has never, I repeat, been a scene, of which I have any
knowledge, so pathetically sublime in the course of the eighteen hundred years
of Christian history. Verily 'prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto
God for him.' O my beloved friends, you do not know all you have had in him, and
you do not yet know what you have lost. But, blessed be the name of God, what is
your loss is his great gain.

What, in this great crisis, are we to do? We must go and stand by the Jordan,
where he stood; take the mantle of the ascended man of God; smite the waters
with that mantle, and say, 'Where is the Lord God of Spurgeon! He still
survives, and is ready to interpose for us. Be sure that you take these Orphans
to your heart, and see that in their comparatively fatherless condition they
find the whole church here like a nursing mother. See that you take the Pastors'
College to your heart, and ensure a generation of noble and faithful ministers
of Christ to carry out the line of teaching, and to defend the gospel, that has
made this pulpit illustrious. See that no work under which the shoulders and
heart of Charles Haddon Spurgeon stood as a support shall fall today because
that support has been withdrawn. I venture to prophesy that, if such is the
spirit of your faith and your consecration, God will, in some mysterious manner,
bless to you the departure of his servant, even as he has blessed his long
presence among you.

Mr. J. W. Harrald, Private Secretary to Mr. Spurgeon, to whom the chairman paid
a just tribute, calling upon him as "A dear friend, one of my brother's dearest
helpers, who put wisdom and strength, gentleness and tenderness unrivalled, at
my brother's disposal by night and by day, in life and in death," announced the
hymn,—

"Servant of God, well done!

Rest from thy loved employ; The battle fought, the victory won, Enter thy
Master's joy.

"The voice at midnight came;

He started up to hear: A mortal arrow pierced his frame;

He fell, but felt no fear.

"His spirit with a bound Left its encumbering clay; His tent, at sunrise, on the
ground Without a tenant lay.

"The pains of death are past;

Labour and sorrow cease; And life's long warfare closed at last, His soul is
found in peace.

"Soldier of Christ, well done!

Praise be thy new employ;

And, while eternal ages run, Rest in thy Saviour's joy."

Being peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances of the beloved Pastor's
entrance into rest, this hymn was sung most heartily by the whole congregation.

Mr. Harrald, to whose words a special interest attached, as he had been by the
side of the beloved sufferer to the end, then said: "I feel that I am here today
as the representative of our dearly-loved and deeply-lamented senior Pastor, and
of his beloved and bereaved wife. We meet today, as we have been reminded, in
the capacity of a family. Therefore, speaking to you as members of the family, I
wish to bear testimony, for dear Mrs. Spurgeon's sake and on her behalf, to the
sustaining grace of God which has been granted to her, and to all of us who have
sorrowed with her, away in the sunny land. The hymn which we have just sung
speaks of 'the call at midnight', and close on midnight the call came to him
whom we mourn. Many of you perhaps know that our beloved Pastor said to everyone
who asked him when he thought of being back, 'I shall be home in February,' and
nearly an hour before the time that he had himself fixed, he was at home, not at
'Westwood', but at his heavenly home, 'for ever with the Lord.' As the five of
us knelt by his bedside, in the little room at Menton, after he had entered into
rest, I felt that I ought to lead the little company in prayer for all who had
been bereaved; but we were touched beyond expression, as we still continued on
our knees, to hear the voice of the loved one so sorely bereaved, thanking God
for the many years that she had had the unspeakable joy of having such a
precious husband lent to her. You have heard from her beautiful letter something
of what the past three months have been to her. We could go farther back, and
speak of the past seven months; for seven months ago she gave her husband up to
his Lord, but the Lord lent him to her a little longer. His dear wife always
reckoned that those seven months were all extra, and so she was ready when the
Master wanted the loan back again for ever. If there could have been any wish of
his heart that otherwise would have remained unsatisfied, it was, as she tells
you in the letter, that together they might sit under the palm-trees of his
lovely Menton; that they might walk beneath the olives that flourish there; and
that they might sojourn a little while by the tideless sea, beneath the
cloudless sky, and amid those scenes he so dearly loved, mainly because they
reminded him of 'Thy land, O Immanuel!' Those last three months seemed to make
their earthly bliss complete; husband and wife often said that it was their
honeymoon over again. They celebrated together at Menton their thirty-sixth
wedding-day, also Mrs. Spurgeon's birthday, and from the family standpoint—and
that is where we meet to-day—it was all that one could have desired. And oh,
though it was sad for us to lose him there, we felt that, at least, one regret
would be spared to us; had he stayed at home we should all have said, 'If he had
but gone to Menton, he might have recovered!' But that was not to be.

"You cannot tell all that those three months at Menton mean. Little by little it
will come out, and you will be thankful as you see how true is the text which
has been placed on one end of the coffin. The question has been put to me
already, 'When did the Pastor say to you, "I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith"?' Let it be known, as distinctly as
possible, the Pastor did not say it at all. I have taken every opportunity I
could get to say that the last message he was able to deliver to the
congregation, or to anyone, was that remarkable message telegraphed to you on
the very day that you were bringing in thankofferings for his partial recovery.
Read that message again, in the light of what I am certain he knew at the time,
and then see how characteristic it was.

"He and Mrs. Spurgeon were talking together, and they called me into the
bedroom. They said, 'There is a little matter of business for you to attend to,'
and then our dear Pastor dictated to me a telegram to be sent to the Tabernacle.
He began, 'Self and wife, £100, thankoffering'; but altering the wording, he
said, 'No; put it, "£100, hearty thankoffering towards Tabernacle General
Expenses. Love to all friends.'

"I waited for more, but he had fallen asleep. That terrible unconsciousness,
that soon seized him in its dreaded grasp, was already beginning to affect him.
I waited, perhaps half an hour, and when he awoke, I said—'You did not finish
the telegram.'" "Hasn't it gone yet?" he asked.

"'No,' I replied; 'there is plenty of time. They do not meet at the Tabernacle
till four this afternoon; and I could not send it off without telling them how
you are, for all will be anxious to know about you.' In his own characteristic
way, he said, 'Let them find out; that is all I am going to say." Was it not
just like him? Of course, I put a few words at the end of his telegram, that the
friends at home might know how ill he was; but his last message was in harmony
with his whole life—all for others, and not a word about himself. Was not his
action characteristic even to the end?

"In most solemn conversation with me, several days before that, he had said, 'My
work is done'; and he began talking of certain matters which no man would speak
of, least of all such a man as he, unless he was certain that his work was
ended. Yet, knowing that he was upon his dying bed, and perhaps, for aught one
can tell, knowing that this was the last message he would ever send, he only
said, 'Hearty thankoffering.' Notice that he did not say 'for recovery' every
word was carefully weighed. 'Love to all friends.' This was his last message to
you, and it is no use asking for any other. There is no other. We watched day
and night with him. Oh, what would we not have given if we could have had
another word? We hoped against hope that there would have been some other final
message, but no other was given. There you have it: 'Hearty thankoffering. Love
to all friends.' Do you ask, how did that text, 'I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith,' come where it is? It was my sad
and mournful duty to submit to dear Mrs. Spurgeon certain matters which needed
attention, and amongst other things, I took to her the inscription I had
prepared for the coffin. It ended with this text. As soon as I read it, she
said, in her own inimitable way—'How is it that you always think of just what I
have been thinking? There is no other text for him.'" So the text was placed
where it is; but our dear Pastor would never have thought of applying those
words to himself."

"'I have fought a good fight? You know how true that is.

"'I have finished my course? It is no broken column that we have to rear to his
memory. His work is finished.

"'I have kept the faith? And everyone here and throughout the whole world knows
how bravely he did it.

"You may know something more also. Many voices will say this—but none ought to
say it more distinctly than I do—that within that olive-casket there lies all
that is mortal of a martyr for the truth's sake. If you will look in your Sword
and Trowel for February, you will see a note on 'The Bible and Modern
Criticism', and at the end you will read what the Pastor wrote with his own hand
but a few days before he told me that his work was finished. Concerning that
great controversy, which has now cost him his life, he says there that he does
not regret his action, 'even though an almost fatal illness might be reckoned as
part of the price.' We must now take out the word 'almost', for 'part of the
price' paid by our beloved Pastor, in his contention for the faith, was his own
life. For the truth's sake he counted not his life dear unto him; and again and
again he has said, in the presence of those who can bear unflinching testimony
to the fact, that, if necessary, he would gladly have laid down his life a
thousand times for the sake of the gospel, for the defence of which he was 'set'
as much as the apostle Paul ever was.

"You may imagine how much there is that one would wish to say to you personally;
but I must say to the officers and members of this church and congregation, and
to other friends throughout the world, on dear Mrs. Spurgeon's behalf, how
deeply thankful she is for all the tokens of love she has received during the
last eight or nine months; first the loving messages of sympathy, then of
congratulation, and now of condolence. They have been simply overwhelming; and
she can but ask that through every public channel her thanks may be conveyed
throughout the whole world, for all the love and all the sympathy which have
been showered upon her so royally.

"But has not our dear Pastor a last word for us? Ay, that he has; and here again
I must link his name with that of his beloved wife. You know what, by a most
remarkable overruling of the providence of God, last week's sermon was—('God's
Will about the Future,' No. 2,242). Even more remarkable, the Pastor's message
for this very week is what Mrs. Spurgeon has herself entitled, 'His own Funeral
Sermon' (No. 2,243). The text is, 'For David, after he had served his own
generation by the will of God, fell on sleep.' That sermon is his special
message for today.

"But among peculiarly tender memorials of our glorified Pastor, there are some
words, written by his own hand, as clearly as ever he wrote, in this little
book, which I hold in my hand It is now a very precious treasure, for it tells
us something of what he wanted to say before he was taken. I do not say that
these words are all his own composition—some evidently are not—but they are
gathered together, and some of them doubtless composed by him. They were put
just where I should be the first to find them, in order, doubtless, that they
might come as his message to you. Put these couplets together, and listen to the
Holy Spirit's message to you, for by these words, 'he, being dead, yet
speaketh.'

"'No cross, no crown; no loss, no gain;

They first must suffer, who would reign.'

"'He best can part with life without a sigh, Whose daily living is to daily
die.'

"'Youth builds for age; age builds for rest: Who builds for heaven, will build
the best.'

"'Poor they may live, but rich they die, Whose treasure is laid up on high.'

"'Oh, the sweet joy that sentence gives—

"I know that my Redeemer lives!'"

"'We cannot, Lord, thy purpose see, But all is well that's done by thee.'

"The last word is—

"'Prepared be To follow me.'

"Oh, may every one of us follow him, as he followed his Lord!" To which the
congregation responded with a hearty "Amen." The Rev. V. J. Charlesworth, called
upon to read the Scriptures, as a long-tried helper and friend, the Head-Master
of the Orphanage, said: "There are lingering echoes which will now find a voice
in the words of the inspired apostle, and which all must feel so truly
applicable to the beloved Pastor who has gone.

"'I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified.' 'His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain.' 'But as God
is true, our word toward you was not "Yea" and "Nay." For the Son of God, Jesus
Christ, who was preached among you... was not "Yea" and "Nay," but in him was
"Yea.'"

"'I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.'" 'The gospel
which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man,
neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.'" 'By grace are
ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.'"
'Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and
love, which is in Christ Jesus.'" 'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye
stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye
know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.'" 'O, come let us worship and
bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are
the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.'" 'The Lord of hosts is
with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.'" 'He that spared not his own Son, but
delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all
things?'" 'For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we
die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.'"
'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.'" 'He asked life
of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever. His
glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
Thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with
thy countenance.'" 'Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast
afflicted us. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their
children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou
the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.'"
'Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be
within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and
companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.'"

Rev. T. W. Medhurst, who was the senior student of the College, entering in the
year 1855, and who has been ever since an honoured minister of the Word, being
called upon, led in a heartfelt and heart-moving prayer.

Deacon T. H. Olney, the treasurer of the church, one of the eldest of the
officers whom Mr. James Spurgeon, in introducing Mr. Olney, spoke of as "a band
of men whom God has touched; the excellent of the earth in whom we all delight,"
said:—"In the presence of the great sorrow and the crushing calamity which have
come home to the hearts of each one present, there is no need today to set aside
seats for special mourners. We are all special mourners. I desire your sympathy
and your prayers at this time, for I am not a practised speaker, but I have been
selected on the present occasion because for so many years I have had the
privilege and the honour of being associated with our dear Pastor in his work.
My brethren in office have asked me to be a witness on their behalf of the
loving esteem and reverence in which we have always held our beloved leader. We
never had a difference of opinion with him. What happiness that is to look back
to! There was never a strife, and never an unkind word.

"I do not wish in any way to be thought a critic of our dear pastor. I loved him
too well for that. George Herbert says, 'The minister should be the judge, not
the hearer,' and I agree with his sentiment. But I would add my honest testimony
to the worth of our beloved friend. My opening remark about him is that he was
first of all a man of faith, a man of humble trust. He retained much of the
child in his nature. God was his Father, and his trust was as simple and
childlike at the end of his career as it was at the beginning. I had the honour
of hearing his first sermon in London, and he then struck the keynote of his
ministry. The sermon was from the Epistle of James, the first chapter, and the
seventeenth verse: 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning.' It was a marvellous sight, that morning at New Park Street
Chapel, when he came into the pulpit. He had the dew of his youth upon him then.
Few of you can remember him as the wonderful youthful preacher; but he spoke
with the same confidence in the first sermon, and with the same eloquence, as in
later years. He spoke afterwards, perhaps, with riper judgment, but never with
greater power than when he spoke to those eighty or one hundred people in 1853.

"My next remark about him is, that he was a man of prayer. He did not depend
merely upon his own prayers, but he always invited the prayers of his people.
When the prayer-meeting was well attended, he expected a blessing. I will try to
prove that to you in his own words. When the congregations of the church began
to increase at New Park Street, did he say, 'I am a popular preacher. I am a
successful man?' No; this is what he wrote to me: 'The house was filled with
hearers; many souls were converted; and I always give glory to God first, and
then to praying people.'" My third testimony about him is, that he was a
grateful man. He was grateful not only for the prayers of his people, but for
their offerings. When he was away from home, I used to send him a telegram every
Monday morning with an account of the proceedings of the previous Sabbath, and
he wrote to me that he valued those telegrams very much. This postcard was sent
to me from Menton in answer to such a telegram: 'The news of the offering rings
the bells in my heart. What a good people I have.'" The fourth testimony I have
to bear is, that the greatest joy that our dear Pastor ever experienced, was in
the salvation of souls, in the increase of the church, and in the glory of
Christ's kingdom. I will read you an extract from a private letter sent to me:
'Your telegram was one of the grandest ever transmitted on the wires. It made my
heart sing, "Hallelujah!" Blessed be the Lord for the care of his church! Dr.
Pierson has sent me the outlines of his sermons, which prove that he deals in
the finest of the wheat.' My telegram had told him that forty-nine had joined
the church; I think it was in December; and his reply shows the joy with which
it filled his heart. He adds, 'May the forty-nine new friends be a real
accession of strength.' To which we all add, 'Amen.'" I bear record of him, in
the fifth place, that he had a very kindly esteem of the church officers by whom
he was surrounded. An extract from another letter will make this clear:—'May the
Lord richly bless you. Never man had a kinder company of friends, or felt more
bound to them. Let us pray for a blessing exceeding all that we have hitherto
known. It may be had. It will be had.'" I must also bear testimony that he
inspired very great confidence in us all. Whatever he recommended we accepted at
once. I can remember the building of this great Tabernacle, the opening of the
Stockwell Orphanage, and other things which we have not time to refer to. Many
of the great undertakings might, at first, have seemed imprudent; but his plans
were always well matured. They were always thought over beforehand, and prayed
upon, before they were introduced to us. We, as Deacons, had very little to do
but to back him up.

"In the next place, he drew out very devoted service. I do not think that he had
many drones about him, they would not have been happy in his company. He always
set us to work, and started us in such a happy way that we have kept on at it.
You know for how many years I have been the treasurer of the church, and you
know with regard to the other officers associated with him, how continuous their
labours have been. My dear brother, Mr. Joseph Passmore, has been with him from
the beginning. The Pastor won our affection and kept it.

"The last point is very tender ground, but we can bear a true witness. He was a
most charming companion. You in the church knew many of his excellences, but
those of us who were intimate with him and were able to enjoy his private
friendship, know what a rich treasury of conversation he possessed. His humour
was always humour without baseness. For instance, note one of his remarks to his
Deacons. He said, 'You are the best Deacons that any minister was ever blessed
with, but do not be proud. You are no better than you ought to be.' This will
give you a sample of the terms on which we were. Whenever we met together we
were a happy, united band, with confidence in our leader, that he was trusting
in the Lord and would lead us to fresh victory. Some of those who have been here
with him have gone on before, and I have thought with what pleasure they would
welcome him on the eternal shore. Earth is poorer, heaven is richer, for his
loss. May it tend to draw our hearts and affections heavenward. If so, the death
of our Pastor will be blessed to us, indeed.

Elder J. T. Dunn, on behalf of his fellow officers, said:—"There are two
brethren my seniors. One is laid aside on the bed of sickness, and the other is
too feeble to make his voice heard in so large a congregation; therefore I have
been asked to speak today. My personal reminiscences of our beloved Pastor have
only helped to endear him more and more as the years have rolled on. For some
thirty-four years I have been identified as his helper in the work of the
church. My recollections of him, so far as regards his tender sympathy and his
kindness, which is beyond expression, are very vivid today. He was thoughtful in
the highest degree, and hearty in all his expressions of brotherly feeling and
Christian love. His letters, his words, and his actions speak of a man whose
heart was large. Following his dear and blessed Master, he always sought to do
unobtrusive acts of kindness, many of which never can be known or spoken of
here, but all of which will be known in 'that day.'" When persons came to
enquire concerning salvation, or to confess their faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, how his eyes would brighten; and how heartily he would welcome them. It
mattered not to him what the character of the clothing, or what the age of the
candidate. He could always meet their condition, and tenderly sympathize with
them. Many a one have I seen go into that vestry with a tearful eye, who has
returned with joy on the countenance. The Lord has struck the fetters from many
a sin-bound soul while upon his knees in that hallowed room.

"His tenderness towards the poor and the afflicted was very noticeable. If, in
the morning of the day, he had a communication that some member of the church,
or even someone who was not a member of the church, was laid aside, he would
turn out of his way, in order that he might call upon the sick one, to help and
comfort them.

"Let me say one word concerning my brethren, the Elders whom I represent. We are
of one heart and of one mind. Our hearts were knit to the beloved Pastor, and we
have pledged ourselves to hold together in the name of the Lord, whom we serve;
whatever may be the future history of the church, you will find the Eldership
standing as one man for the faith of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." The
Chairman here interposed, and touchingly said: "I am sure that you will spare me
the minute required to read a telegram, which has just arrived from my dear
sister at Menton.

"Telegram from Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon

"My heart bleeds with yours, but our beloved's joy is full. We shall see him
again, and our hearts shall rejoice. Death shall be swallowed up in victory, and
the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.

Spurgeon, Menton."

Rev. W. Corden Jones, "a trusted servant and helper in connection with the
Colportage Association," gave out the hymn commencing, "Oh, God of Bethel,"
which was heartily sung, after which it was announced that Principal Gracey, who
was to have represented the College, was, to the regret of all, too ill to be
present, and that only one other name, reminding us worthily of the text,
"Instead of the fathers shall be the children," remained upon the programme.

Deacon William Olney said: "I have been asked to speak this morning on behalf of
the many missionary workers. Our dear Pastor, whom God has taken to himself, had
a remarkable power of infusing his own love for souls into the hearts of others.
In response to his 'Trumpet Calls to Christian Energy," from this platform, men
went out of this congregation in hundreds, to fling themselves into the slums of
the South of London, and bring in members to this church out of some of the
lowest parts of the neighbourhood. As a consequence of this, there are, to day,
twenty-three mission stations, and twenty-six branch schools, and at these
places there are every Sunday evening about one thousand of the members of this
church working for the Lord Jesus Christ amongst the poor. Just before Mr.
Spurgeon was taken ill last summer, with that illness which has ended fatally,
he used to recount, sometimes in his addresses at the prayer-meeting, sometimes
in private conversation, a little incident in mission work which was very
touching. A dear brother who, I expect, is present here this morning, wrote to
his Sunday-school class in a mission school, and in consequence of those
letters, some half-dozen of his boys were brought to a knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our dear pastor used to tell that story with tears, and to ask all
his Christian hearers to be as earnest in telling the story of the love of Jesus
by tongue and by pen.

"How was it that our dear Pastor had such a love for mission work, and had such
a great influence in spreading it? I think, perhaps, most of all, because he
valued the souls of poor men. He looked upon the soul of a poor man as equal in
value to the soul of a rich man; he knew that for all eternity the soul of a
scavenger, cleansed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit of
God, would shine as brightly in the crown of the Lord Jesus Christ as a soul of
any peer of the realm, who might be brought to the knowledge of the Lord.

"Another reason for his great interest in mission work was his wonderful
kindliness of heart. How full of love he was—real chanty—not the name of the
thing, but the very spirit of it! I remember a dear friend, a poor widow, going
up from Bermondsey to join the church. She came back and said, 'Oh, Mr. Spurgeon
was so kind to me. He not only spoke in words and received me into the church,
but he gave me half-a-crown.' I confess that I was very much alarmed to hear it
at the time, for I feared that all the poor widows in Bermondsey would want to
come and join the church. But it was an illustration of his kindliness of heart
towards the poor.

"The South of London in this mission work is poor, inexpressibly poor, today,
because of the loss that we have suffered. I beseech you, brethren, men of
position and influence and riches, connected with this church, to do for the
home mission work, as far as you can, what the Pastor did for it. And let my
fellow soldiers of the cross working in South London missions, go forward as led
by his spirit, still believing that the gospel which was powerful in his lips
shall be powerful in ours also." The service closed with the Benediction.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 16: CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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Chapter 13. Memorial Meeting for Ministers and Students On Wednesday afternoon,
February 10th, 1892, commencing at three o'clock, the Memorial Service for
Ministers and Students of all Denominations was held, a magnificent congregation
assembling, representing all sections of the visible church.

Rev. David Davies, of Brighton, after prayer by Dr. Pierson, announced the
opening hymn,—

"Come, let us join our friends above Who have obtained the prize, And on the
eagle wings of love To joy celestial rise.

"Let all the saints terrestrial sing, With those to glory gone; For all the
servants of our King, In earth and heaven, are one.

"One family we dwell in him, One church above, beneath, Though now divided by
the stream, The narrow stream of death.

"One army of the living God, To his command we bow;

Part of his host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now.

E'en now by faith we join our hands With those that went before; And greet the
blood-besprinkled bands On the eternal shore."

The singing by such a number of cultivated male voices, accustomed to
congregational praise, was of a most inspiring character.

Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D., the Chairman of the meeting, then said: "Dear
brethren and comrades in the ministry of the Lord Jesus,—We gather this
afternoon united in one sentiment of affectionate reverence for the greatest
preacher of his age. I suppose that such a gathering as this, of men more or
less directly and exclusively engaged in the ministry of the gospel, differing
widely from one another in opinion, forms of government, casts of mind, methods
of discharging our work, and yet giving one unanimous suffrage as to the
supremacy of our departed brother, is an unheard-of thing. It was not only the
genius that we admired; it was not only the splendour of his popular gift, or
the diligence with which he cultivated it and offered it to his Master; but it
was the profound faith, the earnestness, the devotion, the self-oblivion, which
endeared him to many hearts, and were the secret of his power. Instead of
eulogizing the dead preacher, I venture to ask you, with myself, to try to draw
lessons from that extraordinary career, which has ended, so far as we are
concerned, today. It seems to me, meditating on the loss of my dear friend and
brother, your brother and friend, that I have learned for myself some lessons,
which I venture, with all respect and deference, to press upon you.

"Thinking of C. H. Spurgeon's life, I have learned what is the staple of a
successful ministry. I would not narrowly construe the word. I would make all
allowances for diversities of natural temperament, and for differences of
audience to whom we have to speak; but, making all allowances for these, and
remembering likewise that no one man is capable of all things, I still point to
that coffin, and say that, to myself, it proclaims that if a man desires to
reach, and to hold, and to bless, the largest number of his fellowmen, he must
keep fast to the great central verities of the Christian faith—salvation through
Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lamb of God; life through the Divine Spirit; faith
in Christ, the uniting bond; and simplicity of good works, the manifest token.
We do not need—we shall be unwise if we seek—other sources for the power and
blessedness of our ministry than the adherence to the regnant facts of man's
need, and the all-sufficient supply of that need in Jesus Christ our Lord.

"There is one thing in which all the world is alike, and that is, sin and
misery. There is one message that will find its way to all hearts, and that is,
the message which our dear brother consecrated his life to proclaim. This needs
and implies the consecration of the loftiest intellect, and will reward the
energies of the most sedulous cultivation. For there is no greater mistake than
to suppose that plainness and efficiency can be secured without toil and pain.

"Our brother was gifted with a natural genius for forceful utterance, which sets
him by the side of the greatest masters of the English tongue; but it was not
because of natural genius only, but because he had set himself to be
'understanded of the common people,' that his words crystallized themselves into
proverbs, that they flashed and glowed with illustration, and never transcended
the possibilities and comprehension of the lowest of his audience. That is an
ambition which the most learned amongst us, and the most cultured and refined
among us, may well set before themselves. I do not believe that any truth is so
deep that it is not capable of expression in the English tongue which John
Bunyan and C. H. Spurgeon wielded. I do not believe that we Christian ministers
have got anything much worth saying today which cannot be said in language, that
the old women in their garrets, and the little children in their nurseries, can
understand and remember. And so, I say, let us take the lesson of the staple of
a successful ministry.

"Will you bear with me while I go a step further, and venture to crystallize
another set of thoughts into words, that we may all learn here today, what is
the spirit of a Christ-taught and therefore successful ministry? I know nothing
more beautiful, as there was nothing more winning and powerful, in our brother's
work, than his utter selfforgetfulness. No affectation; no contortions; few
exaggerations; a rich variety of tone and subject; and all made mighty because
you could see that the last thing that he was thinking about was himself. The
least stain of the opposite thing spoils everything. The harp-string, when it is
struck and touched so as to make melody, vibrates and becomes invisible when it
is musical;and you and I, dear brethren, must consent to efface ourselves if we
would set forth Jesus Christ. The wall on which the pictures hang must be of a
neutral tint; and the men who will glorify Jesus must forget themselves.

"Nor is the accent of conviction and the spirit of robust and unfaltering belief
less needful. Our friend was little touched by questions and difficulties which
torture some of us; but let a man preach the things that he is sure of, be they
few or many, and let him keep to himself his doubts. 'Yeast,' the title of a
book well-known in its day, was self-condemned, by its title, for yeast is meant
to be kept till it has passed through a process before it is fit for human lips.
So what we have to set forth is the belief, which, by God's grace, we have won;
if we stick to that, we shall not fail to learn and find more. From this bier
there comes a voice, 'I believed;therefore have I spoken.' Brethren, let us
answer, 'We also believe, and therefore speak.'" May I say, before I sit down,
that the hidden spring of a successful ministry is no less taught us today than
its staple and its spirit. No man will forget himself, or preach with supreme
power the great truths of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, unless in many
a silent and secret hour he himself has fed upon these, and unless the way into
the holiest of all is very familiar to his willing feet. We know that the
marvellous power of fusing all this mighty mass of people, and bearing up their
hearts to the throne, which our brother possessed, and which some of us think
yet more helpful than his ministry to men, was not gained or kept except by the
simple, childlike, continual, close, penitent, aspiring, and yearning communion
of his own heart with the Father in the heavens. Brethren, the river that has to
fertilize a continent must rise up on the mount of God, and be fed with the pure
snows that lie there.

"Pardon me that I have occupied so much of your time, but I sought, if I might,
by my humblest and truest testimony of love and of loss in this great grief, to
make you share in the lessons which I hope it has taught me." A hearty "Amen"
from many in the audience showed how deep was the response to these words.

Rev. Canon Fleming, B.D., being next called upon, said:—"There are times when
our hearts are quite too full to find utterance, and this is one of them. Even
if I could speak as I wish, I could not pretend to embalm your grief for your
pastor and friend today. As the Chairman has told you, I am with you in a double
capacity. I am here as Honorary Secretary of the Religious Tract Society—a
society which owed much to the pen, and also to the voice of Spurgeon—a society
which he loved, because he loved everything that was catholic, good, and
evangelical. I also stand here as an old personal friend who enjoyed his
friendship for more than five-and-twenty years, ever since I came to the
metropolis and began to work near to him in South London. It goes without saying
that he loved his friends; you have only to recall the grasp of his warm hand,
and the 'God bless you!' that leaped to his honest lips, to be sure of that.

"I am also glad to stand here as a clergyman of the Church of England, not
taking upon myself in the slightest degree to represent my own church, but
taking the full responsibility, as one of its working clergy, to say that I feel
honoured by being invited to take part in this memorial service. I have not
forgotten words which I heard Mr. Spurgeon speak many years ago in South London.
He said, 'I would not give a headless pin for a man who did not belong to that
denomination which he conscientiously believed to be the best; but I have
learned to love truth better than any sect, and Christ more than any church.'
Those were strong words. Yes, and in order to Christian union, which we all
desire today, and which the Church at large, with all its differences, desires
and longs and prays for, we must be one in Christ, holding those great cardinal
truths which cluster round the cross; which bring men to God, and draw man to
man. There are differences of administration, but there is one Lord. There are
diversities of opinion, but there is one body. We are under different standards;
but I feel that as ministers of all denominations, assembled here today, though
we may be ranged under very different banners, with names that we love and
cherish and honour inscribed on them, yet we have one sovereign standard under
which we all rally, and upon which is inscribed the name that is above every
name—the name of Jesus.

"Our friend was called for a long time to pass through the baptism of pain. The
whole world watched his sick bed; and the letters that he then wrote to you, and
the messages that he then sent to you and to others, made that sick bed the best
pulpit from which he ever preached. He is now in the Father's house, where are
many mansions, and there is no sick room there. No tear can fall within the
crystal gates of that kingdom; no pain, no sorrow, no sin, no death can enter
there.

"His life had no evening, not even a twilight. His end was so gradual and so
gentle, that we may say of him, as our Master said of Lazarus, 'Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth.' Who of us, I ask, except those who have a right to personal
and domestic sorrow, can mourn for a man who died so happily, his nobly-used
faculties possessed up to the last, his life lived out from birth to death like
a fruit which blossomed in his youth, and then fell ripe and mellow before the
frosts of winter had even touched it? There is no idea of incompleteness resting
upon his work. He would have been great in any calling to which he might have
devoted himself, but he was greatest of all in that which was the passion of his
life—to preach the gospel in order to bring souls to Christ.

"He had the endowment of a surpassing memory, and that, humanly speaking, was a
wonderful key to his power and his success. Not only did he forget nothing, but
he could command and use whatever he had learned. Yet all the gold, and myrrh,
and frankincense of his genius were laid at the feet of Christ, with the
humility of a little child, and he was wholly unconscious of the gift that he
carried in his hand. He has gone, as a writer has said, a little nearer to the
Master of all teachers, himself a great teacher; not always polished, sometimes
rugged, plain, homely, but always sweet and pure. His sermons and his books
always carry diamonds in disguise.

"How much do all the students here owe in gratitude to him? The old students,
many of you now enrolled in the ranks of the ministry, can never forget the
depth of his piety, the tenderness of his spirit, the fertility of his
illustrations, the power of his prayer, and the sympathy of his marvellous
voice, hushed now here below, but richer than ever above. He taught you what it
was to be teachable, and not censorious towards others; to be large-hearted, yet
true and firm and discriminating, never tampering with truth, and never
parleying with error. He made you feel that the Bible is a book not to be
suspected, not to be apologized for, but to be believed, trusted, and received
with docility as the very Word of God. How are you all, and especially the young
men of this generation who are to take up the standard, and carry on the great
work to which he devoted his life, to pay him the debt which you feel in your
hearts, you owe to him? You can only try to do it by imitating him, and by
following him in the spirit of those lessons to which we have just listened from
our Chairman. But I venture to suggest that a man will best imitate Spurgeon by
not attempting to imitate him at all, and he will best follow him by following
Him whom he loved and served.

"The world today is colder, darker, duller, poorer, for his absence; but heaven
is fuller, warmer, richer for his presence."

Rev. William Cuff led the assembly in a very earnest prayer in which, beseeching
God for the present power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of many of the
ministers of the Word, he evidently touched a chord which gave a ready response.

Rev. John Bond announced the next appropriate hymn,—

"Far down the ages now, Her journey well-nigh done, The pilgrim Church pursues
her way, In haste to reach the crown.

"No wider is the gate, No broader is the way, No smoother is the ancient path,
That leads to light and day.

"No sweeter is the cup, No less our lot of ill;

'Twas tribulation ages since, 'Tis tribulation still.

"No slacker grows the fight, No feebler is the foe, No less the need of armour
tried, Of shield and spear and bow.

"Still faithful to our God, And to our Captain true;

We follow where he leads the way, The Kingdom in our view."

The singing was again phenomenal, surging around the building like the voice of
many seas.

Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., Moderator of the English Presbyterian Synod, then
said:—"If the angel of this church&mdashand that title from the Apocalypse seems
to be the fittest for him now—were with us once again, guiding this meeting, as
he has guided so many in this place, and having it according to his own heart, I
am sure that he would forbid that the prevailing tone should be a tone of
lamentation. While he was yet alive we fasted and wept, for we said, 'Who can
tell whether God will be gracious unto us, that his servant yet may live?' but
now that he is dead wherefore should we fast? Can we bring him back again? We
shall go to him, but he shall not return to us. Like David, in his great sorrow,
we have come to worship him who gave, and who now has taken away. The honoured
and beloved widow has given us the true keynote in that beautiful message of
hers, which so touches all our hearts, showing, as it does, that she is strong
in faith, even as her husband always was: 'He hath done all things well.' Never
were palms more appropriate than they are here today. Never with more emphasis
could the song be sung in Zion, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
thy victory? Thanks be to God, who hath given his servant the victory, through
our Lord Jesus Christ.'" But then there comes the thought of loss, immeasurable
and unspeakable loss. We cannot express nor realize it.

Still we do not forget that, measureless as is the loss, just so measureless was
the gift. Forty years of such service! And shall we murmur because it was not
lengthened to sixty years, as it might have been? Before we murmur let us
consider how rarely in all the history of the church, if ever, there has been
just such forty years as this, so real, so full, so worldwide in reach and
power.

"We have spoken of the loss as immeasurable, but we may not speak of it as
irreparable—not at least in the largest sense. To the dear ones in the home, to
those who called him Pastor, and to those who called him friend, it is
irreparable; not till the morning of the resurrection can that loss be repaired.
But let us not imagine or suggest in our unbelief that God cannot repair to his
cause even so great a loss. Is not 'the residue of the Spirit' with him? It is
not within the bounds of probability that those of us who have silver in our
hairs will ever look upon his like again; but is there any reason to believe
that there cannot be such another raised up in the coming generation? May there
not be among the young men in this assembly today many Spurgeon-like souls? May
we not hope and pray that, in this very hour, the petitions which we have been
offering may find an answer, perhaps beyond what we have imagined, and that God
by his Spirit may already have touched, may be touching now, or may touch ere
the service closes, some young hearts with that same fire which began to burn in
the soul of Charles Haddon Spurgeon long ago, and has without failing burnt on
all these forty years? Oh, may God answer that prayer, and grant his Spirit to
many of the students gathered here! Though it is not possible that any of the
older men may attain to the measure of the stature of our dear friend, may not
everyone of us add just a little to his stature? To the natural stature we
cannot add a cubit by taking thought, but to the spiritual stature we can most
unquestionably add by the grace of God. How great would be the power if there
were just now some increment of spiritual force all over this vast sea of hearts
that mourn today for Charles Haddon Spurgeon!

"And why should we not expect it? Suppose that, just in proportion as the spirit
of sympathy and love has been poured out, there was a spirit of grace and
supplication poured out? If only we continue in prayer, and have our hearts open
to receive the answer to our prayers, might it not be that the spiritual forces
available for the cause of Christ would be even greater now than in the days
when the pastor of this church was in his prime? Then it may well be that,
marvellously as Christ was magnified in the life, he will be still more
marvellously magnified through the death of his great servant, who made his
gospel ring out from this spot where we stand, even to the very ends of the
earth." The Rev. Herber Evans, D.D., Chairman of the. Congregational Union,
said:—"Little did I think, when I came here on a Thursday night in May last to
hear my friend Mr. Spurgeon; to have another touch of his hand; and to pay my
first visit anywhere after I was elected to the chair of the Union; that I
should be called upon by the Committee of that Union to attend his funeral, and
to express a tribute to his memory. We unite in the unspeakable grief which we
all suffer by his departure. Some of us thought, in coming up from the country,
that we should look once more upon his face, but perhaps it is better that we
should not, because we should be obliged to say for the first time, 'He will not
speak to me.' But we are here, in the presence of death, to take a look over
into the unseen. It has been said that our dear friend could always preach
better on the Sunday, if, on the Saturday, he had been to see the dying, and to
have just a look over the brink. I hope that this meeting will help us preachers
of the gospel to carry with us home to our different spheres of labour some of
the secret power which enabled him to wield such influence, so that we, too, may
serve our Master with greater devotedness and earnestness.

"All men, as far as I know, admit now that at the back of all Spurgeon did and
all he said there was a man, a true man, a large-hearted man, or, as Milton said
of Cromwell, a man of men. He was possessed by the gospel, and he had the
deepest conviction of its power to save men, because he knew that it had saved
him. He once said in this Tabernacle, 'Next to the Holy Spirit who sets us
praying and sets us working, I owe prosperity in preaching the gospel to the
gospel that I preach.'" Everybody who came to hear him, of late years anyhow,
would, I think, confess, 'Here is a man that preaches from the bottom of his
heart. He believes, without a doubt, what he says.' Dr. Charles Stanford once
said, 'Whatever use there may be in doubts, they are not good to preach.' God
could not have conferred a greater blessing on this age, than by giving us this
man—a man with a great soul, and that soul fully possessed with love towards God
and the gospel. He lived not only his own personal life; he moulded the lives of
thousands. His character was not like a watch hidden in a pocket, to tell upon
the life of one man, but rather like a great clock in a high tower, directing
and correcting the lives, shall I say, of millions; showing them time by the
light of eternity.

"We must not be misled by the way which some critics have of explaining his
great influence. They say that he had a beautiful voice. So he had. They say
that he had great humour and great dramatic power and unique eloquence, which is
quite true. But his sermons did not carry those things with them when they were
printed, and you must therefore explain their success in some other way. Neither
did the work that he did as a Christian philanthropist come from those gifts.
They must therefore have had another source. This is the grand chapter in
Charles Haddon Spurgeon's history, and it is this chapter of philanthropy which
has compelled men outside the Christian church to admit that at any rate he was
no hypocrite. No, my dear friends, there is only one force sufficient to account
for all that this man did. He was a man of God, 'full of faith and of the Holy
Ghost.'" I have heard it said too often to please me, of late, that Mr. Spurgeon
had no great advantages of birth and training. I do not believe that. Was it not
a great advantage to be born of godly, prayerful parents? Was it not a great
advantage to be able to trace his pedigree back for two hundred years to a
martyr for Christ in Job Spurgeon, and to a long and unbroken line of preachers
who preached because they believed in the gospel? From such a line came this
grandest preacher of the age, who preached the word of God without a single
hesitation, and who preached all of it. I think he had great advantages of birth
and training. Was he not trained in the way he should go? And when he became
old, did he depart from it? Was he not led in 'the way everlasting'? And is he
not on it now, only a turning or two farther on?

"But there was one thing that he did not inherit, and one thing that he could
not transmit—his personal piety. It was from this that his enthusiasm for Christ
arose. It was this that kept his life and his zeal kindling to the very last.
Let us thank God for such a preacher in our day. He suffered more than many a
martyr, but he 'endured as seeing Him who is invisible.' He never could have had
such sympathy for orphans without homes, for students without means, for widows
without friends, had he not been made perfect by great suffering. The high price
which everyone must pay for the power to be a great healer is to suffer even to
agony. The old principle is still true, that we can only heal one another with
blood.

"There are two Charles Haddon Spurgeons. One is to be buried tomorrow in the
midst of great sorrow and grief, in the heart of this city which he loved so
well, and which he gave his life to save. Many a man from distant parts will
come to that grave, and will say, 'I read his words far away in my distant home,
and they turned me to Jesus; and I vowed that when I came to London I would drop
a tear over his grave. It is not a tear of sadness, when I think of him it falls
as naturally as April rain.' Mothers will take their little children to that
grave, and tell them quietly the name of the man that turned them heavenward,
and changed their earthly home to a place of peace."

Here the speaker almost reached his native Welsh hwyl, and hundreds of strong
men in the congregation sobbed like little children.

"But there is one Charles Haddon Spurgeon whom we cannot bury; there is not
earth enough in Norwood to bury him—the Spurgeon of history. The good works that
he has done will live. You cannot bury them.

"Mr. Spurgeon was the strongest believer in prayer that I ever met. I have
preached for him in this place several times, and I have gone away each time
with this one conviction: 'This is the greatest believer in prayer I ever met.'
His deacons and elders are also men of prayer; it is prayer throughout the
place. And that is the reason that Spurgeon was not only a preacher, but a
prophet. He was always waiting upon God for his message, and he came to his
people with the message he had freshly received from his Lord.

"He has gone, but his works remain. What a grand thing it is, that when we do
good it remaineth for ever. I know not from what tree the rail on this platform
was cut, but I know that every little leaf that grew upon the parent tree helped
to make it strong and helped it to grow. Oh, it is a very sad thing, in one
sense, that we Christian ministers and Christian workers pass away so soon, like
the leaves of autumn before the blast. But the work remaineth for ever. The
world is richer today because Daniel opened his window to pray towards
Jerusalem. Yes; and the world is a richer inheritance for our children and
grandchildren who shall come after us, because Charles Haddon Spurgeon lived.
Sleep on, then, dear brother after thy great toil, in that dreamless bed, until
the time shall come which thou hast prayed for—the resurrection of the body.
Friendship and love will cast their garlands on thy memory, and good men and
women here and hereafter shall bless thee for the noble work which thou hast
done so well." The Rev. T. B. Stephenson, D.D., President of the Wesleyan
Conference, said:—" 'If you would find his monument look around.' Those words
have been in my mind ever since I looked upon this sea of faces today. I refer
now not so much to this building, which will always be associated with the
memory of our brother, as to this wonderful gathering, one gathering only
amongst many wonderful gatherings. This meeting is unique; it will be
historical; and it answers to all the world the question, 'What was Spurgeon's
place in the Christian Church?' People are already asking whether Spurgeon was a
great man, and with their lilliputian measuring-rods they are trying to find the
size of his faith, of his work, and of his character. How idle it all is. Men,
even in the hour of their death, are not always appreciated at their real
greatness, but no man, who was not in the noblest sense a great man, could have
won. or have deserved, such a testimony as your presence here today is giving to
his memory.

"I am here on behalf of the Methodist churches, which desire, through my poor
lips, first of all to give glory to God for the abounding grace which has shone
through the words and life of his servant; and secondly, to pay to his honoured
and fragrant memory our tribute of affection, of admiration and gratitude. He
did not belong to us except as he belonged to all the churches, but he did
belong to us because he belonged to all.

"Like the loftiest and strongest servants of God, he was a denominationalist. He
believed in something; he believed it strongly, and he believed it
intelligently. Therefore he belonged to a defined and recognizable section of
the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. But because his was a lofty spirit, his
brotherly affection flowed far and wide beyond the boundaries of his own church.
His quick eye recognized the essential truth wherever it was found, and he
called every man brother who was true to the Master, Christ, and who desired
that all his work should find its centre at the cross of Calvary.

"Even when ministering to his own, as we all know well, his influence was never
confined to his own. Out of him, because of his great faith, flowed rivers of
living water, and the streams thereof found their way to the very ends of the
earth. He belonged to us all. We were all the better because of him. To this
church, of course, he belonged in a more special and intimate sense; but it has
shown by the arrangements in which we have been suffered to take part, that it
does not grudge to any of us that we should claim our heritage in his great work
and life.

"In his early years he spoke of the Methodist theology with some tartness, not
to say severity. We have always thought that then he did not quite understand
us. As his career progressed, he came to find that we were nearer a good deal to
him than he thought in those earliest days. At all events he loved us much; he
served us nobly on many occasions; and he showed that he was not to be divided
from those who earnestly and honestly loved the Lord Jesus Christ, by any of
those minor points of division which he held to be light indeed, in comparison
with the great central truths. But if he had spoken of any views which we may
hold far more severely than he ever did, we would not think of it, we could not
think of it today. We think today only of his exultation of his Master, Christ;
only of the passionate fervour with which he besought men to come to Christ and
be saved; only of the Spirit of Christ which shone in all his works throughout
his noble life.

"Many things have been said today which will, I am sure, dwell in your memory,
and which I will not attempt to repeat; but there are two thoughts which I
venture to suggest to you in reference to our dear friend who has gone. I think
that he rendered a great service to his age, and to the coming age also, in that
he upheld during so long a life the majesty of preaching. Men say that preaching
is played out, and that the pulpit is superfluous. The editor is to be the great
minister of God in the future, and the people are to get their gospel from the
newspapers. God grant that they may get gospel from the newspapers, and that the
editors may be equal to the duty which some of them are prepared to accept. But
with that coffin before us, none of us can doubt that the pulpit is the power in
the world still—that still by the foolishness of preaching God is pleased to
save men. And I am quite sure that in the fact that from this place there rolled
forth over the world a voice which it was willing to hear, and which it listened
for—yes, listened for, even through the strife and din of politics, of commerce
and pleasure—there has been maintained a testimony to the power of the simple
preaching of the gospel, the value of which it is impossible for us to estimate
now.

"I confess to one thing that always drew me very strongly to our dear friend,
and which, I think, has accounted for the wonderful hold that he has had upon,
not religious circles only, but upon the mass of the people throughout this
country, and that is the fact that with all the gracious and abounding unction
which attended his words and ministry, there was a healthy and natural
manliness. It is not always easy when we are speaking of the deepest things of
God to avoid a look and tone which the world is very ready indeed to
misinterpret. Sometimes it is difficult for us ourselves to keep clear,
altogether, from the unreal in thought and feeling when we are dealing with
those subjects which lie deepest in our hearts; and the world is not slow to
call by the ugly name of 'sanctimoniousness' that which we very often are
delighted to recognize as the working in us and out of us of the Spirit and mind
of God. Mr. Spurgeon, though he delighted to speak of the deepest things, and
though he allowed his delight in speaking of those deepest things to be obvious
to everybody, yet, when he was speaking of his closest and deepest relations to
the Lord Jesus Christ, he always had in tone and manner a naturalness, a
brightness, a cheeriness, which went to every man's heart, and which made men
say, 'That is a true man. However, he may be talking about things that are
beyond me, and belong to a region that is higher and farther than I have yet
penetrated, yet he is a true man.'" In showing to the world the glorious example
of a fine, healthy, natural manliness in connection with the sweetest
evangelical doctrine, and the richest evangelical experience, he has also
rendered very great service to the Church of God. During the last two or three
days, those words of the Saviour, applied to the Baptist, have been running very
often in my mind with reference to our departed friend.

" 'What went ye out to see? A reed shaken with the wind?' No, this was no reed
shaken with the wind. This was a man who knew his mind, and had a will of his
own, and could not be bent hither and thither by every passing breeze.

" 'What went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that are
gorgeously apparelled and live delicately are in kings' courts.' No courtier was
this man, seeking carefully for the word which would not grieve his patron. This
was a man who dared to speak the truth to anybody, even to the great king 'Mob.'
This man was ready to take the consequence of his deed. His life was not devoted
to having the softest bed, the pleasantest place, the healthiest work, and the
largest honour. He was ready to bear the consequences of his faith and
duty—ready to suffer and endure, rather than to be false to his convictions, or
negligent of his opportunities.

" 'But what went ye out to see? A prophet?' Yea, a foreteller, a messenger whom
God sent, and who, because he was a true messenger, was, above all other things,
anxious to deliver his message. If the prophets whom God raises up even now have
ever a message given to them&mdashsomething that comes from the divine mind and
must pass through other minds to the people—happy is he who is willing and
content to be the messenger of God.

"Those wonderful lips, upon which many of us hung so often with delight, are
closed now, and we shall hear the silver voice no more: but we thank God that we
have heard it. We glorify God for the grace that dwelt so constantly upon those
lips; and, amid all the sorrow of today, we rejoice in this consolation, that
the voice, though stilled on earth, is already heard in praise before the throne
of God." The Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., who was the next speaker, said:—When the
whole Church of Christ gathers about the bier of a saint, it is very proper that
America should be represented, and I am here, inadequate as I am, as such a
representative, to lay the garland of American Christians alongside of this
grave.

I am not one of those who share the faintest hope that Charles Haddon Spurgeon
will be reproduced in this age, or in any other. God never reproduces a man; and
when he made Charles Haddon Spurgeon he broke the mould. But we may, from this
blessed and sanctified life, learn something about the way to live. The
alabaster flask has been broken, and the whole house is full of the odour of the
ointment. But, if we cannot construct another alabaster flask like this which is
shattered, we may, at least, by the odour that fills the whole Church of God
today, learn what it is that makes a life fragrant to holy men, and even to a
gainsaying world.

I think that I never felt the responsibility of speaking for a few moments, more
than in this marvellous assembly, in which, I presume, more ministers of Christ
and students of the Word are represented than, perhaps, in any single assembly
that has met in the British Isles for half a century.

One danger in reviewing such a life as this is, that we shall hastily dismiss
our own responsibility by simply saying of such a man, "He was an inimitable
genius." Has it ever occurred to us that Mr. Spurgeon was great, not so much on
account of any single faculty, or achievement, or peculiarity, which was so
colossal as to overtop all else; but rather that he was great by the rare
combination of beautiful and useful characteristics? And, if we may not aspire
to the like combination for ourselves, may we not, from the individual
peculiarities, learn something of what is possible to be embodied and
illustrated in our own individual lives?

I am deeply persuaded that, whatever we may say about this marvellous man, there
is for his greatness, a basis, both natural and supernatural, which it is
possible for us to understand, and in some measure to reproduce. For example, as
to the natural basis of his usefulness, I would remark, first of all, his love
of truth—of what was genuine, of what was honest, of what was outspoken. He
reminds me of Seneca's pilot, who, in the midst of the stormy waves, looked out
on the waters, and said, "Neptune, you may sink me, or you may save me, but I
will hold my rudder true!" You may not have agreed with Mr. Spurgeon in the
course which he lately pursued with regard to his convictions of doctrine and of
duty; but no man is here present who can withhold his hearty admiration from one
of the most heroic acts known in the century. There are very few men that make
new friends after the age of fifty years. When a man cuts himself loose from the
friends of his manhood and his maturer life, and stands virtually isolated and
alone because he feels that in some matters, which others consider minor
matters, but which he himself thinks are major matters, he is called upon to
suffer, for the truth's sake, such heroism would have led a man to the stake in
the days of martyrdom. And then, dear Mr. Spurgeon, besides having a love of
truth, was never afraid of hard work. We speak of "a man of genius" as though
genius need not be allied with industry to accomplish results. I am not so much
a believer in genius as some men are; but I am thoroughly a believer in the
genius of industry. He spared himself no effort, down to the last days of his
life. Even in the midst of the weakness and suffering at Menton, within the last
few months, he painstakingly revised a considerable portion of his forthcoming
Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew. Spinoza, among many things that
are false and fallacious, says very many true things; among others he says this:
"There is no hindrance in the way of personal advancement that is more fatal
than simple self-conceit and the laziness which self-conceit begets." To think
that we have accomplished anything, and to lie by on our oars and let ourselves
drift, because, forsooth, something has been achieved that lies in the past, is
the death-blow to all real progress. My brother, the best work which you did ten
years ago will not take the place of the best work you can do today, any more
than the nutritious bread that was baked a month ago will answer for your
present appetite. We must have new experiences, fresh accumulations, and higher
exaltations of spirit, if we are to keep up with the demands of the multitude
about us, nay, with the demands of our own souls.

Then I greatly admired in dear Mr. Spurgeon the marvellous singleness and
simplicity of his aims. Archbishop Whalely said, that "many a man aims at
nothing, and hits it with remarkable precision." We must have something to aim
at if we want to secure results in this life of ours. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
aimed at something desirable to be accomplished, and by the grace of God
attainable in the way of accomplishment, and steadily pursued his aim; therefore
he was the man that he was. And what zeal such singleness of aim gave him. I was
taking up yesterday a little analysis made by Dr. Andrew Bonar, when he sat down
in his study to contemplate modern zeal. He felt compelled to write that he
believed, in his own case, oftentimes what he would call zeal for his Lord, if
it were analyzed and divided into a hundred parts, would be found to consist of—

Personal ambition 23 parts Love of praise 19 parts Pride of denomination 15
parts Pride of talent 14 parts Love of authority 12 parts Bigotry 10 parts Love
of God 4 parts Love of Man 1:3 parts Making in all 100 parts

Here ninety-three parts are carnal, leaving but four parts for love to God, and
three parts for love to man. When we come to submit our zeal to this awful
divine chemistry, how fearfully humbling are the analysis and the result! As I
am speaking to fellow ministers, I want to say here, that because of this
singleness of aim, among other things, he never lost sight of the oratorical
character of a sermon. I pray you to notice that sermo is speech, whose means is
eloquence, and whose end is persuasion. A sermon is not an essay; it is not a
theological discussion; it is not a poetic production. It is, first of all,
something that has an aim. That aim should be to bring men to Jesus Christ, the
Justifier, the Sanctifier, the Redeemer. The oratorical character of a sermon
depends on the supremacy of a practical aim, an aim outside of self, an aim so
unselfish and absorbed in God that it shall lead a man to say, what Ignatius
said, when he stood in the arena at Rome, awaiting the onset of the Numidian
lions: "I am grain of God. I must be ground between the teeth of lions to make
bread for God's people."

We may not have the genius of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, but, if we will imitate
his love of hard work, his love of the truth, his love of souls and the
singleness of his aim, we may attain to results of a similar kind to his, even
though not in a similar measure. But now in full view and sense of my
responsibility I want to say, before I close, a word on the supernatural basis
of his power; and may God give me special grace in the most important duty. The
supernatural basis is the only one that will account for the marvellous
character or the marvellous career of that man whose ashes are before you.

Mr. Spurgeon believed first of all in the full infallible inspiration of the
Word of God. To him the Bible was God's book par excellence, not pre-eminently
God's book, but solely God's book, inspired in such a sense as makes the word
inspiration applicable to no other book ever put before the human race.

He believed, in the second place, in the inspiring Spirit as a personal Spirit;
that, when God revealed his will in ancient times, holy men of old were moved to
write the Scriptures by the Holy Ghost, so that the product was essentially the
product of the Spirit of God, and not of the spirit of man. I speak emphatically
on this subject, for the modern theories of inspiration are so constructed as to
let out entirely the supernatural element. When we are told, for instance, that
a prophet, knowing certain fundamental principles of God's moral government, and
being himself an accurate observer of human affairs, and a close student of
human nature, was thereby enabled to predict the future of his people, I would
like to know what is to hinder any other man who knows God's great moral
principles, who is an accurate observer of events, and who is a student of
character, from being himself a prophet and uttering predictions! But what does
Peter say concerning the prophets themselves? "Searching what, or what manner of
time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." I pray
you, intelligent, educated, cultivated brethren, to notice the two intelligences
which Peter recognizes: the spirit of the prophet, and the Spirit of God that
was in the prophet; these two intelligences being actually engaged in a sort of
conflict among themselves, so that the inferior intelligence searches to know
what the superior intelligence indicates in the unintelligible words which the
prophet writes and speaks. Now, Mr. Spurgeon believed in those two
intelligences—the Spirit of God and the spirit of man; and in his preaching and
study of the Word of God, he sought to rise into the atmosphere of the superior
Intelligence, that he might bring down the thoughts of God to the level of man.
That is, more than any other assignable cause, the secret of his preaching. In
the third place, he believed in the personal indwelling of the Spirit of God in
the soul and body of the believer, constituting him a temple of the Holy Ghost.

Put these three things together, and see whether any man can heartily believe in
them without being a mighty and spiritual preacher. See the effect in the
interpretation of the Word! If human authors produced the Bible, then how are we
in interpreting the Bible to secure the aid of the authors? Can we go into the
catacombs and summon from their tombs the dead whose pens were concerned in the
production of the Scriptures? But if the Holy Ghost is the author of the
Scriptures—if the handwriting is the handwriting of God, though the hand is the
hand of man, then I submit to you, that in the interpretation of the Bible, we
may reverently call the Author himself to our aid. What is the consequence? Mr.
Spurgeon found out, and others who believe like him have grasped the same truth,
that the originality of sermons depends not on our invention, but on our
discovery. That is to say, instead of inventing a discourse out of our own
minds, and attaching it by the artificial hinge of a text to the Holy Scripture,
we search to know what the Holy Ghost means in the Word of God; and when, by his
gracious aid, we have discovered his meaning, we unfold that meaning in the
discourse. So the greatest sermon is that which unfolds the greatest discovery
of the hidden Spirit.

Now, Mr. Spurgeon had to cultivate his own individual life of piety, or all this
would have become impossible to him. If the Spirit of God dwells in a man, and
is to illumine the pages of the Word, the clearness of such illumination will
depend on the unobstructiveness of the media through which his light shines. If
we would have fellowship with God which is constant and uninterrupted, we must
keep the panes of glass, in the windows, clear. Then the Spirit's light, burning
within us, and shining through the undimmed medium upon the pages of Scripture,
will unfold to us the wondrous things of God. But if we close those windows with
dark shutters, if our failure to realize divine communion and to live in
fellowship with God intercepts and hinders the Spirit; if, in other words, as
Paul says, we "quench the Spirit," how can the light of the Spirit which must
shine through our own experience, illustrate and illuminate the pages of the
Word that we are to expound and explain?

Oh, my brethren, we need in these days, more than all else, one more touch of
the supernatural in our individual lives! Give me the man that preaches with a
deep personal sense that God lives in him by the Spirit, and that this Book is a
living book, which the living Spirit inspired, and in which the living Spirit
still dwells; then bring the man, who is himself a living temple of the Spirit
of God, into contact with the Book, which is the living utterance of the Spirit
of God, and how can there but come from such a ministry power to convert, power
to sanctify, power to edify, and power to redeem? This is the message which your
American brother brings in humility and simplicity this afternoon to this great
assembly of ministers and students of the Word. God give us the spirit of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, tor that spirit was the Spirit of God!

D. L. Moody sent his greeting by telegraph from Paisley. The message was read at
this juncture, and ran, "Heartiest sympathy with sorrowing friends in London.
'Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.'"

Rev. F. B. Meyer, B. A., the last speaker, was called upon when the time for the
meeting had expired, and when already the crowd was gathering at the doors for
the evening service. He spoke amid interruption, caused by some who were
compelled to leave, and said:—"In the midst of a great campaign, one of the
leading officers may suddenly fall fatally wounded, and for a moment his
comrades in arms may call a halt around his body, but there is not a thought of
renouncing the campaign in which they with him were engaged. Every man feels
himself once again called by that event to more entire consecration to the great
ends for which his leader died. Surely it would be a mistake if we were to allow
the feelings which have been called out by this memorial meeting to subside,
without our gathering around this coffin with these remains, and once again
pledging ourselves, one and all, to renewed devotion to the Captain of our
salvation, and to renewed energy in the preaching of his holy gospel. The
prophet may have been taken up into heaven, but it is not wise for us to stand
gazing thither, we must seek again to be clothed about with the power that made
him what he was. Then let us betake ourselves along the lonely way to the
Jordan, to the sons of the prophets, and to the work that still remains to be
done in the land. The man of God who has been taken from us was indeed a golden
vessel, and the most of us are but of earth or wood; but it was not because he
was gold that he was what he was, but because the Master used him. If we today
will only once again put ourselves into the hands of the Master, and seek an
enduement of that same Spirit, surely from this gathering there will go forth a
tide of holy influence that shall touch, and illuminate, and fill many a church
with new power. I ask you, therefore, to join with me in a few moments of solemn
dedication, that we may again lay ourselves on that altar that sanctifies the
gift, and that we may seek a fresh enduement of the Holy Ghost. Then men shall
say of us, 'The spirit of Elijah doth rest upon Elisha,' then Jordans shall part
before the mantle, then we shall go forth to follow our departed brother in his
works of healing and salvation."

Mr. Meyer then led the assembly in a dedicatory prayer, in which occurred the
following passage:—"We know how rich thou art, else thou hadst not been able to
spare from this earth so rare a man as this. How royal thou art, how full thy
hand is of those ascension gifts, unexhausted by the flight of ages, and the
demands of thy Church, since thou art able to give men like this, and then to
take them to thyself again." Thanking God for Mr. Spurgeon's unblemished,
stainless character, and for his sweet humility so unaffected, the speaker
mourned the years in our own lives which the cankerworm and the caterpillar had
eaten, and besought renewed grace which would enable all to fight the good
fight, to finish the course with joy, and to keep the faith unto the end.

Rev. J. McEwan, D.D., pronounced the Benediction, and this remarkable meeting
was at an end.


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  CHAPTER 17: CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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Chapter 14. Memorial Service for Christian Workers On Wednesday evening,
February 10th, 1892, the service specially designed for Christian workers of all
denominations, and church members, other than members of the Tabernacle,
commenced at seven o'clock. George Williams, Esq., presided.

Mr. W. J. Orsman, of the Golden Lane Mission, opened the meeting with prayer, in
which he thanked God that, as a wayward youth, he heard Mr. Spurgeon in the
Surrey Music Hall, and that there his feet were turned into the way of life. He
voiced the feeling of many when he said:

"We are sore in heart—troubled, stunned, bowed down with great sorrow, blinded
with the bitterest tears we ever shed. Many of thy children are learning the
awful mystery of heart-breaking,—carrying griefs they cannot speak, their lives
curtained with darkness and suffering; but we pray that in this starless night
thou wilt come over the troubled waters, speaking peace to our souls. Thou
loving Binder and Healer of torn hearts, in thy pitifulness strengthen us that
we may say—'He hath done all things well.'"

Mr. A. H. Baynes, Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, announced Mr.
Spurgeon's own version of the thirty-ninth Psalm, so appropriate to the
occasion. With great solemnity these verses were sung—

"Behold, O Lord, my days are made A handbreadth at the most;

Ere yet 'tis noon my flower must fade, And I give up the ghost.

Then teach me, Lord, to know mine end, And know that I am frail; To heaven let
all my thoughts ascend, And let not earth prevail.

What is there here that I should wait, My hope's in thee alone; When wilt thou
open glory's gate And call me to thy throne?

A stranger in this land am I, A sojourner with thee;

Oh, be not silent at my cry, But show thyself to me.

Though I'm exiled from glory's land Yet not from glory's King; My God is ever
near at hand, And therefore I will sing."

Mr. George Williams, President of the Young Men's Christian Association, said:
"Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the gift of the great Father to the church
universal. The Metropolitan Tabernacle was the great centre of his labours, but
the result of his labours could not be contained within these walls. They flowed
over like a fountain; bubbling up here, they reached the whole metropolis, the
whole of England, all over the world where the English tongue is spoken, and in
many countries where it is unknown. Therefore it is that we are exceedingly
grateful to this church for giving us, the outside Christian public, the
opportunity of coming and expressing our devout gratitude to Almighty God for
having raised up Charles Haddon Spurgeon to be a blessing to the whole world!

"What a welcome he must have received in heaven ere this! What an abundant
entrance into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must have been
his! What shouts and Hallelujahs! What palms of victory and triumph! We are left
sorrowing, but we will rejoice that God lent him to the church militant so long.
With what power, with what force, with what strength of will he laboured here! A
very Samson, he slew the Philistines right and left! Like David, no Goliath was
too large for him to encounter and to overcome in the strength of the Lord!

"Now that he has gone, we desire that his mantle might fall upon us. What was
the secret of his strength? Was it not his nearness to his dear Lord, the
communion which he had with his Master? Was it not the intensity of his love,
the steadfastness of his faith? Is not God saying to us, through his beloved
servant, 'Be it unto you according to your faith'? I remember hearing of a
conversation which he had with a minister who came to him depressed because of
the lack of conversions as a result of his ministry.

"Mr. Spurgeon said to him, 'But surely you do not always expect conversions when
you preach?'" 'No, of course I do not,' the minister replied.

" 'Well, then,' Mr. Spurgeon said, 'be it unto you according to your faith.'" I
believe that dear man of God, as he stood in this pulpit, expected conversions,
and what he expected God gave him. May the implicit faith which he had in God,
dwell also in us.

"His will be a great name in the history of England for this century. As the
names of Whitefield and Wesley have such a sweet savour amongst us, so will his
be for ever fragrant. We shall speak now of Whitefield and Wesley and Spurgeon
as the three great departed leaders in the evangelical cause.

"We praise God for this gift, which we have not yet fully appreciated. What good
cause did not dear Mr. Spurgeon help? How often he put new life into a meeting
by his presence. Wherever he went the people came, and his great sense, and
love, and faith inspired all with confidence. How the British and Foreign Bible
Society valued his presence at their annual gatherings! How the London City
Mission benefited by his aid! How the Young Men's Christian Association relied
upon the advocacy of his voice and pen! How the various missionary societies
were stimulated by his enthusiasm! When we think, too, of what he did for other
churches and other denominations, what a focus of power for good is seen in his
life.

"I desire, on behalf of the multitude outside of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, to
give expression to the intensity of our admiration, and love for your beloved
Pastor. All of us—the Church of England, the Congregationalists, the Wesleyans,
the Presbyterians, and every other congregation&mdashsaw in him a champion, a
holy, mighty man of God, ready to stand in the front, and to maintain those
blessed doctrines of the old gospel, which had won his heart, and which he knew
would win the hearts of other men. Therefore, it is that we desire to express to
the beloved wife, and to the dear sons, our intense sympathy. How rejoiced he
must have been to have had such sons! God bless them! May the mantle of their
father fall upon them, and upon his dear brother and sisters may the blessing of
God abundantly rest. God be praised for sparing them. We pray that the dear
friend from America, who is ministering in holy things in this place, may be
preserved and guided in all the future; that the crowds who have been in the
habit of attending here, may continue to attend, and that benefit and blessing
may continue to flow out from this congregation to the ends of the earth."

Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B., President of the Mild-may Conference, said:—"If
the beloved brother whose remains lie here to-night could speak to us, I believe
that he would say, 'Speak not of me, but of my Saviour; or, if you must speak of
me, speak of the great God who was magnified in me.' He ever loved to hide
himself, so far as his strong personality permitted, behind the Saviour whom he
preached. Wrapped in the folds of the banner of the Cross, which he so
courageously, so steadfastly, so persistently waved, his main desire was to be
nothing, that Christ might be all and in all. We shall honour him most truly, we
shall express our love most fittingly, we shall justify our regard for his
person most really, if we seek to do as he would bid us do.

If our brother has desires concerning the work of God on earth, surely they are
that, by his entrance into the kingdom of glory, multitudes might find their
entrance to God's kingdom of grace on earth. As with zeal, he ever delighted to
draw the sword of battle against the enemies of the truth, that they might
become its friends; and as multitudes have fallen beneath the weighty strokes of
that weapon, so he would wish that those whom he slew in his death should be
more than they whom he slew in his life. If perchance it was permitted to Elisha
to know and to rejoice in the fact that his very remains possessed such
life-giving power that the man whom they were burying hastily in his grave no
sooner touched them than he came to life, well may our beloved and departed
brother rejoice, if it be permitted to him to know, that by his death many have
entered into life eternal. And as for him to live was Christ, in this sense to
die will be most certainly gain. Thus we can rejoice with him and thank God; and
if we weep we will look upward through our tears, and rejoice as we think of the
perfect bliss and ineffable enjoyment which is now his. He has entered into rest
by the side of the River of the Water of Life, whose streams he has ministered
in such fulness to thirsty multitudes on earth. He has also entered upon a
career of service which no pain, nor weakness, nor sickness, can ever interrupt.
The hand that, like Eleazar's, clenched the sword with such a grip that it could
not be unloosed, now waves the triumphant palm; and the voice that told out with
such inexhaustible fulness the unsearchable riches of Christ his Lord, now sings
that new song with multitudes around the throne.

"What was it that gave Charles Haddon Spurgeon his power? What may we learn from
the testimony of his life? Is it not this above all things, that the glorious
gospel of the blessed God which so permeated his whole being, and which he so
rejoiced in preaching, lives on, and has undying power within it to turn the
hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to fascinate the humble, to
abase them that sit on high; to lift up the beggar from the dunghill, and to set
him among the princes in the very presence of God? What was it that, when our
brother lay stricken by mortal illness last summer, evoked such anxious
solicitude from the very steps of the throne, from the bishop's bench, from the
great, the noble, throughout the land, and from millions of unknown folk who had
hung upon his lips and read his writings? What was it that made this man so
great? What is it that now causes princes to send their telegrams of sympathy to
his bereaved widow? that causes the Bishop of this diocese, with true brotherly
Christian love and respect and esteem for his memory, to follow him to his
grave; what makes millions upon millions mourn to-night throughout the whole
world? What is it that made this man the object of such respect, such
veneration, and such love? Was it his wide range of philosophy, his extensive
scientific knowledge, his soaring intellect? No; the cause lies deeper than
these. Was it his mother wit, his command of his native tongue, his genial face,
his loving grasp? No; it was the firm grasp that he had of the gospel of Christ,
the unflinching earnestness and faithfulness with which he preached it, the
valour with which he stood in the gap when men fled on all sides, his adherence
to the doctrines of grace, and his determination to know nothing among men save
Jesus Christ and him crucified. This it was that gave him his hold upon the
hearts of thousands.

"I may well quote the eloquent, truthful, and noble words that, but three days
ago, were uttered by the Archdeacon of London, in St. Paul's Cathedral, as he
said that it was 'the unswerving strength, the exuberant vitality of his faith
in God's revelation to man through his Son Jesus Christ, combined with the
weight and warmth of his zealous love for souls, that gave him that unbounded
power which he exercised so loyally for Christian belief among the classes who
are the very backbone of England, and throughout the English-speaking race.'"
'When he left the pulpit,' said Lord Houghton, 'whatever your impressions might
have been as a mere critical hearer when you came in, he left it an inspired
apostle.'" He has now left the pulpit for ever, but his apostleship lives on in
the quickened hearts and lives of innumerable hearers, and his inspiration is
acknowledged of all men. That is why his funeral will be made almost a national
occasion, and why all good and devout men among his countrymen, without
distinction of faith or sect, will stand in spirit around his grave.

"A sympathetic, yet not uncritical writer, has lately observed, 'Mr. Spurgeon
had but one sermon, but that sermon was always new. To him, Christianity was not
an argument but a message, and a message to be believed at once by those who
heard him.' No higher praise than that can be given to a minister of Christ's
gospel. He took for his style and dignity, the apostolic words, 'We are
ambassadors for Christ.' He trod in his footsteps who, amid all the vapourings
of the schools, poured contempt upon the philosophies, falsely so called, that
filled the air, and said, 'I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ and him crucified.'" When we think of the universal sorrow, of the
worldwide feeling of respect and love that his deeply-lamented removal from us
has aroused throughout the whole world, is it not a token for good that God's
Spirit yet remaineth among us; and that in these days of darkness, doubt,
difficulty, unbelief, and intensified worldliness, wherever the gospel of Christ
is firmly held and purely preached, multitudes are won and God is still
glorified among us.

"Speaking for myself, highly privileged to stand here to-night, I feel as one
who has lost a very personal friend. We did not meet often, but when we did, how
refreshing it was to look him in the face, to grasp his hand, and to hear his
cheery voice. What a lift up he gave at Mildmay Conference not once nor twice
only; how he carried us with him in his enthusiastic and eloquent utterances of
truth! I remember what good it did me when, some years ago, after he had
preached in some country church, I ventured to speak a word with him in the
vestry. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he said, 'Well, brother, we always know
where to find you.' That cheery word of kindly commendation made me feel six
inches taller than I had ever felt before, and sent me on my way rejoicing.

"Still more do I feel that in him I have lost in common with you all, a trusted
leader, one to whom we instinctively looked for words of counsel when days were
dark. He had almost intuitive, because God-given, discernment of the things that
Israel ought to do in times of perplexity, and often uttered a word of vigorous
cheer, loud and plain above the din of battle, which sent courage into all who
could catch its notes.

"It seems as if a light that had burned brightly and savingly on a stormy coast,
and had lighted many a ship safely into her haven, had suddenly been quenched.
But we look up and forward. We know that he who fitted Charles Haddon Spurgeon
for the work to which he called him here on earth is well able to supply his
place. It may not be exactly in the same way, for God has no duplicates in his
museum; it may be by men of other gifts and other powers; but surely that life
is a token that God has not left his people; and that, as the century waxes old,
and the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, he will send forth labourers into his
vineyard.

"Upon us, however feeble our strength, however small our sphere, lies the
responsibility of holding aloft, with all the vigour that God shall give us, the
torch of truth which he has put into our hands; of following, though it may be
at a distance and humbly, the steps of that valiant leader and champion of cur
Lord Jesus Christ's cause on earth, To us it remains to defend his truth in our
measure as he defended it; and then, when we shall see our brother again, it
shall be with the joy of feeling through God's grace that we have endeavoured to
carry on the work that he has commenced His work will never end, his voice
echoes still; by his printed page, circulated in every land, and by thousands
and thousands of souls whom God permitted him to win for Christ, Charles
Spurgeon's voice will go on and on as long as this world shall last. As long as
the names of Latimer and Ridley, of Baxter and Bunyan, of Wesley and of
Whitefield are known and loved, so long will the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
be esteemed and remembered. God grant us grace to follow his steps, for Christ's
sake."

Mr. Ira D. Sankey said: "I feel it a very great privilege to meet here with the
thousands who gather around this bier, to pay some little note of homage to one
who has done so much for me. That voice is silenced for ever on earth, but who
of us here cannot recall its clarion tones as it has moved us from time to time
in this great temple.

It has always been my custom, when coming from my own land to this country, to
visit this Tabernacle, to have my torch lighted anew for the work in which I
have been for years engaged; and never have I come into this building without
receiving a blessing from that grand man whom I remember so well standing in
this honoured spot, proclaiming the glorious gospel of the Son of God. I have
now come from Scotland, where, for over three months, Mr. Moody and I have been
holding services throughout the country, preaching the same old gospel that fell
from the lips of that honoured man; and I bear testimony to-night in the name of
my Master, that the old gospel has not lost its power.

"For years we have watched England and Scotland from our own shores, and a few
lighthouses along this coast always attracted our eye. None shone so brightly as
the torch that was burning continually in this Tabernacle. When darkness seemed
to be spreading over the religious world, we would often cast longing eyes to
London, and watch what this great captain was saying and doing. We always found
inspiration from this pulpit, and always felt that in him we had a friend who
would stand against all foes, a leader that we could safely follow. Many a
prayer has come across the sea for him, from those who never had the joy of
hearing his magnificent voice, and they are in sympathy with us to-night. Our
land loves Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The Church of God on yonder shore has looked
to him for years; and now he has gone, they will continue to pray that God may
bless the people at the Tabernacle, and send them a man after his own heart to
preach the old gospel, the power of God unto salvation.

"I learnt from the Pastor of this church, how to use the voice that God had
given me, that I might preach to thousands who have assembled in our great
congregations throughout this country and our own land. I might almost say that
he taught me how to sing the praises of God. I have held him up as an example to
hundreds of congregations, as a man who could inspire his people to worship in
hymns of praise, by devoting time to the reading of the hymn, and then himself
standing and singing with the people. I hope this example may be largely
followed by the ministers of the gospel. The praise of God is a part of the
worship, and should not be slighted.

"I bring to-night, to this great congregation, loving messages from Mr. Moody.
When he heard that this great man of God had passed away, the first thing he
said was, 'I want to go to London to stand by the grave of him who has done so
much for me.' C. H. Spurgeon has been a constant inspiration and joy to D. L.
Moody. He wanted to come to the funeral, but we could not both of us come away
at once, so he said, 'You go, Mr. Sankey, and sing a hymn in honour of that dear
man of God.' He remains yonder preaching the gospel, winning souls to Christ;
just where dear Mr. Spurgeon would have him to be.

"I will not take up time further, but sing a little hymn that I think may be
appropriate for this occasion. It is said that the early Christians, to express
their certainty of seeing their friends who had passed away, only bade them
'Good-night,' so sure were they of meeting them on the Resurrection morning. I
will sing a little hymn based on that fact, and may God bless the singing to all
our hearts."

Mr. Sankey then sang, with exquisite feeling, the hymn beginning—

"Sleep on beloved, sleep and take thy rest, Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's
breast;

We love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best, Good-night! Good-night!
Good-night!"

Rev. Canon Palmer, M.A., Rector of Newington, in which parish the Tabernacle is
situated, said:—"It requires some courage to attempt to make you hear my voice
after the pathetic sounds to which you have just listened. The Pastor for whom
you mourn, if he was remarkable for one thing more than another, it was for his
fearlessness in speaking the truth. He spoke the truth through evil report and
good report, without caring either for praise or blame of men, but only for the
opinion of his Master. I am sure, therefore, that you, in this great Tabernacle,
have been taught by him not merely to hear truth, but to bear truth; and you
will bear with me if, at the outset, I venture to speak some words of truth with
respect to myself. I cannot but remember the only other time that I stood in
this place. The occasion of my visit was the return of a missionary of the
Church of England from Japan, who came bearing a message from a missionary in
Japan connected with your own communion—he had, I believe, been educated in your
Pastors' College, at any rate, he looked to your Pastor for sympathy and for
guidance. The missionary of the Church of England, Mr. Wright, had formerly been
curate in the parish of St. Mary, Newington, and, as he was charged to deliver
the message from your own missionary to Mr. Spurgeon himself, he wrote to me and
asked if I could arrange an interview for him. I wrote to Mr. Spurgeon, and the
answer I received to my request was:—"'Dear Sir,—At this present time it is
still an effort to get in and out of the carriage, will you therefore come to
me? I think it most kind of you to write to me. Would you like to come to my
vestry at the Tabernacle on Monday at six, or on Wednesday at three? Would you
send word to the Tabernacle on Sunday morning, for, as I am going away,
everybody wants to see me during the next few days, almost as if I were going
"to that bourne," etc.' "I came to the Tabernacle, and spent several hours here,
and in the course of a very interesting conversation with Mr. Spurgeon, our
remarks turned in the direction of the Church Catechism. He said to me:—"'I
learnt that when I was a boy, and there is a great deal in it which I think very
good.'" I playfully rejoined, 'If you had thought it all very good perhaps you
might have been Archbishop of Canterbury.'" Now I am sure you will suffer me to
say that I, at least, think it all very good, and you would think the worse of
me, as a minister of the Church, if I did not. For if there are parts of the
Church Catechism with which Mr. Spurgeon did not agree, and with which you do
not agree, there are parts of it, at least, with regard to which we are one. I
am sure that everyone in this Tabernacle would repeat, if it were necessary, the
answer to the question, 'What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy
Belief?' 'First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all
the world; secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind;
thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of
God.'" There are many things in which I agree with you as well as in that. I
agree with you in admiration for a Pastor from whose eloquent lips thrilling and
heartfelt words shall be heard in this life no more. I agree with you in
sympathy as to the perplexity which you must feel in finding someone to be, at
any rate at once, all to you that he has been to you. He was no doubt the
greatest preacher of this century. In the pulpit at St. Paul's last Sunday there
was testimony to that. There is no one whom I can think of who could have held
these thousands together Sunday after Sunday, and year after year, as he did.
And as the rector of this parish I am here to testify that he was a benefit to
every denomination, for he was the great foe to indifference. When the voices of
other men would deepen apathy, his voice, like the voice of a trumpet, aroused
men and compelled them to think. The gospel which he preached was that saying
which is 'worthy of all acceptation,' and which all Christians accept, that
'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners'; and if I should not agree
with the definition of election which you might give, I should at least be in
accord with you in heartily believing that he whose earthly tabernacle lies
before us is one of the elect.

"Who had a heart of compassion amongst men if such a heart did not beat in the
breast of your Pastor? That heart which beats no more was ever warm with
compassion. No one could speak to him, no one could hear the tender thrill of
his voice, without at once recognizing the compassion in his heart. Let the
Almshouses, which he founded; let the Orphanages, where the fatherless found
shelter regardless of the creed of their parents, testify for many a long year
to the greatness of the compassion which beat in that great heart of his.

"Here, perhaps, it will not be ungrateful to you if I refer to another of his
letters, the first one which I ever received from him. I was reminded of it just
now when I entered this assembly by the sound of the bell. It was out of that
bell, not a musical sound I admit, that our intercourse arose. This was the
letter Mr. Spurgeon wrote to me. The year is not put down, but 'July 6' is the
date upon it. It was a particularly hot and sultry July.

"'Nightingale Lane.

"'Dear Sir,—I beg to call your attention to the great disturbance caused by the
ringing of the bells at St. Gabriel's, while the congregation at the Tabernacle
is engaged in prayer. I reminded your predecessor that no right of bell-ringing
belongs to any but a parish church, and informed him that I really must appeal
to the law to stop the needless nuisance.

I am sure it is far from me to wish to interfere with the peculiarities of my
neighbours, but when we are disturbed by the clanging of a loud bell I am
obliged to complain. The hours at which we are at worship are after 6.30 on
Sunday, from 7 to 8.30 on Monday, and 7 on Thursday. Wishing to be on good terms
with all in the parish, I trust you will not allow the bell-ringers to disturb
us further, and will substitute a few strokes for the many which are now
given.'" I have no copy of my answer, but I think I could remember its effect
tolerably well. It was, that I did not know what the law might order, but I was
quite sure of what the gospel required. It required that my neighbours should
not be unnecessarily troubled, and I would give orders at once that the
bell-ringing should be confined to a few strokes, and that I had no doubt that
the bell ringer would be very much obliged to Mr. Spurgeon for mitigating his
labours in that extremely hot weather. He wrote me at once.

"'Dear Sir,—I am exceedingly obliged by your prompt and Christian reply. I felt
it needful to make my protest against the bell-ringing somewhat strong, that I
might not appear to be asking a favour merely, but claiming a right not to be
disturbed. Otherwise the lapse of years gives right to a custom against which no
protest is entered. This, and no unfriendliness to you, prompted what you
considered to be a threat. I can only hope that future correspondence may be, on
my part, on a more pleasant subject, and, on your part, may be in the same
generous tone.'" I had occasion to write to him afterwards, but I find that his
replies are not all in my possession. They have been carried off by other
people. One, I know, is in the possession of a bishop, and another in the hands
of an archdeacon, so that I am afraid I shall never be able to get my
correspondence again. But I afterwards referred to this little incident of
bell-ringing, and he wrote to me and said:—"'I have been very ill since I
returned, but I am now better and ready for work. I am so glad the bell-ringing
led to your hearty letter. God bless you.'" Now, I ask you, was not that a man
worth knowing? Does not that show his kindness of heart? He was perfectly right
to protect his congregation from disturbance, but, mark his generosity. Directly
he saw that I was ready to look at the matter in a reasonable way, his heart
overflowed with kindness. When the Secretary of the Hospital Sunday Fund
proposed that we should have a joint meeting to promote the cause of hospitals,
I want you again to mark your late Pastor's considerate kindness. He at once
supposed that I should not tike to come to the Tabernacle, and so he said to the
secretary:

"'I do not think the Rector would like to come to me, but I should be very glad
to come to him, if he will invite me.'" So I wrote at once and invited him to
have dinner with me beforehand on the evening of the meeting. He
answered:—"'Right joyfully would I have accepted your hospitality, but my own
meeting does not close till 8.30, and it is a very special one. Its speciality I
was not aware of till this week. I hope I may come and see you at some other
time, and take a cup of tea with you. This time I must decline. This is
unavoidable, and not of my choice. It would give me great pleasure to have an
hour with you at the Rectory or here.'" There were other letters, but I will
only refer to one more, as it relates to an important movement, and it aptly
illustrates his humility of mind. Some of you may remember that I was appointed
by the Bishop as Secretary to a movement for having some lectures on Socialism
at the Lambeth Baths. I wrote to Mr. Spurgeon, seeking his co-operation. I asked
him, at any rate, if he would put up some bills at the Tabernacle, and he wrote
at once—"Send the bills to the Tabernacle for our lobbies; they shall be put up
there. I find notices to be given out at divine service are not congruous, and
in making a discriminating choice I might give offence; so I give out only our
own needful ones, and wish to dispense even with these. I rely upon the
lecturers not to give way to the Socialistic idea, for this means the utter
subversion of society. Faith in the eternal verities will come through the force
of truth, by the Holy Spirit, and not through any yielding to popular
remonstrances. The subject will need careful handling. I feel refreshed, but I
have stern work before me. What should I do without my Divine Helper?'"Our Lord
says we are to know the elect by their fruits, and Mr. Spurgeon put on all those
Christian virtues and excellencies which are indications of the elect in an
eminent degree. It was not that he wore them for a short time, but that he wore
them for a long time. When he was at Menton, I had occasion to write to him.
Having an impression that he was of the same age as myself, I put the question
to him, and at the bottom of the postcard, which came in reply, he wrote these
words—'Yes, fifty-seven is my number until June 19, 1892. May you make it
seventy-seven at least.'" His preaching, unlike the preaching of many others,
was eminently illustrated by his practice. You will remember not only the
lessons of his words, but the lessons of his life. I trust that I shall remember
them also. I have that hoary head which is referred to in the text of one of Mr.
Spurgeon's first sermons; and, therefore, I hope that my fellow ministers who
are near me will pardon me if I say, that, great as may be the difference
between ministers of one denomination and another, there is one thing which
belongs to us all, which Mr. Spurgeon has helped to teach me, and which, I
trust, I shall never forget, that over all that belongs to us, over our
orthodoxy, over our eloquence, and over our energy, we must put on that one
cloak or dress to which the apostle referred, if we too are to be considered
amongst the elect—namely, that charity which the apostle calls, 'the bond of
perfectness.'"

Colonel Griffin, President of the Baptist Union, said:—"We are gathered here
to-night under the shadow of a great sorrow. A prince and a great man has been
called from our midst, and we sorrow most of all that we shall see his face no
more. It is now at least twenty-five years since I first entered this great
Tabernacle a stranger in London. I came here in common with thousands of
strangers who visit this great metropolis. My first and great desire upon the
first Sunday of my stay was to hear Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Little did I then
think that I should ever get to enjoy anything like intimacy with the great man
who occupied this platform. But, in the providence of God, my stay was
prolonged, we became acquainted, we became fast friends, and although my
intimacy with Mr. Spurgeon has not been that which many have enjoyed, I learnt
to love him and to revere his memory. He has gone from us, gone to his eternal
rest, but his works shall long follow him.

"It was his delight to preach Christ Jesus and him crucified. He had but one
text, but what a marvellous text it was, from which over 3,000 separate sermons
could be preached, which have been scattered far and wide throughout the length
and breadth of the world. One text, but it was the text for which the world was
longing, 'Christ, the Saviour of the world'; Christ and his cross was his song
here on earth, and to-night he is rejoicing with Moses and the Lamb above. One
text he had, rather let us say one Book, and from that Book he preached his
thousands of sermons. One Book, in which he believed most fully, and which he
accepted in all its entirety. In that Book he found first the promise of a
Saviour to redeem; then the prophecy regarding that Christ; then the realization
of the prophecies by Christ on earth;his grand mission, his glorious work: his
sufferings and his death. This was where Mr. Spurgeon found his power; it was in
telling the 'Old, old story of Jesus and his love' that he won the multitudes.
Those who knew him best, and enjoyed close intimacy with him, can rejoice that
they were ever privileged thus to hold communion with an 'honest man, the
noblest work of God.'" There were some that differed from Mr. Spurgeon. He and
I, although occupying different positions, and sometimes apparently
antagonistic, have never had an unfriendly word, nor has he ever breathed aught
else than a spirit of Christian love and fervent charity. It is my privilege to
stand here, not for my own worth or individual merit, but because of my official
position representing the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Mr.
Spurgeon thought fit to sever his relations with that Union. We honoured him for
his sincerity of purpose, although we were sorry he saw it wise to withdraw from
us. Amongst the members of that Union today, throughout the length and breadth
of this country, there is but one common thought, one common feeling of intense
love, and earnest respect for him who was a prince in Israel.

"He is not dead; no, brothers, he still lives! There is no death to such as he!

'The stars go down To rise upon some fairer shore; And bright in heaven's
jewelled crown They shine for evermore.'

Mr. Spurgeon has left us, but we rejoice that his spirit still lives. Even if
you were to close this mighty Tabernacle, to dissolve the College, to stop the
ingathering of the orphans, to blot out the thousands of sermons that have been
scattered far and wide, Mr. Spurgeon would still live, and his influence would
still be felt throughout this great universe. Generation after generation, the
tradition will be handed down of him who laboured here, and whom God enabled to
be a minister of his eternal truth.

"We mourn, and yet we mourn not as those who are without hope. The God whom Mr.
Spurgeon served is still 'God over all, blessed for ever.' We will trust him;
and while he, who was our leader, has gone before, we will seek to follow in his
footsteps, when God shall call us to our eternal rest, that we may be meet for
that inheritance which is above. My heart is full; there is much that I could
say, but time will not permit. Oh, may all in this mighty assembly, with those
who have preceded us today in the other services, and the more than fifty
thousand who passed by this bier yesterday, remember, as we think of him who has
gone, that his power and strength came from the God and the living Saviour, whom
he so faithfully represented! May we be led to imitate the example of him, who,
through faith and patience, now inherits the promises; and who, while we are
meeting here, is rejoicing in the fulness of that light, which comes from the
throne of glory on high!"

Rev. A. G. Barley, of Paris, said: "As one of the most humble and unknown of the
many workers whom our beloved President enabled to take their place in the
Lord's vineyard, I come to speak on behalf of the Baptists of France. Until
yesterday I fully expected that my honoured colleague, M. Saillens, would have
performed this sad duty. He was, however, yesterday stricken by evident signs of
the dread epidemic, and I have therefore to stand in his place and to speak in
his name. Being an Englishman, I felt that I should not be able, in my own
words, to express the feelings of French Christians, and therefore I asked that
a French message might be written for me to read. The "address is as
follows:—"We, the pastors, evangelists, and members of the French Baptist
Churches, desire to bring our homage, and the tribute of our respectful love, to
the memory of the great man whose loss is mourned today.

"It seems to us appropriate that our voices, though few, should be heard at this
sorrowful hour. It was to our country that Mr. Spurgeon came for many successive
years, to seek rest and recuperation; it was on French soil that his last days
were spent; his glorious soul has ascended to heaven from France. He loved our
clear sky, our blue sea, our fragrant flowers—he loved our people.

"There are other and higher reasons for which we feel a right to claim Spurgeon
as partly our own. This great Puritan of the nineteenth century bore a strong
resemblance to the greatest Frenchman who ever lived—John Calvin.

"The same attachment to the divine revelation; the same strong, firm faith in
the sovereignty of the all-wise God; the same disdain for mere human theories,
traditions, and fashions; the same rock-like fidelity to the truth, however
difficult to believe, however hard to practise—these characteristics will make
Calvin and Spurgeon appear before the eyes of posterity as men of the same
mental and spiritual mould. Men such as these, moreover, are too great to be
monopolized by any single church or nation; they are possessed, in their own
degree, of the great cosmopolitan spirit of Christ himself, who, though a Jew by
natural birth, is the elder brother of us all.

"The influence of Spurgeon upon modern Christianity in France, though indirect,
has been great. Only once was he able to comply with our oft-repeated requests
to preach in Paris; the manifold demand of his ministry and his physical
weakness compelled him to hurry through our country, in every city of which he
might have had large and eager audiences. But though he did not speak, his voice
was heard through the printed sermons, many of which were translated and have
been a means of salvation, of comfort, and of joy to thousands of souls. Some of
us remember how, when we were still young, the marvellous report of God's
blessing upon the youthful English preacher made a great impression upon us. The
crumbs which fell from your richly-spread table were eagerly sought by isolated
Christians, who, thirty years ago, lived under the persecuting hand of the
Empire, when no dissenting place of worship was allowed to be opened; when
meetings of more than twenty persons were prohibited; when the Baptist pastor of
Paris was even forbidden to read the Bible in private houses with his friends.
Who can tell how much, in those trying times, Spurgeon's sermons helped to
maintain the faith, the patience and the courage of God's scattered people in
France?

"The recent attitude taken by Mr. Spurgeon with regard to the New Theology has
been a wonderful encouragement to those French Protestants, who still hold the
faith for which their fathers suffered. The struggle between Faith and Reason,
between the Bible and 'Science falsely so-called,' is raging in France even more
than in England. The controversy has been long enough to show us where the new
doctrines will surely lead their followers. How thankful therefore, felt the few
witnesses of the Truth among us, when Spurgeon's voice was heard—so clear, so
uncompromising, so full of assurance! That doctrine must be true which is
preached by a man on whose altar the heavenly fire has so often and so
unmistakably descended.

"One of the last productions of Mr. Spurgeon's indefatigable pen (now laid aside
for ever), viz., The Greatest Fight in the World, has created a profound
interest in our French Protestant Churches. One of our religious periodicals has
characterized it as 'Spurgeon's Swan Song.' More of his works will, we trust, be
made accessible to our people, and thus for France, as for England and for the
whole world, it will be true, for generations to come, yea even as long as his
dust shall await the resurrection call, that he 'being dead, yet speaketh.'" We
mourn with you, dear English brethren, and yet we would not grudge to our
departed brother the rest which he now enjoys. His life has been wholly to the
glory of God—must we not believe also, however difficult it may be to do so,
that the glory of God is magnified in his death?

"Our Saviour lives still. The cause which Spurgeon defended is imperishable. The
Lord never took up an Elijah to heaven, without leaving an Elisha behind, on
whose shoulders fell the mantle of the departed. May we all take courage, and,
receiving a new baptism of the Spirit, take up, with a strong grip, the weapons
which these valiant hands have for ever laid aside, in order to receive the
crown of victory!

"On behalf of the Baptist Churches of France, "R. Saillens."

Mr. C. Russell Hurditch, the last speaker of the evening, took the two texts Mr.
Spurgeon heard the day in which he found rest in Christ, and grouped all his
life around them. His preaching to unconverted men was ever "Look unto Me," and
his teaching for the people of God was constantly of the privileges and power
which became ours when Accepted in the Beloved."

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., announced the hymn, "Give me the wings of faith to
rise," which being sung, the meeting closed with the Benediction.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 18: CHAPTER FIFTEEN
========================================================================

Chapter 15. Memorial Meeting for the General Public On Wednesday night, February
10th, 1892, the service arranged for the general public, and announced to
commence at 10.30 p.m., began about ten o'clock, the building then being
entirely filled, a great proportion of the audience being men.

Rev. J. Grainger, of Christ Church, announced the well-known hymn, "There is a
fountain filled with blood," a great favourite of Mr. Spurgeon's, and it was
sung with zest.

Rev. H. O. Mackey, of Peckham Park Road, led in prayer, entreating a manifest
blessing at the close of the day so memorable.

Rev. J. Manton Smith, having first pathetically sung "Rock of Ages," the
congregation joining in the last verse, then said: "Thousands of people with
weary hearts have gathered in this place from time to time, to listen to him
whose body is now lying in that coffin, and he, with a faithful finger, like the
mariner's compass, always pointed those burdened ones to where alone they could
find true rest. That rest is in Jesus; and 'Jesus' was the sum and substance of
his life. Some years ago I saw, in Southampton, a notice on a certain house. The
occupier of it lived and carried on his business in the same premises, and this
signboard said, 'Workshop below; residence above.' Our dear Pastor knew what it
was to work below; his study was his workshop; and now he has gone to his rest,
after his life of toil. How well he did his work, God knew, and God will reward
him for it. But even in the midst of his labours on earth, he knew that rest
which comes to those who trust in Christ. There is no rest to the soul apart
from Christ; and if there are any here to-night who are weary and heavy laden,
we invite you by the memory of the blessed ministry just closed to come where
you may find sweet rest.

"Our Pastor has gone to his long rest; his service is over, but his works are
permanent. They will remain and speak, thought he speaketh not. Oh, what vigour
he had! what singleness of eye. 'He walked with God,' like Enoch, and he had
this blessed testimony that he pleased God. He did not always satisfy other
people, but he did not live to please any but his Lord and Master.

"I heard of a man who was taking tickets at a railway station, from an impatient
crowd. He would only let them pass one at a time, and someone said, 'My man, you
are not very popular with these people.' He answered, 'I do not care about that
as long as I am popular with the man up there,' pointing to the station-master
who was looking out of the window. Our Pastor acted upon this plan. As long as
he had the testimony that he pleased God, he cared not who was offended. For him
to live was Christ. Methinks that if it were possible for him to rise up out of
that coffin to-night and stand before this congregation, he would crave no
higher privilege, nor covet any higher joy, than just once more to ring out the
old, old gospel, which it was the joy of his life to proclaim. It was the one
passion of his being to invite sinners to the Saviour. How sweet the name of
Jesus sounded when with his clear bell-like voice it was uttered in the ear of
the believer, or sounded in the sinner's ear, many here remember right well.

"But we need not speak so much of him, who has left us, as of his God, who is
still with us. Our Pastor's God is our God. How it would rejoice his spirit if
he knew to-night that over his dead body you yielded your broken heart to his
Lord! It would add to his joy in glory. Those who have listened to his word on
earth, but have not obeyed it, will perhaps hear the silent voice, which now
speaks to them; for there is a silence that is better than speech: even the
dumbness of that coffin is eloquence to us.

"I think I can hear a voice from it, which seems to say to me, 'Tell the people
about Jesus.' I knew a man in this city, who preached Jesus Christ with all his
heart. I heard him preaching his last sermon, as he stood in the pulpit
supported by two of his deacons, because he was so weak. Turning round to me
afterwards, he said, 'Here are my pulpit notes, brother; if they are any use to
you, you can have them.'" The next day he was carried to the London Hospital,
and put in a little bed in a room set apart for him, over the clock in the
Whitechapel Road. The doctor came and after he examined him, said, 'If you will
consent to undergo an operation, I think we may save your life; if not, cancer
will do its deadly work in a fortnight.'" My friend answered, 'I will consent to
the operation, for the sake of the church; I should like to preach again.'" They
came to chloroform him, but he said, "'No, not yet. Let me go to the operator's
room first.'" Then they took off his clothes, and dressed him in a scarlet robe.
That seemed to strengthen him, he thought it was like following his Master,
Jesus: they clothed him in scarlet. He was supported into the operator's room,
he mounted the table, and knelt down. Then looking at the doctors in the
gallery, who were waiting to see the operation, he put his hands together and
said, "'Gentlemen, if I live I live unto the Lord; if I die I die unto the Lord;
living or dying I am the Lord's. I am ready.'" They chloroformed him, and the
operation took place. I went round the same night to his little room, and tapped
on the door, which was ajar.

"The nurse said, 'You cannot come in; mortification has set in; your friend is
dying.'" He heard my voice, and said, 'Yes, you can let him come.'" When I went
in, his wife said, 'Do not speak, he is past that,' but he replied, "'No, I am
not,' he said, 'Come to my bedside,' and he put out his hand to grip mine. I
almost fancy I feel the chilly sweat now.

"'Oh, brother,' he said, 'I want to tell you how precious Jesus has been to me
through all my suffering. Take my dying message, tell the people about Jesus!
Wherever you go, tell the people about Jesus! As long as blood shall flow
through your veins, as long as the breath is in your body, tell the people—tell
the people about Jesus!' And he fell back to be with Jesus.

"Sometimes when I am weary in the work, though, thank God, I am never weary of
it, I seem to hear the echo of the old man's voice, saying to me, 'Tell the
people about Jesus!' There lies one who did it constantly; all through his life,
that was his theme. As long as he had breath left, it was used in speaking about
his Master. Methinks he would say to-night, to every student here, to every
church member, to every Christian, 'Tell the people about Jesus!' God help us
who know the message to tell it, and those who hear to receive it. Amen."

Mr. Ira D. Sankey then said: "About eight months ago there passed across the
Atlantic ocean the intelligence that Mr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was exceedingly
ill. I was in the city of Minneapolis, in the Western States, attending a
convention of over 12,000 delegates, and when that despatch was read by the
Chairman of the meeting, a great hush fell upon that audience. Then it flashed
upon my mind, I will sing a hymn—'Only remembered by what I have done,'—and I
asked that great congregation to bow their heads in silent prayer for your
Pastor here, while I sang those words. As an indication of the hold that this
man of God had upon the people there, the whole congregation bowed like one man,
and an earnest petition was sent up to God that he might spare his servant.
Little did I think then that it would be my privilege in eight months to come
and sing the same song here on this consecrated spot. May I ask the friends here
to bow their heads, and pray that God may bless the message which has been
delivered, and which is to be delivered, and the message of this song, so that
souls may be won for Christ; and that from this hour many may consecrate their
lives to him whom Mr. Spurgeon so faithfully served, and whom he declared to the
multitudes throughout this land, and throughout all lands."

Mr. Sankey then sang the new arrangement of the hymn, "Only remembered by what I
have done."

Rev. W. Y. Fullerton said: "Ten nights ago, a thousand miles from here, in a
small room on the first floor, there lay upon his bed our beloved pastor. Around
him stood a little group of loving friends. Ten nights ago, almost at this very
hour, the drowsy eyes were closed in sleep, and the racked body was stilled for
ever. That precious body is here today, having been, by the good care of God,
brought safely over the sea; but Charles Haddon Spurgeon is gone. He has left
behind him millions of bleeding hearts. There are many of you here who feel, as
I do, that this is our greatest earthly loss.

"Mrs. Browning once asked Charles Kingsley the secret of his beautiful
character, of his fortitude, of his nobility. With great tenderness, he
answered: 'I had a friend.' Looking down at that coffin to-night, nothing more
appropriate can come from my lips, 'I had a friend.' Any little usefulness in my
life has been principally owing, on the human side, to that friend whose body
lies before us. Perhaps I ought not to speak all I feel, but I cannot refrain
from saying that I would willingly have gone to the grave tomorrow instead of
him, if only he could have stood here in my vigour again to preach the glorious
Gospel of the blessed God.

"Many of us are so very sorry that we have not yet adequately grasped our loss;
we can scarcely bear to think of it, it is so overwhelming. Yet, why should we
be sorry? When you come to argue with yourself, why should you so greatly mourn?
Three months ago when our dear friend went to the sunny South, after that
terrible illness of his, we were glad—glad, though he was going to a strange
country, because he was going from fog to sunshine. We were content to bear the
exile, because it was not to be for ever; we thought he would soon be better,
and then we should see him again.

"Let us be more content to-night, for he has gone, not to a strange country, but
to the Homeland, and he is well. He is nearer to us now than he was at Menton;
it would have taken two days of quick travelling to have reached him there; but
if God willed it, we might now reach him in five minutes. Why, then, should we
be sorry? Let us lift up our hearts to-night, as we come to the very hour when
his spirit passed away to be with his God.

"It is not exile, rest on high;

It is not sadness, free from strife. To fall asleep is not to die; To dwell with
Christ is better life!"

There is a text which was very dear to him, whose mortal remains rest in that
coffin—the text that brought light to his soul. It will be the motto of my
discourse: 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am
God, and there is none else.'—Isaiah 45:22.

"You know the story, how on a wintry morning, in a little chapel, from the lips
of an unknown preacher, that text came with power to the heart of C. H.
Spurgeon; you know how the preacher picked out the stranger, and looking to him
said, 'Young man, you seem to be in trouble: look unto Jesus.' Now we are all in
trouble, and I would repeat that word, 'Look unto Jesus.'" This text in Isaiah
is not only the message that brought life to Mr. Spurgeon, it is the history of
his life. In that light let us view it.

I. "I would say, to begin with, that pre-eminently he was a man of God. 'I am
God, and there is none else,' was the central truth of his being. He learned
that there was one God, and he knew him. Not only was he a godly man, for there
is many a godly man who is not a man of God in this sense. Many a man who lives
a godly life, who does not realize the presence of God about him as Charles
Haddon Spurgeon did. Oh, how near God came to him! Once when he came back from
his rest in France, he came down these steps like a very lion, and standing in
his pulpit, he preached a sermon that will never fade from the memory of those
who heard it: 'I have yet to speak on God's behalf.' God was his Alpha and
Omega. Almost the last letter that he wrote to us, urging us to pray that the
scourge of influenza might be taken away, bore as its burden that the people
seemed to have forgotten God.

He dwelt in the presence of God. He knew him;he had communion with him; his
whole life was spent in the preaching of God to the people. I have had some
heart-to-heart talk with him when he was here, but he has had closer
heart-to-heart talk with God than ever I had with him. I remember once, when I
asked him about his method of prayer, he told me it was on this platform, here
in the presence of the people, that he had his nearest approaches to the throne
of the Eternal. He was lifted up, even to the very presence of the great God, as
he stood here praying with his people, whom he loved so well.

"Moreover, he rested upon God's covenant. The next verse to the text says, 'I
have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and
shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.'
That is the covenant that God has made with his people, that he will save them,
and that he will give their world to Christ. There are some of you who think
that Mr. Spurgeon imagined that things were always going wrong. He saw the
wrong, but he knew that through wrong, and in spite or it, God worked out his
own purposes, and that the earth should yet 'be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.' It shall be so. He was like Oliver
Cromwell, whose last words were, 'The covenant is one. Faith in the covenant is
my only support, and if we believe not, he abideth faithful.' He was like
Cromwell in his faith in the omnipotent Jehovah, and in the boldness which
springs from such faith. He knew that God would reign.

"Dwelling in God's presence, and resting upon God's covenant, he feared none
else. 'I am God, and there is none else.' He did not seek to please men, but to
witness to them of the verities of our faith. He keenly felt adverse criticism,
but he did not fear it. His vision of God made him strong to do and to suffer.
God was so much to him that there was practically to him 'none else.'" For such
a man, a man who lived with God here, to go and live with God there, is no very
great change. It is only a higher development of the same life. It is only as if
God, shutting the book of this life, said to him, 'Here endeth the first
lesson.' The second lesson, a brighter and more glorious one, has been begun,
where now he knows, even as he is known.

II. "In the second place, I will say of dear Mr. Spurgeon, that he was a man of
the people. His sympathy went out to 'all the ends of the earth.' He lived on
the earth. He did not live in the clouds. He was a man amongst men; he was
absolutely the most common-sense minister of the gospel I have ever met; and I
have met a good many. He was a true man. I am glad to see so many men at this
service. Brothers! if you want to be true men, look unto Spurgeon's Saviour. You
cannot say there was anything mawkish or sentimental about him, any unmanly
weakness. None! He was a man, a man in Christ, a whole man! Would you be a real
man? Look unto Christ, to whom that man of God looked, and you, too, will be
every inch a man.

"He helped the people. The man who has most sympathy with Christ can best aid
those around him! It was the glory of C. H. Spurgeon, that, like the Saviour,
'the common people heard him gladly.' He did not cater to reach the ear of the
superfine few: he wanted to speak to the people. His heart was with the people,
and he had experience of men such as very few have. In their temptations and
their trials, he could give them a brother's hand. Many of you, when you came to
hear him, found he put himself alongside you, and brought life and healing to
you.

"He girded the world with his influence. 'All the ends of the earth' heard from
him the truth of God. Very few men have helped to accomplish the text more than
the dear friend whom we have lost. Little did that Methodist preacher think that
day, when that young man looked to Christ, that all the ends of the earth were,
through him, to hear the gospel; but so it is—in every civilized land his
message has been heard. He might have used Augustines words more truly than
Augustine: 'I have a whole Christ for my salvation; a whole Bible for my staff;
a whole church for my fellowship; a whole world for my parish.' The whole earth
is in his debt. Many a man at the ends of the earth, many a man in the backwoods
of America, many a man in the bush of Australia, many a man in the islands of
the sea, has, through his words, looked to the Saviour and begun to live the
life of God.

III. "He was a man of God; he was a man of the people; and, in the third place,
he desired to bring the people to God. This the text hints at, and it was true
of him. He knew the people need to 'be saved.'"He did not flatter men, nor say
soft things to please them. The crowds did not come to hear him because he made
much of the dignity of human nature. He told the people the absolute truth about
themselves, and never blinked the fact that they needed to be saved. His message
was that sin was ruin; that sin was hell; but the people came to hear
notwithstanding. They came because the truth he preached found an echo in their
own heart, that is the only echo that has ever been in this building. God grant
that the echo may be heard in the hearts of not a few to-night!

"He entreated men to be saved. Why, I have heard him stand here and speak more
like a mother than a preacher, as with his whole soul he implored people to turn
to God. His faith in the purposes of God did not, as some say, make him
'heartless' in his doctrine. He yearned over the souls of men. Oh, how Christ,
his Master, yearns over you! 'Be saved!' Now, here, to-night, at this memorial
service, the last night this precious body will ever rest in this Tabernacle; by
the memory of the earnest words you have heard from those sealed lips, 'Be
saved.' O men, O women, be saved!

"He commanded people to be saved. His was the voice of authority. He did not
speak as the scribes, but in God's name, and as an ambassador of Christ, he
commanded his hearers to believe, even as we would command you to-night. I think
that is what he would have us do.

"Moreover, he expected his hearers to be saved; he looked for it as a natural
result of his ministry, and in like manner, we expect that in this meeting, many
of you, who have hitherto rejected the message, shall be led by the solemn
circumstances of our gathering, to receive it and live. When on Monday I saw
that beautiful olive-wood coffin, with the two black seals, which had been
placed upon it at Menton, still intact, I could not help thinking of another
great earnest servant of Christ. He was a Silesian shoemaker, but he knew God,
and many were blessed through his word. On the marble cross, which marks his
grave today, there is the inscription, 'Here rests Jacob Böhme, born of God,
died in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit.' That would be a fitting
inscription for the tomb where this body shall rest. Of God his servant was
truly begotten; in Christ he has sweetly fallen asleep; and not only with this
black seal on the coffin, but with the seal of the Spirit of God on his forehead
he rests, claimed by the God of heaven, safe for evermore!

IV. "The last thing suggested by the text is this. Because Mr. Spurgeon desired
to bring the people to God, he THEREFORE POINTED THEM TO THE CHRIST OF God. The
pith of all his message was 'Look unto Christ.' He never pointed men to himself.
I have heard him many times, but never yet have I heard him directing men to
himself as the source of any blessing. Priestism he hated with a perfect hatred.
Never was man more humble than he. He thought nothing of himself; when the work
was done he gave all the credit to God, who worked in him both to will and to do
of his good pleasure.

"He blew the trumpet soft and clear, That trembling sinners need not fear; And
then with louder note and bold, To raze the walls of Satan's hold; The trumpet
coming thus between, The hand that held it scarce was seen."

We thought of the message, and not of the messenger, when we listened to his
voice. He preached not himself, but Christ Jesus as Lord.

"He had as his theme the just God and the Saviour. Even as it is written, 'A
just God and a Saviour, there is none beside me, look unto me!' He preached no
new gospel; he preached that God was a just God, and would punish sin; that he
was a Saviour and would receive the sinner. He had marvellous facility of
illustration, great freshness of view, and unexhausted fertility of mind, yet it
was ever the same old truth which he declared, 'A just God and a Saviour. Look
unto me.' Like King James, who always called for his old shoes, because they
fitted him the best, he kept to the same grand gospel that he preached when he
began his ministry. Yet Christ was more to him than his preaching. Christ was
everything. He has left it on record, in one of his latest reviews of books,
that he considered Samuel Rutherford's writings the nearest to the inspired
Word. One of Rutherford's sentences well expresses the heart of our dear pastor:
'What astonishment shall be mine,' said that saintly man, 'when I first behold
that fairest and most lovely face! It would be heaven to me just to look through
a hole of heaven's door to see Christ's countenance!' Now he has seen him; it is
at this moment almost midnight with us, but midnight is over for him; ten full
days he has been in the light of that beautiful countenance! How can we sorrow
for him? No! we are glad. We praise God on his behalf. He is in heaven. We are
in the midst of sorrow, not for him, but for ourselves; but Christ is with us.

'And only heaven is better than to walk With Christ at midnight over moonless
sea!'

The night may be dark, but if Christ is with us, over the billows we will go.
Beneath this shadow we are almost sacred. The last thing I will say concerning
this man of God is that he declared with all his might that salvation was by
faith. He told men constantly that it was by looking to the Crucified One they
would be saved. Not by looking to self. God grant that self may die within us,
as truly as Spurgeon's body has died! Not by looking to Spurgeon: he never
preached that. He ever said while he was with us, 'Look to Christ.' To-night the
Lord Jesus himself is speaking to some of you, and his word is, 'You have looked
long to my servant for strength and comfort; I have taken away my servant, now
look unto me.' And some of you are not saved! You have come and hung upon his
lips, and have looked often to the preacher. The Lord says to you now, 'Look
unto me. In life and death, look unto me.'" Let me give you one of Mr.
Spurgeon's own illustrations. He told how the Duke of Marlborough, when he was
dying, was carried by some friends to see a picture of some great battle that he
had fought. When he saw it he began to weep, and said, 'Ah! the Duke of
Marlborough was something then, but now he is a dying man,' upon which Mr.
Spurgeon beautifully says that the Christian is something when he comes to die.
It is then he is something. Why! when we come to die we are only beginning to
live! He whom we mourn is yet alive.

"Soon the day will come when we shall all look upon Christ, whether we have
looked to him or not; we shall see him as he sits on the great throne. The
coming of the Lord draweth nigh. The second advent of Christ was, in his later
years especially, a great hope to the departed Pastor of this Tabernacle. He
looked for the coming of the Saviour, but I have heard him say many times that,
if he might have his choice, he would rather experience the bliss of the spirits
who are now with their Master, than escape death by being permitted to tarry
till Christ should come. The Lord has given him his wish. He is yonder with the
enraptured throng before the throne of God, while his body rests until the first
resurrection. On the very night in which 'our beloved Pastor entered heaven' an
unknown astronomer discovered a new star. On the Monday morning on which we read
in the newspapers the terrible news which almost paralyzed us, an anonymous
postcard arrived at Edinburgh Observatory saying there was a new star in the
heavens, near the Milky Way, almost at the zenith, a star of the fifth
magnitude. But in the heavens yonder there was another star that night, another
star that shall shine for ever, not of the fifth, but of the first magnitude.
The astronomers have been observing their star, and I think the angels have
learnt something more of the grace of God from those lips through which we
learned so much of it. He turned many to righteousness here; there his theme
will be still the same.

"Ten nights ago, just about this hour, from the margin of the tideless blue sea,
his happy spirit went up to stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire! From
the midst of the palm-trees, he went up to wave the palm-branch in the presence
of the Throne. From amid the olive-trees, he, through faith in him who once
poured out his soul under the olives, went up to rest beneath the Tree of Life,
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. From that sunny land, he went
up to be in that other land where they have no need of the sun, neither of the
moon to shine in it, for the glory of God does lighten it, the Lamb is the Light
thereof. The last day of the month was the last day of his earthly course; the
first day of the week was the first day of his glory.

"'After this, it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a
summons,' said John Bunyan, and his words are almost prophetic; 'he had this for
a token that the summons was true, that the pitcher was broken at the fountain.
When he understood it, he called for his friends and told them of it. Then said
he, 'I am going to my Father's, and though with great difficulty I am got
hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to get
where I am. My sword I give to him who shall succeed me in my pilgrimage; my
courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to
be a witness for me, that I have fought his battles, who now will be my
rewarder.' When the day that he must go home was come, many accompanied him to
the river side, into which, as he went, he said, 'Death, where is thy sting?'
And as he went down deeper he said, 'Grave, where is thy victory?' So he passed
over—and all the trumpeters sounded for him on the other side."

"Servant of God, well done!

Rest from thy loved employ, The battle fought, the victory won, Enter thy
Master's joy."

This hymn, quoted in full on page 109, having been heartily sung, with special
emphasis on the line, "The voice at midnight came;" the meeting was concluded by
prayer, after which many lingered behind to have a last look at the
olive-casket.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 19: CHAPTER SIXTEEN
========================================================================

Chapter 16. The Funeral Service On Thursday morning, February 11th, 1892,
commencing at 11 o'clock, the funeral service was held in the Tabernacle. Rev.
A. T. Pierson, D.D., presided. The centre of the area was filled with the
mourners and delegates, the other places being occupied by seat-holders.

Rev. William Williams, of Upton Chapel, announced the opening hymn: "Servant of
God, well done," which, from its peculiar appropriateness, has been sung several
times during the memorial services.

Mr. Harrald then offered a most tender and comprehensive prayer, in which,
having given thanks for the rest and reward which had been given to "our beloved
and Thy beloved", he very earnestly entreated, amid the fervent 'amens" of the
congregation, that consolation and strength might be given to the bereaved wife,
the aged father, the beloved brother, the dear sons, the sorrowing sisters, and
all other relatives of the glorified Pastor. For the youthful grandchildren he
besought a blessing, asking especially for the infant grandsons that, as they
were descended from a long line of preachers, they, too, might, by the grace of
God, be called to the ministry of the Word. The stricken Church, College, and
Orphanage shared in the intercession, which included a request that, through the
memorial services, many might be turned to the Lord; and that, by means of the
printed sermons already published, and the others which shall yet be issued, a
great multitude might be led to the feet of Christ. "Amen and amen" was the
response from every heart, and from many lips, as Mr. Harrald closed with a
devout ascription of praise to the triune Jehovah—"Unto the Father and the Son
and the Spirit, the three-one God, be praises in the church above and the church
below, throughout all ages, by Christ Jesus. Amen."

Rev. Archibald G. Brown, introduced by Dr. Pierson as "one of the early students
of the College, one of the devoted Christian workers in this great city, and a
personal friend of the pastor," in rising to read the Scriptures, said:

"How cheerfully many of us would have died if, by our death, that life could
have been spared, God knows. It is willed otherwise. He has gone, and the
unworthy are left. Let us now read from the word of God a few passages which we
have been led to select as appropriate. May the Spirit of God own his own truth!

" 'So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to
the word of the Lord?

"The Holy Ghost evidently counted that to be Jehovah's servant is a higher
honour than to be king of Jeshurun. Moses died there where his God took him; in
his God's presence, in his God's arms, 'according to the word of the Lord,' or,
as it may be rendered, 'at the mouth of the Lord.' The Jews have a saying that
Moses died with a kiss from God's mouth.

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor, but
no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and
twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; so
the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun
was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the
children of Israel hearkened unto him and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And
there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew
face to face!

"There is the high honour of this man of God; there the secret of his power. It
was in this that Moses stood unapproached and unrivalled. The Holy Ghost has
declared that the grand distinction in his character was that he knew God
intimately, and that God knew him face to face.

" 'Behold this day I am going the way of all the earth,' Joshua said. 'Now,
therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth; and put away the
gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and
serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you
this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that
were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land
ye dwell; but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. And the people
answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord?

"If it were possible for our departed Joshua to speak, I believe the words would
be these: 'Serve my God, and your God in all sincerity.' Oh, that there might
break from this assembled company of mourners, the same response that followed
the word of Joshua, when the people said, 'God forbid that we should forsake the
Lord'! As he, our President and Pastor, followed God, so may we follow hard
after.

" 'Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the
king of Israel came down unto him and wept over his face.'

"It is well when royalty acknowledges the worth of a faithful prophet in the
land.

"'And said, O my father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen
thereof! And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows: and he took unto him bow
and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow, and
he put his hand upon it; and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he
said, Open the window eastward; and he opened it Then Elisha said, Shoot; and he
shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance.'

"The ruling passion with this man of God was strong in death "'And Elisha died
and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the
coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that,
behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of
Elisha; and when the man was letdown, and touched the bones of Elisha, he
revived and stood up on his feet.'

"The influence of a prophet is not ended with his death. When good men die they
yet speak, and life springs even from the sepulchre of the consecrated.

" 'And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,' and
others, 'And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples
multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were
obedient to the faith.' But he died. 'And devout men carried Stephen to his
burial, and made great lamentation over him.'

"Has the Book of God no word for those who are left? It may be said that it is
the survivor who dies. Our leader, Moses, has gone into his rest. Our warrior,
Joshua, has ended his fight. Our prophet has shot his last arrow.

"'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will
not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea. Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.'

"Our Pastor's word to us is, 'Let the worst come to the worst, the children of
God should never give way to mistrust.' "'Shall we receive good at the hand of
God, and shall we not receive evil?'

" 'I was dumb: I opened not my mouth because thou didst it.'

"A saintly silence. Sometimes it is impossible to say anything that can do good,
and one would not, for all the world, say a word which could do harm; we honour
God best at these times by silence. Happy the experience which leads the soul to
say, even looking at that coffin," 'It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him
good.'

"'For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we
have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which
is from heaven; If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we
that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be
unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now
he that has wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto
us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that,
whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by
faith, not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour that,
whether present or absent, we may be well pleasing unto him.'

"The brightest light that can be thrown upon a scene of sorrow, is the light
which comes from the promised return of our Lord and Master. Let us read
concerning his glorious advent.

" 'For if we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again, even so them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the
Lord, shall not prevent? or take precedence of 'them which are asleep. For the
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;
then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord?

" 'And John's disciples came and took up the body and buried it, and went and
told Jesus.'

"That is all we can do."

Rev. Robert Taylor, of Upper Norwood, announced the hymn, "which was the last
our beloved friend gave out." We began to sing at the second verse—

"The King above in beauty, Without a veil is seen;

It were a well-spent journey Though ten deaths lay between."

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., then made the funeral address before the assembly, as
follows:—The giant cedar of Lebanon has fallen, and the crash of the downfall
shakes the whole land, and echoes round the world. No vacancy so vast has been
left in the church for, at least, a hundred years. The roots that held this
cedar to the soil have spread so far and wide, that the desolation is
incalculable. For a hundred years no such event as the death of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon has startled and bereaved the Christian church.

I think it was 101 years ago when John Wesley died; in the year 1791. There is a
very curious correspondence in the lives of the two brothers, John and Charles
Wesley, and the lives of the two brothers, Charles and James Spurgeon; and they
lie apart in history by this century. In each case the two brothers wrought
together as right hand and left hand work together in mechanic arts. And it is
but due to the surviving brother to say, that the general public has not
altogether appreciated, as yet, the contribution that he made, in a very
unselfish spirit, to the usefulness and the wide-reaching work of his departed
brother. Standing in the background, while his brother stood in the foreground,
he was an inspiration to his faith, an encouragement to his activity, and a
constant co-operator in everything which he undertook. God bless him, and long
may he survive to give his wisdom, his counsel, and his energy to the work which
they jointly carried forward! The posthumous work of John Wesley was greater
than the work he did during his life; as we look back over the century, we
surround Mr. Wesley's name with much of the glory of the work carried on after
his decease. The posthumous work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon no man can, at this
day, estimate or conjecture.

We must, moreover, remember that Mr. Wesley, who was born in 1703, and converted
in 1738, at the age of thirty-five, was privileged to live until the age of
eighty-eight, dying in 1791; whereas Mr. Spurgeon, born in 1834, and converted
at the age of sixteen, in the year 1850, has fallen asleep in Jesus before his
fifty-eighth birthday had been reached. What that life would have wrought if
thirty years more had been added to it, we can only imagine. And am I not, at
least, justified in saying, especially in view of the comparatively brief term
of this marvellous life, that there has been no life like it, in the church of
God, in the century, and that, therefore, no vacancy so vast has been created by
the withdrawal of any one of God's servants during that time? Men, generally,
concede to Mr. Spurgeon genius in the intellectual sphere; but genius is a very
vague and indefinite term. It usually stands for the creative faculty; but what
is the creative faculty but the combination of observation, accumulation,
classification, and application? In other words, is it not the using of all our
powers, the gathering of facts and truths, their orderly, methodical
arrangement, and their practical utilization in matters of personal, social, and
public life?

I trust that we shall not, being dazzled by his genius, forget that he set us a
glorious example of the power of systematic activity. It was no mere genius that
produced three thousand sermons in the course of these years, and gave to the
world thirty-seven annual volumes of weekly discourses. It was no mere genius
that sent twenty-seven volumes of The Sword and the Trowel forth month by month.
It was no mere genius that gave some one hundred volumes, larger and smaller, to
the world, on all variety of topics connected with the gospel, the gospel
ministry, and the Christian life. The Treasury of David, which itself might have
stood, with its seven volumes, as the one colossal work of one man's life, and
which is the most popular and useful commentary ever written on a single book of
the Bible, attaining already a sale of 125,000 volumes, a larger sale than has
ever been known for any commentary on a single book,—this work cost, I
understand, twenty years of labour in the leisure hours of a most laborious
pastorate. All this meant hard, constant, and conscientious work.

Some of us have wondered at the marvellous accumulations of Mr. Spurgeon's
life-time. I trow that all this came not of any inherent endowment of genius.
'If the iron be blunt,' says Solomon, in the tenth chapter of Ecclesiastes and
the tenth verse, 'If the iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge, then must he
put to more strength,'—a profound proverb. 'A whet is no let,' says the old
maxim. The time that the mower occupies in giving edge and keenness to his
scythe, is no lost time in his work. One needs less strength if he has a sharp
weapon. Mr. Spurgeon so sharpened his mental faculty by diligent culture, that,
if he lacked anything in native strength, he certainly lacked nothing in the
efficiency of the weapons and the implements that he used.

We have all marvelled at the peculiar freshness, fulness, and forcefulness of
the stream that he perpetually poured forth, in public utterances by pen as well
as by tongue. If he himself should explain it, I am sure that he would tell us
that the secret lay in two things. First, he kept filling up the cask; and, in
the second place, he tapped the barrel, not at the top, but at the bottom; so
that we always got from him a full and forceful stream. Nothing more surprised
me in his intellectual life than the lavishness with which he bestowed it. He
never seemed to fear self exhaustion; he gave with the same lavishness to one
poor soul from among the least and lowest, as to the throng of the greatest and
noblest on the grandest occasion. The reason was, not simply that he was endowed
with transcendent intellectual genius, but that he knew where the fountain of
the best thought, and the noblest emotions and affections, was evermore to be
found: putting himself beneath that fountain, he was filled with the
unsearchable riches of the Word of God, of the Spirit of God, and of the life of
God. But though, perhaps, it is not quite so obvious, I believe that Mr.
Spurgeon represented genius in the moral sphere, which is even more rare than
genius in the intellectual sphere. I mean by genius in the moral sphere, just
what our blessed Lord said when the disciples were contending who should be
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Taking a little child, and placing him in
their midst, he said, 'Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' Genius in the moral
sphere, is the carrying forward of the characteristics of childhood into the
period of manhood, and even of mature age. That is precisely what Charles Haddon
Spurgeon did. He was always a little child in his own eyes and in his own
spirit. In the last prayer I heard him offer, when I made a private visit to
Beulah Hill, to see him once more before he left for Menton, he reminded me of
young Zinzendorf, when, at five years of age, he used to toss his love-letters
out of the window directed to his 'Dear Jesus.' Yes, he was a little child.

What is a childlike spirit? Did you ever undertake to analyze it? When we think
of little children we think of three groups of graces. One group centres in
truth, and embraces simplicity and sincerity; one group centres in love, and
embraces gentleness and generosity; and one group centres in faith, and embraces
confidence and compliance. Was he not in every one of those respects a man of a
childlike spirit?

What rare simplicity! sine plicâ, without a fold: opened up like the Bible on
his coffin; opened up so that all might read what was in his soul. What rare
sincerity! sine cerâ, without wax: a possible reference to the Roman potters'
habit of thrusting wax into the cavities of the vessel that they might conceal
the flaws. Sincerity means that there is no attempt to conceal the flaws. The
vessel can stand the searching and melting ray of the sunlight.

What rare love was his! what unspeakable gentleness! such as we think of in a
wife or a mother. He seemed to me to represent all the masculine virtues and
most of the feminine virtues too. He was as brave and courageous and aggressive
as the most heroic man, but he was as gentle and tender, as sympathetic and
compassionate, as the most beautiful womanly character. What generosity he
displayed! The unique story of that generosity never has been written, and it
never will be fully written, for the data are unknown except to the omniscient
God. It was a life perpetually imparting, and one reason it closed so early was
because the giving out was more rapid than the taking in. Let us not deceive
ourselves: he gave himself for humanity, and that is perhaps the reason why we
have him not today. He lost his life in serving.

How beautiful was his faith! What simple and sublime confidence in his Lord!
unwavering, unaltering, unfaltering faith. I never saw such trust in any other
human soul. It rebuked my own unbelief, and made my own scepticism seem a crime.
More than anything else about him, it seemed to illustrate to me what a disciple
could be who was in constant touch with God, and the circuit of whose invisible
telegraphy with God never knew an interruption. Then what compliance, what
obedience, there was with him! I remember that, on one great occasion, when the
most tempting offers of a popular character were put before him, his simple and
sublime answer was, "Gentlemen, these things do not affect me. The only thing of
any consequence to me in this world is to do the will of God"

I want now to add a word about genius in the spiritual sphere; for there is such
a thing, and he illustrated it. I mean, by genius in the spiritual sphere, what
Paul speaks of in the sixth chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians: 'He
that joined unto the Lord is one spirit.' That is genius in the spiritual
sphere—the absolute oneness with God that comes from the merging of spiritual
life, on the part of the believer, into the spiritual life of his Lord. I call
the attention of my brethren here present, especially those in the ministry, to
the fact that this is the last and grandest of all representations of the unity
between a believer and Christ. That unity is illustrated from every department
It is illustrated from the material realm, in the building, the lively stones of
which are built into one symmetrical structure. It is illustrated from the
vegetable realm, in the vine and the branches that interwrap their fibres. It is
illustrated from the animal realm, in the sheep and the shepherd that are
associated closely in flock and fold. It is illustrated from the human realm, in
the body and its members which constitute one organism; and in the bride and the
bridegroom, which form the closest union known among men. It is also illustrated
from the family, with one father, one home, and one household; and from the
state, community, or commonwealth, under one supreme head or sovereign. But all
these are defective, though they are given to us in their entireness and
combination, so that what one lacks the other may make up. We turn, therefore,
to this last and grandest of all: 'He that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit.' You may disintegrate a building. You may separate branches from the
vine. You may part sheep and shepherd. You may take members off the body. A
bride may be divorced from her bridegroom; a family may be broken into
fragments; and a state may be shattered by rebellion. But the spirit is
indivisible, and he that is joined unto the Lord forms with the Lord one
indivisible and immortal spirit. That is genius in the spiritual sphere, and
that was the genius of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. From that indivisible unity
sprang his faith. From that indivisible unity sprang his zeal. From that
indivisible unity sprang his obedience. From that indivisible unity sprang his
adherence to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. From that indivisible unity
came his sympathy with souls as such, so that the soul of the least and lowest
was in his eyes as valuable as the soul of a king on the throne. My friends,
though there was much that was inimitable in this marvellous man, nevertheless
there was much that he did and said, believed and lived, which challenges not
only our admiration but our holy imitation. And now, as time forbids me to speak
longer on this august occasion, I can only add that we have come together to
bury the dead. Glad we are that those precious remains were not left to rest
among the palms and olives by the shores of the Mediterranean; then only the
noble and the affluent might have made their pilgrimage to his tomb. But we
thank God that we are to lay these sacred ashes in our Norwood, where the common
people who heard him gladly may wend their way to the place of his burial. You
have no occasion to build him a monument, for his monument, more enduring than
brass, is in the hearts of millions of the human race. You have no need to
employ a gardener to keep his grave green, for the tears of widows and of
orphans will moisten the sod. You have no occasion to see that flowers are
planted round his sepulchre, for there will be fragrant blooms from all parts of
the earth, which will be brought by pilgrim hands in the remembrance of untold
blessings that came through his lips and pen; flowers that will be borne from
all quarters to be set beside his place of rest. My brother, we shall never see
another like unto thee. The eyes now closed in death, that twinkled like two
stars in a dark firmament, and brought light and joy to many bereaved and
saddened hearts, have lost their light for ever. The voice that spoke in tones
so convincing and persuasive is hushed in death. The hand whose grasp uplifted
many a fallen one, and gave new strength and encouragement to many a stricken
one, will never again take our hands within its holy embrace. We bless God for
thee, my brother. We are glad that heaven is made richer though we be made
poorer; and by this bier we solemnly pledge ourselves that we will undertake, by
God's grace, to follow thy blessed footsteps, even as thou didst follow thy
blessed Lord!

Rev. Newman Hall, LL.B., at this point of the service, offered a most beautiful
and touching prayer, in which adoration mingled with thanksgiving; and
intercession with grief. "We mourn that the gift has been withdrawn, because we
bless thee that the gift was ever bestowed," was a sentence which drew forth the
hearts of the congregation; and a sobbing assent was given to this other, "We
bless thee that his death is not premature, for thou knowest when thy servants
are mature and fit for glory." The people now joined in singing a verse of a
hymn which was a great favourite with the departed Pastor:—

"Knowing as I am known, How shall I love that word; And oft repeat before the
throne, For ever with the Lord!"

Then the coffin was reverently carried by eight bearers to the hearse. As it
slowly moved down the aisle, followed by the mourners, many of them choking down
their sobs, a few of the boys from the Stockwell Orphanage sang the chorale.

"Thou art gone to the grave, But we will not deplore thee, Though sorrows and
darkness Encompass the tomb; The Saviour has passed Through its portal before
thee, And the lamp of his love Is thy guide through the gloom.

"Thou art gone to the grave;

We no longer behold thee, Nor tread the rough path Of the world by thy side; But
the wide arms of mercy Are spread to enfold thee, And sinners may hope, Since
the Sinless has died.

"Thou art gone to the grave, But 'twere wrong to deplore thee, For God was thy
ransom, Thy guardian and guide;

He gave thee, he took thee, And he will restore thee; And death has no sting,
Since the Saviour has died."

Thousands of handkerchiefs were raised to tearful eyes, that took a last loving
look at the beautiful casket that contained all that was mortal of him to whom
all owed so much. Thus the dear body left the Tabernacle for the last time.


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  CHAPTER 20: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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Chapter 17. From the Tabernacle to the Tomb The open hearse which conveyed the
olive-casket to its resting-place at Norwood Cemetery, had, on both sides of it,
the appropriate text which was also on the coffin, "I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." By this means, a sermon, five
miles long, was preached as the procession slowly passed through the streets. On
the coffin itself was placed Mr. Spurgeon's pulpit Bible, wide open, with a
marker pointing to that precious passage which long ago brought salvation to the
beloved man of God: "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth:
for I am God, and there is none else." As a warrior has his helmet and sword
placed on his bier, the warrior of God had the Sword of the Spirit, which he so
valiantly wielded for so many years, carried with his body to the grave. His
death, as well as his life, was a continuous testimony for God.

It is not necessary to chronicle the progress of the funeral procession along
the roads crowded on either side with silent, awe-struck people, many of whom
were in mourning and in tears; nor to praise the arrangements and courtesy of
the police force, though no praise, however high, would be more than they
deserve. But we must notice that as the cortege moved along the route, the bells
of St. Mary's, Newington, and St. Mark's, Kennington, were tolled, all the shops
were shut, many of them draped, and some with portraits and mottoes upon them.
The very public-houses were closed, and flags floated half-mast high. Thus the
procession passed on, the hearse headed by mounted police, and immediately
followed by the empty brougham of the departed preacher. After this came the
carriage bearing his son, Pastor Charles Spurgeon, who ventured from a sick
chamber to pay this last homage to his beloved father: Mrs. Charles Spurgeon
accompanied him, and Pastor Archibald G. Brown rode in the same carriage. Pastor
James A. Spurgeon shared his carriage with the Bishop of Rochester, who desired
to pay the parting tribute to Mr. Spurgeon of being present at the grave. Other
relatives were followed by Secretaries, Deacons, Elders, Representatives,
Delegates, and Friends, and so the long line of vehicles passed on between the
living throng. At the Stockwell Orphanage, a covered platform had been erected;
and, in deep mourning the children sat there, supposed to be singing, but most
of them weeping, now doubly orphaned as they were; for Mr. Spurgeon had taken
them all to his heart, and a child's instinct for a true friend is seldom at
fault. When the procession started from the Tabernacle, a meeting of ministers
and students of the Pastors' College Evangelical Association began at Chatsworth
Road Chapel, close to Norwood Cemetery. Those present at this service joined
those who came in the procession, and a most striking sight it was to stand at
the cemetery gate, and watch the long curving line of men reaching right up to
the grave, all of them in black. The near relatives of the departed Pastor
gathered first around the tomb, which was beautifully decked with foliage and
flowers, then over a thousand mourners assembled within the barriers, and many
thousands crowded beyond.

While we stood there a little patch of blue sky appeared, just over our heads,
as if to remind us of the glory-land above; and while Mr. Brown was speaking, a
dove flew from

The Funeral Cortège Entering Norwood Cemetery. the direction of the Tabernacle
towards the tomb, and wheeling in its flight over the crowd, almost seemed to
pause. In ancient days it would have been an augury: to us it spoke only peace.
As the service proceeded, a little redbreast poured forth its liquid note all
the while from a neighbouring tombstone; it was appropriate music, for the
redbreast is fabled to have had its crimson coat ever since it picked a thorn
from the Saviour's bleeding brow. Well, we do not believe that; but we believe
what we sang at the grave, the truth that the beloved Pastor lived to preach,
and died to defend:—

"Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood Shall never lose its power Till all the
ransomed Church of God Be saved to sin no more.

And we joined heartily in the confession and resolve.

E'er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love
has been my theme, And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing Thy power to save, When this poor
lisping, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave."

When the olive-wood coffin, with the open Bible still upon it, was lowered into
the midst of the palms and lilies, Rev. Archibald G. Brown said: "It has pleased
our heavenly Father, the sovereign Lord of life and death, to call away from
this world the soul of our departed brother. We therefore commit his body to the
grave—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, surely expecting the
coming of the day in which all that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the
Son of God, and come forth."

Nothing could have been more beautiful, nor more suitable, than Mr. Brown's
closing words. They were delivered from

Pastor A. G. Brown Delivering His Address at the Grave. the heart: they will
lodge in thousands more. With great pathos and many pauses, he said:—"Beloved
President, Faithful Pastor, Prince of Preachers, Brother Beloved, Dear
Spurgeon—we bid thee not 'Farewell,' but only for a little while 'Good-night.'
Thou shalt rise soon at the first dawn of the Resurrection-day of the redeemed.
Yet is not the good-night ours to bid, but thine; it is we who linger in the
darkness; thou art in God's holy light. Our night shall soon be passed, and with
it all our weeping. Then, with thine, our songs shall greet the morning of a day
that knows no cloud nor close; for there is no night there.

"Hard-worker in the field! thy toil is ended. Straight has been the furrow thou
hast ploughed. No looking back has marred thy course. Harvests have followed thy
patient sowing, and heaven is already rich with thine ingathered sheaves and
shall be still enriched through years yet lying in eternity.

"Champion of God! thy battle, long and nobly fought, is over; the sword which
clave to thy hand, has dropped at last; a palm-branch takes its place. No longer
does the helmet press thy brow, oft weary with its surging thoughts of battle; a
victor's wreath from the great Commander's hand has already proved thy full
reward.

"Here for a little while shall rest thy precious dust. Then shall thy
Well-Beloved come; and at his voice thou shalt spring from thy couch of earth,
fashioned like unto his body, into glory. Then spirit, soul, and body, shall
magnify thy Lord's redemption. Until then, beloved, sleep. We praise God for
thee, and by the blood of the everlasting covenant, hope and expect to praise
God with thee. Amen."

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., led in solemn prayer, in which he besought that
comfort in sorrow, and stimulus in service, might come to all those who were
standing by the grave. The Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Randall Davidson), then
pronounced the Benediction.

Many remarked that the whole of the Memorial Services, unique as they were, were
characterized by a simplicity and heartiness entirely in harmony with the whole
life of the beloved Pastor; and it was most significant that, when the
olive-casket was lowered into the vault, not even the glorified preacher's name
was visible—it was just as he would have wished it—there was nothing to be seen
but the text at the foot of the coffin, and the open Bible. Of course, the Bible
was not buried; it is not dead, it "liveth and abideth for ever"; and who knows
whether it may not prove, more than ever, the means of quickening the dead, now
that he, who loved it dearer than his life, can no longer proclaim its blessed
truths with the living voice? God grant it!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 21: CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
========================================================================

Chapter 18. Memorial Service for Children On the afternoon of Lord's-day,
February 14th, 1892, the children of the various Sunday-schools connected with
the Metropolitan Tabernacle; the boys and girls of the Stockwell Orphanage; and
the orphans from Mrs. Sharman's Homes, which are situated in the immediate
neighbourhood, were gathered together, almost ten thousand of the little people
being crowded into the building.

Rev. V. J. Charlesworth, head-master of the Stockwell Orphanage, conducted a
selected choir of the boys of the Institution, who sang, "Servant of God, well
done!" and "The Homeland," being accompanied by Mr. F. G. Ladds, the secretary.

Deacon William Olney, president of Haddon Hall, led in a brief and impressive
prayer between these two hymns, the children repeating sentence by sentence
after him.

Deacon S. R. Pearce, superintendent of the Tabernacle Sunday-school, gave a
short address, in which he contrasted previous gatherings of the children in the
Tabernacle with the meeting now held under such sad circumstances. Pointing to
the mourning draperies which surrounded the platform, he said:—"Most of the
young friends present know why these were placed here, and what they mean. This
memorial service is one of a series, occasioned by the death of our beloved
Pastor, C. H. Spurgeon. After forty years of faithful service, he has gone to be
with Jesus. From this sacred spot, where I am now standing, the gospel has been
preached in all its fulness and simplicity, so that the youngest amongst them
might understand.

"Mr. Spurgeon was once a little boy like some of you, and on one occasion, when
he was engaged in making 'mud pies' at his father's door, a visitor drew near,
and asked his father who that little fellow was he had just seen outside. Yet
that little boy grew up to be a great preacher, and the beloved of all our
hearts. His lips were now silent, and his dear hands were cold in death; but let
us remember what he had said, and let us love the God whom he had loved, and
serve the dear Saviour whom he had served so faithfully.

"If the Pastor could speak to us now, he would say, 'Sorrow not for me: trust
Jesus whom I have trusted, and be ready in season and out of season to serve
him.' In conclusion, Mr. Pearce told the simple and touching story of an officer
wounded in the fight, who, when a soldier came to comfort him, said, "Never mind
me, keep the flag flying." "So," he said, "the beloved one would have us not to
sorrow as those without hope, but he would desire us to keep the gospel flag
flying, that others might become true soldiers of the cross, and more than
conquerers, through him who loved us and gave himself for us."

Mr. J. Manton Smith, whose cornet had a bow of crape upon it, after leading the
children in the singing of two hymns, "There is a land of pure delight," and
"Anywhere with Jesus," asked them to repeat his text word for word. With great
gusto, the children thundered:— "Samuel one—chapter three—verse nineteen: 'The
Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground."

He then said:—"Dear children,—On several occasions it has been my happy
privilege to speak to united Sunday-schools from this platform. I have always
found it to be an easy and delightful task. But today I have a somewhat more
difficult duty to perform, for all our hearts have been made sad by the death of
our beloved Pastor. He has gone from our midst, but his noble deeds and loving
message will never die, for the Lord was with him, and he will not let his words
fall to the ground. Some of you may remember that a little over a year ago, in a
somewhat similar gathering to this, I told about a little shepherd boy in
Scotland, named Jamie, who was very ill. His master loved him and was very kind
to him, but felt sad because he did not know how to help him to die. So he asked
a nobleman, who was a Christian, if he would go to the shepherd's cottage with
him, and speak to the dying boy. The nobleman spoke to him about sheep and lambs
in such a way, that Jamie became quite interested. Then he said, 'I know a
shepherd, Jamie, who has a great many sheep and a great many lambs. He knows
them all and loves them dearly, and he laid down his life for his sheep. Jamie,
I am one of his sheep, and he wants you to be one of his lambs. If you will,
from your heart, say to him, 'Lord Jesus, I will accept thee as my Saviour just
now,' then you will be able to say truly, with me, 'The Lord is my Shepherd.'"
Jamie said, 'I should like to say that.'" 'Well, Jamie,' said the nobleman, 'I
will tell you how you can remember it; repeat it, after me, on your knuckles.
There are five words, and you have five knuckles. So with a finger on one
knuckle after the other, they said several times, 'The Lord is my Shepherd.'"
The next day, when the nobleman called at the shepherd's cottage to see Jamie,
Jamie's mother was weeping bitterly.

"He said to her, 'How is Jamie this morning?'" She sobbed out of her broken
heart, "Jamie's gone. Jamie's gone." "Well," said the nobleman, "And how did he
die?" "He died with his finger on the fourth knuckle," said the mother.

"What word does that stand for, children?" asked Mr. Smith, and the children all
shouted, "MY, sir."

"At our last gathering, when I told this story, there was a little fellow three
years old here, named Stanley Smith, who sometimes calls me father. He evidently
remembered it, for last Monday week, when his mother told him that dear Mr.
Spurgeon was dead, little Stanley looked up, and said—'Is he? Which finger did
he die on?' And when I arrived home from Dover, he met me in the hall, and
said—'Father, Mr. Spurgeon has died, and gone to heaven on the fourth knuckle.'
I took the little fellow up and kissed him. 'God bless you, my child,' I said,
what Jesus said is true, 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast
perfected praise.'" Our beloved Mr. Spurgeon was the shepherd of the sheep who
worship in this Tabernacle, he was also himself a sheep of the Shepherd who is
in heaven; and now he has gone to the great Shepherd's fold.

"When Mr. Spurgeon was a little boy, a gentleman, visiting his grandfather, took
him on his knee and gave him a new sixpence, and said, 'Charley, my boy, when
you become a preacher remember this sixpence, and let the first hymn you give
out be—

"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform."

"And Mr. Spurgeon did so. During the last week we have been learning the truth
of this hymn, but we know God always does right.

"What the people said about John the Baptist can be truly said about our dear
departed Pastor. 'Spurgeon did no miracles, but all things that Spurgeon spake
of Jesus were true.' Like the child Samuel, who is referred to in our text, he
began early in life to serve the Lord."

Mr. Smith here told, in his own graphic way, the story of Samuel and Eli, and
then showed the children how Mr. Spurgeon, like Samuel, early heard God's voice,
and answered to his call.

"Those who hear the call of God," he continued, "and obey it, are safe,
trustful, useful, and happy. Would you not all wish to be like that? What is it
to be safe? When Mr. Spurgeon was a little boy, he used to live with his
grandfather. On his grandfather's shelf there stood a large bottle with a small
neck, and inside this bottle there was a large apple. This was a standing puzzle
to Mr. Spurgeon when he was a little boy.

"'How did the apple get inside the bottle,' he asked his grandfather.

"The reply he received was, 'Find out.'" Me then asked his grandmother, who gave
him the same kind of answer. He examined the bottle to see if there were any
joins and marks where it had been put together, but could not see any, and so he
asked his grandfather again.

"His grandfather still said, 'Find out.'" When quite alone, he put on his
grandmother's spectacles, and looked carefully into the bottle to see if the
apple had been put in in sections, but no, it was quite whole.

"One day he walked down his grandfather's garden, and saw a bottle tied on to
one of the branches of an apple tree, and a little tiny apple growing at the end
of the branch inside the bottle. He had now discovered the secret, and ran into
the house, saying, 'Now I know how that big apple got into that bottle on the
shelf: it grew inside.' The cold frost might come, and nip some of the other
apples, but this one was safe, because it was inside the bottle. Now the
Sunday-school and the Church are like this bottle: they shield many who enter it
while they are young from a cruel, cold world, and many blasts of temptation."

Several other interesting illustrations followed, showing what it was to be
trustful and useful, the children paying eager attention. To make the last point
clear, the speaker said:—"Some years ago I visited a little boy, at the point of
death, in Scotland. Seeing how weak he was, I told him I would not weary him
with a long talk, so sang to him a verse which ran as follows:—

"Oh! you must be a lover of the Lord, Or you can't go to heaven when you die."

He looked at me smiling, and said—"'I like that, I should like to sing it
myself."

"It pleased him much, and he said—"'I should like Mr. Fullerton to hear me sing
that.' As he was in the next room, I called him in, and we both listened to his
feeble effort to sing the verse, which, in his pretty Scotch accent, sounded
very sweet. The next morning I called to see him before leaving for London, and
he said—"'I have learnt another verse.'" 'What is it?' I said; and he at once
began to sing—

"Yes! I am a lover of the Lord, So I shall go to heaven when I die."

Then he looked up into my face, and said—"Shall I go to heaven?" "Yes, indeed,"
I said, "you will if you are a lover of the Lord." "Ah, sir!" he said, "I do
love him, and I know he loves me."

Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., led the children in prayer, which, as at the
beginning, they repeated clause by clause; and after singing—

"Oh! that will be joyful, When we meet to part no more,"

the large company of little people dispersed.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 22: CHAPTER NINETEEN
========================================================================

Chapter 19. An Example of Service A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Arthur T. Pierson,
D.D. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle On Lord's-day Morning; February 14th, 1892
"David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on
sleep."—Acts 13:36.

"After he had served his own generation by the will of God!" One of the most
beautiful things about the Word of God is the brevity of its biographies—the
short sentences in which, by the Holy Ghost, the entire story of a consecrated
and useful life is often told. In this thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles, we have two verses which give God's estimate of David. One is the
twenty-second verse: "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own
heart, which shall fulfil all my will." And the other is the thirty-sixth verse:
"David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on
sleep." Now let us be as brief and as pointed as possible. Take these three
thoughts that are suggested at a moment's glance:—service, service to one's own
generation, service to one's own generation by the will of God. In other words,
the thought of service first; the sphere of service second—one's own generation;
the spirit of service third—"by the will of God."

First, as to service itself, we are accustomed to say that the Christian life in
its completeness, consists: first, of salvation; second, of sanctification; and
third, of service. But this is narrowing down the conception of salvation to
very small limits. Salvation is not simply deliverance from the penalty of sin,
which is justification; but from the power of sin which is sanctification, and
from the dominion of selfishness: and what is that but service? When you forget
yourself and begin to live for others, that is serving God and serving man. And
surely no salvation is complete that does not include service as well as
sanctification; and to show you that the saints of all ages have felt this,
notice the last verse that we sung—

"Take, my soul, thy full salvation;

Rise o'er sin, and fear, and care;" what is that but sanctification?

"Joy to find in every station, Something still to do or bear."

That is service. So that there is no "full salvation" which does not include
deliverance from the power of sin, and deliverance from the sway of all
selfishness that confines our thought and our endeavour to our person, to
ourselves.

We look quite too far for the sphere of our service. It is in our own
generation, and not only so, it is in the very place where God has already put
us that we are to find the sphere of our service. We look too far off. Doing the
next duty, according to the will of God, is serving God—taking up the burdens of
life and bearing them in the fear of God, and in the spirit of contentment, and
for the glory of God: that is service. It is service in the house-maid to sweep
the corners that she has neglected, to wash the pots and kettles and not fret
about it. It is service in the carpenter to do good work, and furnish good
material; it is service in the mason to build the wall, and put his piety and
his conscience into brick and mortar. It is service in any man or woman or child
to do the very next thing, and do it as one that loves God and wants to please
him. There was a little girl in America who at the age of eight years found
Jesus Christ. She lived in a district where, as yet, there was no church; it was
a little hamlet in the West; she had a drunken, blasphemous, profligate father,
and she began to ask God to bless her father. One Sunday morning she took her
father's hand with caressing tenderness, and said, "Father, would you go to
Sunday-school with me today?" Her father could not resist the omnipotence of
that little hand, and he said, "Oh, yes, yes, I will go with you." He went, and
he found Jesus Christ that afternoon. Not long since he died, having himself
established 1,180 Sunday-schools in destitute districts. How little did that
child understand what significance hung on her simply doing the next thing that
was before her—the simplest thing that she could do, and the most natural thing
that she could do! She never thought of doing a great thing. Is it not true that
most servants of God that accomplish great things have not meditated great
things to begin with? The Lord had a great plan, but his servant knew very
little of it, and he simply began to do the next thing that was at his hand; and
the Lord expanded his sphere and greatened his soul, and increased his faith,
and crowned him with abundant success.

It is a blessed lesson to learn that I can stay right where I am, not change my
sphere at all, but only change the spirit in which I do God's work, and ask my
blessed Saviour to become a partner with me in my daily toils, and sweeten my
cup, and use my life, and so make it a blessing to my soul and other souls. I am
tempted to tell this great congregation an incident that happened in my own
pastoral life; though it is scarcely of so dignified a character as to justify
appearing in print, it is a most helpful story. I preached one Sunday morning on
the text, "Let every man, in that calling wherein he is found, therein abide
with God." There was a woman in my church who, having a husband, but no family,
used to do all her own work; and there was a part of that work over which she
used every day to fret, and that was washing the dinner dishes after the dinner
was done. She went home that Sunday noon, and after dinner was over she came to
the usual drudgery of washing the smudged pots and kettles. "Oh!" she said to
herself, "it is the same old drudgery!" Then she thought of the text of my
sermon, "Let every man abide in that calling wherein he is found," and "therein
abide with God"; and she just stood there right at the kitchen table, lifted up
her heart and said, "Jesus, come into this kitchen with me, and help me to wash
these pots and kettles, that I may never again fret at any lot that God gives
me." And she told me before I left America, that from that day she had never
known what it was to fret at her kitchen work. That woman grew so much in grace,
in knowledge of God, and in knowledge of the Holy Scripture, that she is today
the head of the women's missionary society in a State of millions of people. Who
can tell what a blessing might come to the men and women of this congregation,
if, coming out of this house of God this morning, they should say to Jesus,
"Come with me into my poor daily drudgery, and sanctify it; and help me never
again to fret or worry at my lot." What a peace of God might come into your
souls, and what a confidence in God into your daily toil! How Christ might
sweeten even your bitter cup for you! And I desire to add, moreover, that
service can only be done when we are living a life of faith. There is a notion
in some peoples' minds that, when Jesus Christ said to his disciples in Matthew
6:33, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you," it was meant only for apostolic days. Believe
me, we should cut about nine-tenths of the sweetest promises out of the Word of
God if we treat them in that fashion. There is just as much occasion to live a
life of faith today as there was in the days of the apostles; and that promise
is just as much for you and for me as it was for them. And what does it mean?
Take as the first object of your life, the extension of the kingdom of God, and
the incorporation into your own life of his righteousness, and he will give you
everything that he sees to be necessary for you. That is the promise! The fact
is, we need a single eye and a single aim. No man can see double and see
correctly and safely. And God wants his children to be single-eyed in his
service, to aim at the extension of his kingdom, to aim at the development of
righteousness in the human character, to keep the eye on the glory of God. You
cannot serve God and Mammon; you cannot be careful and troubled about many
things, and yet have your central and concentrated affection fixed on the one
thing needful. And so our blessed Lord bids you no more to worry even about your
daily support; and he says, if you will first of all live for him, he will see
that, as no sparrow falls to the ground without his notice, and even the hairs
of your head are numbered, you shall have just what is necessary for you. That
is a great promise, is it not?

I hold that worry is calculated, not only to hinder the work of God, but
absolutely to encourage sin in our hearts; and that worry is therefore not only
needless, since we have the promise, but it is sinful—sinful. If you are doing
God's work, what are you worrying about? Is not God able to take care of his own
work? And are you so impertinent as to suppose that he cannot get along without
your solicitude and anxiety concerning his work? And if it is something that
demands worry, then it is not God's work but yours. That is very short logic,
but, to my mind, very conclusive. If you are doing God's work, leave responsible
issues with him; if you are doing work that is not God's work, get out of it
just as soon as possible, and take your proper stand at the side of God, and let
all you do be service for him.

There are some secrets of service that I must touch upon; and may I not first of
all mention obedience? I am satisfied that very few people understand what
obedience is—absolute obedience to God. To hear his Word and follow it; to hear
the suggestions of his Spirit by the "still, small voice," and at once yield
compliance; to mind instantly what conscience enjoins, and never to continue in
a course when you are even doubtful with regard to its propriety—that is
absolute obedience. And it would not be possible to express, in any fitting
language, what God could do with his Church if there were absolute obedience
even in one half of the members of Protestant communions. In the 277th Hegira,
as it is called, there was a rebel sect known as Carmathians, led by Abu Said
and Abu Taher. They were able to command in the field only about five hundred
horse at the time I am speaking of. but they swept down the coasts of Persia,
and approached the city of Bagdad, the capital. The caliph trembled before their
onset, for there was a blind vow of absolute submission to their leader, on the
part of these soldiers. As these five hundred horsemen approached the city, the
caliph sent out his soldiers and burned the bridges, so that they could not
retreat. Then he sent his own lieutenant to say to Abu Taher, who was leading
this body of cavalry, "If you do not surrender, all of your company will be
destroyed." Abu Taher said to the lieutenant, "Your master has thirty thousand
soldiers at his command, but he has not three that are as loyal to him as all
these five hundred horsemen of mine are to me.' He beckoned to one. Said he,
"Plunge the dagger into your breast," and he instantly drove the dagger into his
heart. He said to another, "Leap from that precipice," and immediately he sprang
from the precipice and was dashed in pieces. He said to another, "Fling yourself
into the waters of the Tigris," and, without murmur or hesitation, he threw
himself into the waters and was drowned. "Now," said he, "you may go and tell
the caliph that I have five hundred horsemen mounted, anyone of whom will do
just what these men have done at my command, and tell him that before night I
will have his generals chained with my dogs." And before night the generals of
the caliph were thus chained with those dogs. Five hundred horsemen overcoming
thirty thousand soldiers! How? By absolute obedience to their leader. If God had
in his church today one-tenth of its membership that were absolutely surrendered
to his will, never hesitating, never murmuring, content to follow where he
leads, and do exactly what he commands—with that one-tenth of his followers
Jesus Christ could conquer this whole world to himself.

Let each one of you, as a child of God, ask yourself, "Am I serving God? Am I
serving him? and if not, how may I serve him?" Look at the Greek word here: it
is a word that means to be an under-rower. You know that the ancient war galleys
had banks of oars arranged along the sides of the vessel in tiers, one, two,
three, four, and sometimes five. At each one of these openings in the vessel's
side, an oarsman presided at his oar, sometimes so limited in his range of
vision that he could not even see the oarsman that sat in front of him on
account of the partitions between. The oarsmen were all regulated by one
superior will—the voice and beck of the pilot, and the word used here is the
very word applied to an under-rower. "David, after he had under-rowed in his own
generation." He just took his place at the oars that God gave him, and he pulled
away at those oars, and the vessel was propelled forward under the will of the
pilot. That is all you have to do, just take your place where God puts you, and
do the work he gives you. Never envy your companions in labour, their spheres,
their activities, their services; but look at your own sphere, activity, and
service; and yield absolutely to the will and command of the divine pilot.

Let this great church consider what could be done if all the disciples in this
membership were to work and live in the spirit of service. Here are, at least,
five thousand members in active communion. Suppose that every one of these five
thousand members should resolve, by the grace of God, to take one soul until the
1st of January next as the object of prayer and devout labour, seeking to lead,
at least, one soul to Christ during the coming ten months; there would be five
thousand converts as the reward of that work, for can you doubt for a moment
that God would bless such a consecrated effort as that? There would be double
the membership of this church within one year if each soul here led one other
soul to Jesus Christ. I was yesterday making some slight computation as to what
could be done if there were consecrated giving here, even in small sums. Suppose
each member of this church, for example, should steadfastly set apart a single
penny a day as an average; in one year we should have the princely sum of
£7,600, or more than twice as much as was necessary to pay all the running
expenses of this great church during the last twelve months, irrespective of
benevolent institutions. But since the ability to give is unequal in this great
congregation, suppose there should be two thousand; five hundred persons who
would give a penny a day; one thousand five hundred, twopence; five hundred,
threepence; two hundred and fifty, sixpence; one hundred and fifty, a shilling;
and one hundred who would give two shillings a day (which is only about £36 a
year), it would amount to £19,000 at the close of the year. Some people talk
about these great institutions connected with the Tabernacle going down into
decline because the head Pastor has been withdrawn. I hold that it would be the
greatest reproach, not only to the name of the Pastor, but to the Lord Jesus
Christ and to this church itself, if any paralysis should come upon one of the
institutions connected with this great congregation. This large Christian
membership, by a small average of daily consecrated giving, could support not
only this church, but all its institutions, and, instead of declining, every
form of work for Christ would go forward.

Then consider what people can do in serving God by simply praying. If you are
bed-ridden, if you are too poor to give a penny a day, if you cannot go to a
single public service, is there anything that shall hinder you from praying to
Almighty God for every interest connected with his kingdom and the progress of
his cause here?

We turn for a moment to reflect on the second and third clauses, upon which I
will be brief. "David served his own generation by the will of God;" that is, he
found the sphere of his service in the generation in which he lived. Our
benevolence is sometimes too far sighted, it overlooks immediate wants for more
remote wants. I cannot myself understand how any man to whom God has given large
means, can accumulate those means with reference to their distribution by
legacy. It seems to me a great instance of folly, to say nothing more, that a
man should risk the final appropriation of great gifts which God has entrusted
to him in the way of accumulations of money—that he should risk their finally
reaching their destination by leaving those gifts to be distributed by will. I
have known in America, a princely fortune of two millions sterling absolutely
wasted in legal processes in the court, devoured by those vultures, called
lawyers, instead of being distributed through the channels for which it was
designed. A man who gives while he lives has the satisfaction of seeing his
gifts reach their destination; and has the satisfaction of seeing that the work
of God is advancing under his benefactions. We talk about "generous legacies,"
and "munificent bequests." I do not see how there can be such a thing as a
generous legacy or a munificent bequest. How can a man be generous when he has
no longer any other opportunity of using the money for himself? What munificence
can there be on the part of a man whose dying hand relaxes its grasp on every
earthly possession, and out of which even the gold he had accumulated and
coveted drops? There may be munificent gifts to God and glorious benefactions
while a man lives, but it is very doubtful to me whether we ought to call any
legacy or bequest generous 01 munificent. What a blessed thing for a man while
he lives so to bestow his goods as that widows and orphans are made glad, as
that the greatest institutions are permanently founded on a firm basis, as that
the gospel is spread abroad in all parts of the earth! William E. Dodge, in New
York, was so beneficent a giver that when he died no less than two hundred and
fifty institutions in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa owed either their
existence, or their extension, to what he had done on their behalf. "David
served his own generation." He served his own generation when he was feeding his
flocks, when he learned to use the sling that hurled the stone that smote
Goliath in the forehead, when he learned to play the harp and prepared himself
to become the great psalmist and psalmodist of Israel. He served his own
generation when he carried on the wars of the Lord, and made preparation for
building the temple of the Lord; and there is no reason to believe that he did
not serve God as much in the faithful care of his flocks as when he was
gathering together gold, silver, and precious stones for the erection of the
stately temple of ancient times. We need only to see that all is according to
the will of God. If it is not in obedience to the voice of your Divine Pilot
that you take your place at the oars and do your work, if the plan of your life
is not embraced in the plan of God, if your heart does not by its love and its
loyalty take God's pleasure as your pleasure, how can there be any real service
unto God or unto humanity?

I leave all this to say one word in application on the life of the beloved
departed Pastor of this church. Let me instance one example of his service to
his own generation by the will of God. I will not say a word about the
Orphanage, or the Pastors' College, or the Almshouses, but will simply speak of
him as a preacher of the gospel—a simple, earnest, gospel preacher. I was making
a computation, and I found that he must have preached the gospel, during the
time of his public ministry, to no less than ten millions of people; that during
his pastorate he must have received into communion between ten and twelve
thousand converts; that his sermons must have reached a total of between twenty
and forty millions of readers during the last thirty years; and that, probably,
today there are over fifty millions of people that are reading the account of
his life, and his labours, and his decease and burial. Here then was one man
gathering into the Church of God, through his ministry, not less than twelve
thousands converts, preaching the gospel to not less than ten millions of people
with the living voice, and reaching from twenty to forty millions of people with
his printed sermons during thirty years. Then all of you must know how those
sermons have gone round the world, translated into twenty languages and
dialects, at least, of which we know—Danish, Swedish, Russian, Dutch, German,
French, Swiss, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hindustani, Chinese, Japanese,
Syriac, Arabic, Gaelic, the languages of Africa and of the South Sea Islands; on
the continent of Asia; on the continent of Europe; going into South America,
North America, Canada; penetrating into every part of the earth, so that it is
impossible for us to form a correct and exact estimate today, of the marvellous
influence of that one voice and that one pen. And I have made no reference
whatever to the multitude of works, aside from sermons and volumes of sermons,
that he produced by his laborious pen. The testimony has been given throughout
this memorial service, and given by men of all denominations from all quarters,
that he was the princely preacher of this century, and that no doubt his
messages of the gospel had more rapidly and more distantly permeated the world
than those of any other man, living or dead, in the century. Would it not be a
privilege to serve the same God that Charles H. Spurgeon served? Are there none
of you this morning that will look unto Jesus and be saved as he was, and find
the secret of pardon and acceptance in those blessed words, "He hath made us
accepted in the beloved"? What a marvellous change will take place in your life
this morning, if, as you go out of this house, you should say to God,
"Henceforth thy will shall be the guiding star of my whole existence; I will
undertake to serve God with holy living, to serve God with holy giving, to serve
God with devout praying, to serve God by instant and constant obedience, to
serve God by taking my place wherever God puts me, doing whatever work he gives
me to do, and with all my heart seeking to glorify my Master." Then, my beloved
friends, it may be your joy and mine, by-and-by, to stand where he stands in the
presence of the Lord of Glory, and receive from our Master, the divine words of
commendation that have already fallen upon his ears, "Well done, good and
faithful servant."


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  CHAPTER 23: CHAPTER TWENTY
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Chapter 20. Remember your Leader A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Arthur T. Pierson,
D.D. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle On Lord's-day Evening, February 14th, 1892.

"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word
of God, whose faith follow, considering the end their conversation."—Hebrews
13:7.

Along this upper railing you may all read that significant motto: "Remember the
word that I said unto you; being yet present with you;" and to amplify the
meaning of that motto will be my special object now.

Those who were present at the Memorial Service for the church members, will
recall how Dr. Angus made this text the staple of his remarks, venturing to give
a new rendering of it, which is rather more literal; "Bear in mind your leaders,
since they have spoken unto you the Word of God; observing the end of their
life-course, imitate their faith."

Spiritual leaders are of the highest importance to the human race. Few of us are
capable of leadership, and so we need to have leaders to follow; and in all ages
of the world God has given to men leaders—leaders in education, leaders in
politics, leaders in philanthropy, and leaders in great religious movements; and
inasmuch as the well-being of souls is of supreme importance, leadership in
spiritual things is a supreme want and need of the human family.

It is of great importance that we should recognize such leaders, when God gives
them to us. If it be needful that we should have leaders, it is equally so that
we should not be misled by false guides, and therefore it is of such high
importance that we should be able to determine what are the marks of a true,
God-sent teacher. This text, whatever may be its other value, is mainly of
importance, because it indicates three tests of a genuine, God-sent leader. In
the first place he speaks the word of God, in the second place his faith is
fixed on a personal Saviour; and, in the third place, his life conforms to the
Word of God and to the faith in Christ, and ends in a glorious immortality.
Wherever we find those three indications meeting in any man or woman, we may
recognize the heaven-sent leader, and it is at our peril if we do not follow
such leadership. There may, apparently, be one of these signs without the other
two, or there may even appear to be two of those signs without the other, and
third. In such cases doubt is justified: but, when the three are united, there
can be no more reasonable question that such a man is one of God's anointed
kings. As there are three indications of God's heaven-sent leaders here noted,
so there are three corresponding duties that pertain to the common mass of
mankind. The first is that we should bear in mind the heaven-sent leader for the
sake of his message. The second is that we should watch and observe his heavenly
course of life, and especially its glorious end;and the third is that we should
copy or imitate his faith in a personal Christ; and I am sure you will agree
with me, that no text could be more appropriate to the closing portion of these
memorial services, that have extended through a fortnight, than this text. Bear
in mind your great departed leader, because he spoke to you faithfully the Word
of God; look back over the course of his life, and especially mark its glorious
end; and from henceforth become imitators of his personal faith in a personal
Saviour.

Let us, then, for a few moments, reflect upon these signs of a heaven-sent
leader, and then apply them to the beloved and departed Pastor. In the first
place, a heaven-sent leader speaks the Word of God. God has communicated his
messages to men; and I believe, personally, that in a grand sense the prophetic
office always has been in the world, and always will be in the world, till the
end of time. What is a prophet? A prophet is not necessarily one who predicts
future events. Prediction was but one mark of a prophet, and did not mark all
prophets, either. A. prophet is one who stands before men, to speak in behalf of
God. Most of the Old Testament prophets predicted, because it was pleasing to
God that those who spoke in his name should indicate to men the great events of
the future, and especially the coming events that had to do with the Messiah;
but, as was said before, it is no necessary mark of the prophetic office or
person, that he predicts future events. The difference between the Old Testament
prophets and New Testament prophets lies mainly in this: Old Testament prophets
spoke in behalf of God when, as yet, there were no written Scriptures, or when
those written Scriptures were being gradually accumulated to make the complete
book. Therefore, it was essential that prophets should be guarded by divine
inspiration from any false or even fallible utterances. It was needful that
there should be a compact body of revelation known as the Word of God, and they
were chosen as the vehicles for creating or producing this Word of God, and
therefore the great requisite was infallible inspiration. The character of the
man speaking was of no particular consequence, in comparison to the character of
his message. And so it pleased God sometimes to speak through men that were not
what they ought to be, as in the case of Balaam and as in the case of Saul,
because He thus magnified the office and function of the prophet above the
person or character of the man. The message of God was the main thing, and if
God chose to give that message through lips that were estranged from Him by
wicked works, He might follow His own pleasure. But in these New Testament times
the Word of God has been given, and given in final completeness. Hence there is
no longer a necessity that any should help to produce the written Word of God.
We have that in its entirety, its inspiration, its infallibility, and now, what
we need prophets for is to interpret the word that God has given and apply it to
human hearts. Hence arises a necessity that the character and life of the man
who is to interpret the Scriptures shall be in accordance with the Scriptures. I
think that we may safely say that, in modern times, God never chooses an
unconverted or an unholy man to be the true vehicle of His message to his
fellowmen. Character is of prime importance, as we shall see before we get
through with this investigation; but what I would just now impress upon your
minds is that a prophet is essentially a divine teacher and that, although the
gift of predicting future events may no longer be a part of the qualification of
a prophet, the prophetic office continues in the Church of God. Every man who
preaches, and teaches, and testifies the Gospel of the grace of God, in
accordance with the conditions here laid down, backing his gospel message by his
personal faith in a personal Christ, and living such a life of godliness as
shows that the message has taken root in his own heart—such a man is one of
God's prophets, one of God's anointed ones, and it is at the peril of men that
they do not receive the testimony of his lips and of his life. That I take to be
the solemn sentiment of the text; and the meaning of that august and solemn
admonition is, "Bear ye in mind your spiritual leaders, seeing that they have
spoken unto you the very message of God. Keep your eye on their lives, and
especially mark their glorious end, and become ye imitators of their faith in a
personal Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for ever, and therefore as
ready to be your Saviour as he was to be theirs." With regard to the application
of the test, whether a prophet speaks the Word of God or not, how shall we know
that the message which God's spiritual leader brings to us has the authority of
the Most High? Even this is not left without criteria or means of forming a
judgment. For instance, we are told in the eighth chapter of the prophecy of
Isaiah, one of the great marks that shall always distinguish the utterances of a
true spiritual leader. In the twentieth verse of that chapter we read "To the
law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word it is because
there is no light in them." That is the first test. Does the preaching or
teaching of a spiritual leader correspond with the written Word of God? There is
to be found the infallible standard of doctrine and duty. There is the great
court of final appeal; beyond this no appeal can be carried, even to the throne
of God, because the authority of God is in that book: and therefore he says,
"Test every spiritual leader by the law and by the testimony of Holy Scripture,
and if he speaks not according to this word, there is no light in him, and
therefore he can shed no light on your spiritual darkness and duty." That
criterion would unseat from their thrones hundreds of so-called spiritual
leaders, who, in this day, to the astonishment of those of us who thoroughly
believe this Word of God, seem to consider that their office is rather to cast
doubt on the Holy Scripture than to confirm the confidence of men in this
blessed Word; men who seem to use the pulpit as the place from which to spread
rather their own misgivings and negations than their own convictions and
affirmations, and who employ both tongue and pen rather to destroy than to
construct faith in other souls. For one, I say, away with all these leaders!
They are not God-given men. Again, let it be put on record, that the first test
that a man is God's leader and speaks God's message, is that, accepting this
Word of God as his guide, as the source from which he derives the authority of
his message, the substance of his message and the spirit of his message, he
preaches and teaches nothing new—old truths in new lights, it may be, but no new
truths, for there are none. That which is new and not old is not true. All
spiritual truth is as old as God is, and even the revelation of spiritual truth
is as old as the Bible is. Men may talk about "progressive theology," but such a
progressive theology only goes backwards, progressing only in the wrong
direction. There is no addition to be made to the law and testimony. The only
addition possible is in the spiritual interpretation and understanding of the
law and testimony by the increase of spiritual insight and life in the teacher
and the believer. That is the only true progress; and if people would pay more
attention to their capacity for progress in that direction, leaving the Word of
God unmutilated, and seeking simply to open their own minds and hearts to its
testimony and to the incoming of the Holy Ghost, we should find, instead of a
progressive theology, progressive theologians and progressive disciples. A
second test that the spiritual leader is delivering God's message is to be found
in the fact that he considers his own thoughts and conceptions as insignificant
in comparison with those of God. They are mere "chaff." If they include and
embrace the Word of God, and are the means of setting forth that Word, they are,
like the husk, valuable for the sake of the kernel within; but if it be only
their own dreams and visions that these teachers are giving to men, there is
nothing but chaff without a kernel, to be borne away by the first wind that
blows. And so Jeremiah says concerning the preaching of the Word: "What is the
chaff to the wheat?" We have long insisted, and again emphatically repeat, that
what the people need on matters of doctrine and duty, is not what "I think" or
another man "thinks" (for all have equally a right to "think,") but what God
thinks. Man's "opinion" changes; God's opinion never changes; man's
"conceptions" of truth differ; God's idea of truth is eternally the same. A
third evidence is given to us in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, in the
first chapter, and it is especially necessary to emphasize this in our day. Paul
says, in the seventeenth verse, "The things that I purpose, do I purpose
according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay? But
as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and
Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea." That passage seems by many
hard to be understood, but it is very simple. "Yea" is the word of
affirmation—"It is so." "Nay" is the word of denial—"It is not so." Paul says,
"Our preaching among you was not yea and nay." It did not consist of alternate
positive and negative statements, of affirmations here and denials there; but it
was one great, emphatic "Yea," that is, the utterance of positive truth backed
by positive conviction. There are some professed teachers who, as I said before,
seem to feel themselves called upon to tell others what they doubt. Goethe, the
sceptic, says, "Give us your convictions; as for doubts, we have quite enough of
our own." Men have no need to have their faith destroyed; they rather want to
have it built up. They have no need to have doubts implanted in their minds;
doubts spring up like weeds. What we want is faith, and, in order to faith, we
want men of positive conviction, speaking positive truths. And here is another
sign of a God-sent leader. He comes before men with truths and facts that he
doubts not, to speak what he knows, and so he speaks with the positiveness and
authority of absolute certainty, "We know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved," etc. "We know that we have passed from death unto
life." "We know him that is true." "We know that we have eternal life." "We know
that we are of God." Who would not rather hear a preacher of the gospel say with
confident certainty of conviction, "One thing I know," than to have him tell you
ten thousand things that he did not know, or of which he was uncertain? A fourth
sign that one is speaking according to the Word of God, is that the true teacher
of Christ speaks by the testimony of the Holy Ghost. In the first Epistle to the
Corinthians, the second chapter, we read these words: "I brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and much
trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should
hot stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." A true spiritual
leader will be known by the fact that, when he speaks to men, his utterance is
attended with the demonstration of the Holy Ghost—not simply the demonstration
of logic, but the demonstration of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, God will
acknowledge and own his appointed leader by accompanying his teaching with his
own power. There will be conversions among the unsaved; there will be
edification and sanctification among believers; there will be a stirring up in
the church of God and in the world when God's anointed king wields God's
sceptre, and delivers God's message. It is a sign of spiritual leadership that
spiritual power, in some form, attends the utterance of God's message.

Here, then, are God's great marks of a spiritual teacher: he will speak
according to the written Word of God; he will not deliver himself of mere human
opinions; he will speak the language of personal conviction and positive
statement; and he will speak with the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. When you
find those four things united, you need have no more doubt that the spiritual
teacher is one who is delivering to you the message of God.

Another test is hinted by Jeremiah, in the twenty-third chapter, where he writes
about the false prophets, who delude and deceive Israel "by their lies and by
their lightness." Notice the collocation of those two words, "lies and
lightness," i. e., falsehood and frivolity! In proportion to the soundness of a
gospel preacher, his attachment to the Word of God, the depth of his experience,
and the consistency of his life, will be the solemnity with which he preaches.
On the other hand, when a man cuts loose from the Word of God, and begins to
lead an inconsistent life, and loses hold on a personal Saviour, he begins to
talk frivolity. For myself, although I have the keenest sense of the humorous
and the ridiculous, and doubt not that humour has its part to play in a man's
service, and has its lawful place in his utterance, I have always avoided
conscientiously all invasions of the solemnity of the house of God by any
jesting or trifling. And why? Suppose you go to a physician, believing yourself
to have a cancer on the breast that is eating away at your vitals, and. so close
to your heart that it imperils your very existence. You go to one who is
accustomed to deal with cancer as his specialty. You open your mind to him, and
show him the cancerous sore. With a smile and a joke, he says, "Oh, just go home
and put on a bread and milk poultice." What would you think? You would come to
the conclusion either that the man does not know anything about cancers, or else
that you have nothing serious to worry about—would you not? You come to the
house of God; the man in the pulpit professes to deal with the realities and
verities of eternity, and to speak in the name of God to men; he professes to
believe that you are a lost sinner, that perdition is before you, and that there
is no hope for you except in the blood of Jesus Christ. And yet he gets up and
begins to trifle, to talk lightly and deal in frivolities; and you come to the
conclusion either that he does not believe his own message, or else that you are
in no danger. I therefore protest that, for the preacher of the gospel, no
attitude of mind is proper, except the solemnity of deep earnestness; and that
lies are scarcely more delusive than lightness on the part of a gospel preacher.
And so God would have his appointed leaders manifest and exhibit the fact that
they are his appointed leaders, not only by their clinging to the Word of God,
by their assertion of positive conviction in positive statement, by the abundant
power of the Spirit of God in their ministry, but also by the solemn and awful
earnestness with which they press the truths of God upon the consciences of men.

Let us now consider briefly the other two great marks of an anointed king of
God—the personal faith in a personal Christ, and the holy course of life that
ends in a glorious immortality. Do not you see a "progress of doctrine" here?—a
development of truth? How can a child of God become God's anointed teacher and
preacher to men, if the Word of God has not first taken hold of himself and made
a new man of him? How can he preach the Christ of God, who is the centre of the
gospel revelation, unless he personally believes in that Christ, and believes on
that Christ, and is one with him by faith? Is not the preaching of the gospel
experimental? Men do not want a mere intellectual display of learning, even
though that learning be the mastery of the contents of the Word of God. You all
like to hear a man speak whose heart speaks to your heart, instead of his head
speaking to your head? That man preaches the gospel most powerfully on whose
soul that gospel has first wrought the very results that he seeks to work in the
souls of others. If I am not enamoured of Christ, I cannot make Christ appear as
the Sun of righteousness, in whose presence all the stars fade. If he is not to
me as precious ointment poured forth, that fills every apartment of my being
with its glorious savour, how can I make him appear precious and fragrant to
you? If he has not redeemed me from my sin, with what force can I assure you
that he will redeem you from yours? If he has not satisfied my soul, how can I
assure you that you will find in him the living bread and water that make hunger
and thirst impossible? God's anointed king, who shall melt a million wills into
the will of God, must be the man who comes with God's message, that has set his
soul afire, and has set his own tongue ablaze. He must feel its melting power
who would make others feel it. The man who preached in this Tabernacle, was a
living sermon on this text. Let us look at this magnificent example of these
principles, which was thus, for thirty years, furnished in this very pulpit, and
for nearly forty years in his ministry in the city of London. God's word to this
congregation to-night is, "Remember your great spiritual leader, who spoke to
you the word of God. Mark his life, and its end, and copy his faith."

Charles H. Spurgeon was the most notable example that modern times have
furnished of the union of these three elements to which I have adverted. There
has been perhaps, no preacher of the age or century who has so rigidly confined
his message to the Word of God as did that man. I call this congregation to
witness, that they have heard from no other living preacher, messages so
saturated with the thought and very dialect of the Holy Scriptures. It has been
my privilege to hear most of the greatest preachers of the world, and I say,
without depreciating any other man, living or dead, that I never heard such a
gospel preacher as Charles H. Spurgeon. Nearly twenty-six years ago I was in
this Tabernacle, in the month of August, 1866. I remember just where I sat, and
the whole scene is indelibly impressed on my memory. I had then myself been
preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ for more than six years, as an ordained
minister, but on that morning I was convicted of sin. Such preaching I never had
heard; such praying I never had heard; such praising I never had heard; and I
went home to be a different man. That morning's experience revolutionized my
ministry. It created in me a divine dissatisfaction with everything that I had
been or done before, for I saw how mighty the simple gospel might be made,
backed by deep heart-conviction and preached with a positiveness of statement;
and I said, "If Christ Jesus, and he alone, can be made so gloriously attractive
as that, and draw the people in such multitudes, God forbid that I should
attempt any other method of making my life serviceable to men, or of drawing the
people within the sound of my voice!" And if there is any power in my preaching
of the simple gospel I owe it, under God, to what I heard from Charles Haddon
Spurgeon in 1866. I challenge you to find any man living who exalts Christ more
than he did, whose personal conviction of the truth was more positive, or who
lived out, to the end, more consistently, the faith he preached.

Some say that he was so positive in his beliefs, that he had no compassion upon
people who doubted. Would that we had many more like him! He would not encourage
doubt where doubt concerned the infallible Word of God. He was not the man to
countenance the notion that doubt is something meritorious, the sign of a higher
order of intellect and culture, a notion which is one of the subtlest snares of
the day in which we are living. Doubt is so in the fashion, that the "first
families" in the intellectual world have adopted a new escutcheon, or shield, to
signalize their intellectual greatness, and on that shield they have had
engraved a huge question mark, an interrogation point (?), as though the mark of
a great mind and superb culture is to question all things that have been
undoubted, and put a doubt upon all the verities of God.

Dr. C. F. Deems says, "believe your beliefs, and doubt your doubts." Never make
the mistake of believing your doubts and doubting your beliefs, for that
temptation is in the very atmosphere of this sceptical age. Men and women are
prone to doubt the things that have always been believed, and to believe the
things that at least have been always doubted, and so to transfer their
confidence to the wrong side of the scale. I bless God for the man that stood in
this pulpit. He knew whom he believed, and knew the truth, for all his testimony
was the result of experience and experiment. There must be an awful condemnation
in store for those who, in this place, have heard this greatest of gospel
preachers, and have not yet believed. I would to God that I had the tongue of
the archangel to plead with and persuade you. Suppose that God should say to
you, in eternity, only this one word: "Remember, remember, REMEMBER"! What if,
hereafter, your mind is compelled to turn back to the sermons that you have
heard delivered with such transcendent power from this platform, by that
departed saint, and you must "remember" how he never preached a sermon in which
he did not plead with sinners. When he was a lad he wandered through the place
in which he lived seeking to find some comfort for his awakened soul, and could
not, until at last he heard a plain sermon, whose message was: "Look unto me and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." Then, the same day, he heard another
sermon about being "accepted in the beloved," and he came home and told his
father that he learned the way of salvation in the morning, but that he found
the secret of pardon, peace and conscious acceptance in the evening. What a day
that was for him! "And now" he said, "I will never preach a gospel sermon in
which a sinner may not find the way to Jesus Christ? I do not think that there
has been another man in the century who could say that. For myself, while I have
tried to be a gospel preacher, I am sure I have preached many sermons in the
course of my life, in which a sinner would have found it very difficult to
discover the message of grace, or the way of salvation. Yet I bless God that,
when I came to preach in this pulpit, I resolved, God helping me, that I would
never henceforth preach a sermon in which I did not, in some form or other,
uphold the crucified Christ. Well may less faithful preachers envy that blessed
man, who could thus look back over forty-two years of his preaching of the
gospel, and could never recall a sermon through which a sinner could not have
found Christ! I pray God that you, who have sat under such a ministry, may not
be lost, else you will be dreadfully lost. I pray you do not persist in going
down to perdition, for every sermon that you have heard from Charles H. Spurgeon
will be an additional weight on you to sink you down to the lowest depths.
Remember him. He has been taken from you, but remember him. Remember his
message. Follow his faith. Mark the consistency and beauty of his life, and even
at this late day be turned to the Saviour that he served, and follow him.

I will read to you, as I close, a passage from one of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons,
which he preached at Park Street Chapel, Southwark, in 1858. It was on the
subject of "Death a Sleep"; and in the course of it he used these words—let us
think of him as saying them to us to-night:—"And now, beloved, we shall soon all
of us die. I shall have a gravestone in a few years planted over my grave in
memory of me. Some of you I hope may say, 'There lies our minister, who once
gathered us together in the house of God, led us to the mercy seat and joined us
in our song. There lies one who was often despised and rejected of men, but whom
God did nevertheless bless to the salvation of our souls, and whose testimony he
sealed in our hearts and consciences by the operation of the Holy Ghost.'
Perhaps some of you will visit my tomb and bring a few flowers to scatter upon
it in glad and grateful remembrance of the happy hours that we spent together in
the house of God."

It almost seems to me that, absent, he is still present and pleading with souls
here to come to Christ. If there be any such thing in heaven as a knowledge of
what is going on, on earth, Charles Haddon Spurgeon is assuredly looking down on
this great congregation to-night. If there is such a thing as prayer in heaven,
he is praying now for souls in this assembly. We know nothing about the
communication between this world and the other; but communication will be opened
by-and-by, and with each one of you in turn. While the Lord tarries, let us hope
that Charles Haddon Spurgeon's reward will go on accumulating even now in
multiplied conversions. But, best of all, we would have the jewels in the
Saviour's crown made complete, and Christ see of the travail of his soul and be
satisfied.

Here stood, for all these years, one of God's anointed kings. He preached the
gospel with royal authority and spiritual power; he preached it with positive
conviction; with personal faith in a personal Saviour, for I never knew a man
whose heart bounded toward a personal Christ with intenser love than his. He
preached it by the demonstration of the Holy Ghost. Multitudes were converted
and saved and rejoice in God today; and I say to you now, solemnly, that if any
of you have ever been doubtful that this is the Word of God, ever been doubtful
that there is such a person as the Holy Ghost, ever been doubtful that there is
such a thing as a transforming power in the Christian life, that departed Pastor
ought to be the sufficient evidence of Christianity to you all; for there is no
possibility of accounting for that one man if there is not a God; if this Bible
is not his Word; if Christ is not a real Saviour; and if the Holy Ghost does not
give the new heart and transform the life into the image of God. In the face of
all infidels of all ages, and of the abounding infidelity of the present age, I
boldly affirm that that one man, who has recently gone from us into the eternal
glory, is the standing refutation of infidelity. He can be accounted for in no
way, except by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The only
philosophy sufficient to explain him is that this Bible contains, and is, the
very Word of God, and that the message faithfully proclaimed, embedded and
embodied in the heart and expanded in the life, is the essential divine message
of reconciliation and salvation.

I can say no more. May God the Holy Spirit seal to your mind and heart the
message of life and salvation that Mr. Spurgeon preached in this pulpit; and
make it impossible for you to do otherwise than "remember the word THAT HE SPAKE
UNTO YOU,—BEING YET PRESENT WITH you:"! Amen


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  CHAPTER 24: CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
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Chapter 21. A Thoroughly Furnished Life A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Arthur T.
Pierson, D.D. In the Metropolitan Tabernacle On Thursday Evening, February 25th,
1892

"I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in
thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee
also."—2 Timothy 1:5.

"Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of,
knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known
the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through
faith which is in Christ Jesus, All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works."—2 Timothy 3:14-17.

You will all expect me not only preach the gospel, but also to speak of that
departed saint and pastor, preacher and organizer, who for so long a time, stood
in this pulpit as God's ambassador. Happily, it is quite easy and natural to
combine these two things. It is not every man of whom we might discourse, and at
the same time, preach the gospel; but as Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a kind of
living gospel, to talk about him is to talk about the blessed Master himself,
whose he was, and whom he served. So I shall endeavour, by God's help, in some
measure to meet your expectation, by combining gospel truth, with an
illustration and example of it, in the beloved and departed Spurgeon. No
question absorbs more of the thought, especially of the young, than the
question, What are the secrets of success in life? Every one of us desires
success. Failure is humiliating, disappointing, disastrous. Success is
inspiring, encouraging, rewarding.

What, then, are the secrets of the highest success? Not a success that is
temporary and transient; not a success which is deceptive and superficial; not a
success which, as God interprets it, is itself failure; but a success which God
counts such, and which in God's book of remembrance has an honourable record;
for there is a scroll on which stands no unworthy name, and where no deed done
for Christ and for humanity, fails of an honourable, illustrious, and enduring
record. And the question is, "How may my name stand on that scroll, emblazoned
in letters of light, with a record as imperishable as the life of God?" That is
an aspiration which may well put to shame any inferior and worldly ambition.
Such an aspiration is not unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, "who, for
the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame."

These verses from the second Epistle of Paul to Timothy, as we shall see, if we
closely and carefully examine them, suggest to us certain great secrets of a
successful life; and for convenience sake, I will select first the foundation;
second, familiarity with the Scriptures; third, faith in a personal Saviour; and
fourth, furnishing for good works. All these four are suggested in these verses,
and constitute, in fact, the leading thoughts of this passage. The foundation of
Timothy's successful life was laid in a holy ancestry; the source of his
knowledge and wisdom was found in familiarity with the entire Word of God; the
bond of faith in the personal Saviour supplied the personal element and
inspiration; and last of all, there was a thorough furnishing or complete
equipment for the work of life. Of course there may be other secrets of power;
and yet I question whether, within these four, there may not lie the germ of
every possible secret of the highest success, I shall first advert to these very
briefly, and then show how they were illustrated in the marvellous career of
that servant of God, whose work of faith and whose voice of witness we shall
henceforth know only in remembrance. I. First, let us look at those foundations
of success, WHICH ARE LAID IN A GODLY PARENTAGE AND ANCESTRY. When a
distinguished philosopher and wise man of these modern times was asked the
question, "When should the character of a child begin to be formed?" he
answered, "At least, one hundred years before the child is born." And this was
no jest: he indulged in no trifling. He meant that in parental character—nay,
even farther back than that&mdashin ancestral character—there were found the
formative influences that determine largely what the child or the grandchild
shall be. We do not sufficiently appreciate the far-reaching influence of what
is called, in these days, "heredity," or the influence that flows down through
the channels of our ancestry and affects our character, our conduct, and,
largely, our destiny. In the recent criminal investigations in the United States
of America, there was found a family, known as the Jukes family, that was traced
through all the branches back to one godless, profane stock. To one vile man
were traced, directly, 709 descendants, and indirectly, 1,200. The most of these
were criminals, vagabonds, outcasts and paupers. At least, 76 of the number had
been habitual criminals, guilty of 115 different offences; and there were 52 per
cent, of all the women in that large family that were abandoned, living by the
price of their own shame. Most of these descendants had been for some time,
greater or less, in prison. There were not more than 20 of the entire 709 that
had ever learned a skilled trade, and 10 out of the 20 had learned that trade in
jail. Now here were from 700 to 1200 characters, mostly criminal, all of whom
could be traced to one ancestral fountain. Those who have been familiar with
such slums in great cities as the Five Points in New York, and the Seven Dials
in London—those who have seen the successive crops of generation after
generation of iniquity, will know how the product deteriorates, and by how
fearfully rapid a descent children sink to lower and lower depths of degradation
and depravity. If this is the case where vice and crime are regnant, who shall
dare to tell us that there may not be a corresponding ascent to higher levels,
when godly parents, holding body, mind, and will in subjection to conscience and
the Spirit of God, beget, conceive, and rear their children in the fear of God?
We have no reason to hope that children will ever be regenerated before birth,
though many have, doubtless, like John the Baptist, been full of the Holy Ghost
from their mothers' womb; but I have no doubt that godly parents, by
self-sacrifice and self-control in the grace of God, may transmit to children
aptitudes, to say the least, for a higher mental, moral, and spiritual condition
than would have been possible under other circumstances; and these aptitudes
may, at least, prepare the way for altitudes—higher elevations, nobler and purer
and hoiler attainments, characters and lives. Paul called to remembrance the
unfeigned faith which was in Timothy, which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois
and his mother Eunice. That is to say, there was a sort of heredity to his
faith; it bore the parental complexion and feature, and there was a connection
between the faith of the mother and the faith of the child, and even that of the
grandmother and the grandchild. Here, then, the foundations of a successful life
were laid in parental consecration. I speak of this first, not only because it
is first in the text, but because I am addressing largely those who are, or in
the future are likely to be, parents. I beseech you, sanctify your bodies, your
minds, your hearts. Sanctify wedlock and marriage.

Let children be begotten, conceived, born, reared, in the fear of God, and let
it be felt to be the most solemn responsibility that any human being can assume
in the eyes of God, to bring a child into this world. These are delicate
subjects, for the most parts forbidden to the pulpit; but the time is coming
when this mock-modesty will no longer be countenanced, and when ministers of
Christ shall feel free to speak in the name of God concerning the springs of
human life in parental character and personal self-dedication, and how those
springs may be purified with the salt of the gospel. II. The second secret of a
successful life, here unveiled to US, is FAMILIARITY WITH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
It is said of Hengstenberg, the famous scholar, that on one occasion in the
presence of his students, he took up a Greek New Testament and said, "Young
gentlemen, within the covers of this book, all the wisdom of the ages is
concentrated." If I might contribute my little word of witness on this great
subject, I have found in the patient study of the Word of God, in the original
tongues, which began when I was twelve years of age, the fountain of the highest
knowledge and wisdom—knowledge is only the accumulation of information, but
wisdom is skill and sagacity in the use of knowledge. That one book imparts
both, and is itself a library as well as an encyclopaedia. To the fervent,
devout, and careful student that one book brings the advantages of a university
education. All the treasures of divine wisdom and knowledge that can be
communicated to man, are hid in this Thesaurus or treasury of God. And those
who, from beginning to end, revere it as the Word of God, those who study it
daily, systematically, and prayerfully, those who believe it to be the utterance
of the Holy Ghost, and therefore to be illumined properly to our understanding
and heart only by the Holy Ghost, and who both expect and receive divine
guidance in searching into these wonders, will find in the Bible everything that
stimulates the noblest thought, the purest love, the most correct conscientious
judgment, and the holiest and firmest resolve.

Begin therefore with children, and teach them the Holy Scripture. Let children
commit the Scriptures to memory, even before they are able to understand the
words which they commit, for, be assured, while such commission to memory of the
Holy Scriptures in childhood, may, for the time being, oftentimes be a form,
without a proper and intelligent apprehension, that form will abide in the
memory, to be filled out by increasing intelligence and growing appreciation of
what the words contain and express.

I am thankful to God, in every fibre of my being, that for thirty years I have
been accustomed to commit to memory, day by day, texts of Scripture; and, as the
Malagasy, during the great persecution of twenty-five years in Madagascar, found
that the Scriptures which they had put in memory's keeping, could neither be
torn to pieces, nor burned to ashes, but were their permanent and perpetual
possession, so I bless God that, however men might destroy the written Word of
God as printed in various languages, upon the unseen tablets of my own
intellectual and moral being, much of the Word of God is permanently engrossed,
and only the annihilation of my memory could remove it. From a child let your
little ones learn the Holy Scriptures, and commit their sacred words to memory;
and then, so far and so fast as the understanding enlarges by experience and
observation, the form of sacred words will become more pregnant with the spirit,
and what was, in the child, the mere shell of knowledge, shall be found to hold
a precious kernel for his intellectual and spiritual apprehension and
appreciation.

III. The third element in success suggested here is faith in a personal Saviour.
Whenever we stop short of the Christ of God, we have not found the centre even
of gospel truth. The Word of God, to those who carefully study it. seems, the
more they search it, only a firmament for the glorious display of the Sun of
Righteousness, or a garden for the setting forth of the beauty of the Rose of
Sharon, and the diffusing of his sacred fragrance. To those who love the Christ
of the Scriptures, the Church itself in its best estate is only a telescope,
through which to look at the Star of Bethlehem; to separate it from all
surrounding objects, and limit the field of vision so that one may gaze upon it
with the more satisfaction and the more enlargement of soul; and every
fellowship of disciples becomes the more precious, because in the resemblance of
the children of God to the eternal Son of God, his image is made more vivid and
visible. We must magnify the personal bond of faith! Suspect any creed that
either leaves out the Christ or obscures him. Suspect any church that teaches
you to look at its machinery of ordinances and sacraments, rather than through
and past them all, to the eternal Redeemer himself. Suspect any work, even of
mercy and charity and philanthropy, that leaves out of view the glory of Jesus
Christ. The personal bond is that which determines the Christian, for
Christianity is not a creed without a life, any more than it is a life without a
creed. Christianity is Christ-ianity. It makes Christ central in its doctrine,
central in its duty, central in the destiny of believers; and whoever has not
gotten hold of Christ, has not gotten hold of Christianity. Humboldt, the great
German, wrote five volumes of "The Cosmos," or description of the material
universe; but in those five volumes I have never yet found the word "God." Some
people discuss Christianity in volumes, and do not see that the King of the
Christian system, who, from his throne, sways his sceptre over all Christian
doctrine, and life, and history, is the eternal Son of God, Moreover, no man
understands the Bible who does not understand Christ, for Christ is the key of
the Bible. He interprets types; he fulfils prophecies; he unlocks even historic
characters and historic events. Adam and Abraham and Joseph, Moses and Joshua,
David and Solomon, Daniel and Isaiah, are enigmas if you do not understand
Christ. He unlocks the mysteries of the word, and the blood that he shed
unlooses the seven-sealed book of the Apocalypse.

IV. One other secret of success suggested by the text demands notice, before I
apply and illustrate these truths by that remarkable life that has faded out
from before our eyes; and that secret is the thorough furnishing for GOOD WORKS.

"Thoroughly furnished unto all good works." It is not to be overlooked that this
furnishing, like the learning, the wisdom, the knowledge, to which we have
referred, is here traced to the Holy Scriptures. "All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,"—that is teaching; "for
reproof,"—that is the rebuking of evil and the stirring up of the conscience;
"for correction,"—that is the reinstatement of the man after he has fallen,
putting him upon his feet; "and instruction in righteousness,"—that is the full
training of the man in the knowledge and performance of all that which is
righteous in God's sight; "that the man of God may be made perfect," or
complete, "thoroughly furnished," or equipped, "unto all good works." The Bible
is, then, not only the source and foundation of the highest knowledge and
wisdom, it is the House Beautiful, such as Bunyan saw in his vision of the
pilgrim; within it there is everything that a pilgrim can ask: the Dormitory,
where he can rest after the weariness of the labour and toil of his march, the
Refectory where he will find living bread and living water, the milk for the
babe, the strong meat for the man, and the delicious honey out of the rock.
There is the Picture Gallery, where he shall look on the characters of olden
times portrayed for warning, on the one side, for imitation on the other. In
that House Beautiful is the Armoury, where he can equip himself from head to
foot with the complete panoply of God.

There is also the Lavatory where the fountains of water and of blood give him
perfect cleansing from the penalty and power of sin. Not only so, but the
Observatory through whose windows he can look out on celestial scenes, and even
into the very face of God. There is nothing that cannot be found in that House
Beautiful for him who goes forth as God's pilgrim-saint to God's work and war in
this wicked world.

Let us now spend a little while in illustrating these four secrets of success by
this most remarkable man.

I need not tell you that Charles Haddon Spurgeon had a godly ancestry reaching
back to the times of the martyrs. He belonged not only to godly parentage and
grand parentage, but to a line of ministers of the Word of God, who held fast to
the old truths which he so gloriously preached, and for which he so laboriously
strove, so that he was but the last result of a series of generations of
Christian fathers and mothers who had feared God and served him, who had studied
the Holy Scriptures, and had been linked by faith to a personal Christ; and in
himself he represented aptitudes that had been created or fostered in them, and
so rose to altitudes seldom attained by any of the men of his generation. As was
eloquently said here by Dr. Evans, on the day of the commemorative services,
some people have tried to depreciate Mr. Spurgeon by saying that he was "without
early advantages of birth and training," but, with Dr. Evans, we affirm that no
man of his generation, perhaps, was more blessed by early advantages of birth
and training. Give me a godly father and mother, and godly grandparents, and I
will forego social position and rank and honourable titles, and the wealth and
the fame of this world. Give me this, and I will forego, if it please God, all
the schools of man for the sake of training in this school of God.

He who owed so much under God to a godly ancestry was, from a child, trained in
the Holy Scriptures; and everybody who knew him knows how wise they made him
unto salvation. Even as a boy he knew his Bible; and at an age when most of us
were but boys, he began to preach the gospel, and, from the first, with such
remarkable knowledge of the Word of God, and facility and felicity in its
presentation as turned the eyes of all men to the boy-preacher of London. Surely
this was no accident. We may talk about his "genius," but it was not genius that
gave command of the Holy Scriptures, and made him mighty in them; that made him
familiar with the events narrated in the Old and New Testaments, and filled his
mind with those grand illustrations of truth that are scattered all the way
through the Word of God. All this meant painstaking industry, research, prayer
for divine guidance, and the opening of mind and heart to the instruction of
God's Spirit through the Word. Mastery comes not by genius, but by effort. A man
may be born with fine faculties, but acquisitions come by painstaking endeavour.
And when that boy-preacher startled all London by the marvel of his preaching,
and still more by the marvel of his praying; it was the result of early and long
study of the Word on the one hand, and communion with God in the closet on the
other. From a child he knew the Scriptures. What a blessed thing to have a child
who is precocious in godliness. I do not care for intellectually precocious
children, but I like a precocious child spiritually—a child that has in him the
heart of a man, and the conscience of a man, and the will of a man, and the
experience of a man. If you call such a child "abnormal" he is not half as
abnormal as those Christian disciples of sixty years that have not outgrown
their babyhood yet! Think of people threescore years of age singing—

"Where is the blessedness I knew, When first I saw the Lord?"

when they ought to have grown past that blessedness, as the dawn of the day
moves on to its zenith splendour.

"Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and His word?"

whereas those first views of the Word and of Jesus should have been but as the
dim glance of the man who saw men as trees walking, but who needed another touch
to give the clearness and the vividness of perfect vision!

"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!"

How sweet their memory still!" think of it, sighing for the peace that was felt
fifty years ago!

"But they have left an aching void, The world can never fill."

How any "void" can ache is a mystery to me anyway, but if any of you are
troubled with an "aching void" I think that you would better get the void filled
up! Oh, give us stalwart Christian disciples! How often the little child puts
the oldest of us to shame by the simplicity of his faith and the fervour of his
prayers, and the unfaltering nature of his trust. May God give us a generation
of children that from their childhood know the Holy Scriptures! And do you, as
parents and teachers, be more anxious that your child shall get a knowledge of
the Word of God than a smattering of French and German and other languages that
the inhabitants of these countries scarcely recognize when they hear them! Why
should we be so jealous to have our children get some little acquaintance with
foreign tongues and modern philosophies, and all manner of worldly learning,
while the Bible is to them a shut and sealed book? Oh, for the university
training of the Word of God! Oh, for a generation of young men and young women
like Apollos, "mighty in the Scriptures," though they may have none of the
"learning and wisdom of the Chaldeans."

One never wearies of speaking of the personal faith of Mr. Spurgeon in a
personal Saviour. Nothing has melted my heart in the remembrance of him more
than this, that he always seemed to think of Christ as one that was immediately
in his presence. To a great many people Christ is a being of eighteen hundred
years ago, and they strain their eyes looking back through these long centuries
to get a glimpse of the crucified and risen Jesus. Mr. Spurgeon went into his
closet, handled Christ, and saw that it was he himself. When he prayed it was a
personal prayer into a personal ear. His daily walk of faith and hope and
humility, was a daily fellowship with the Lamb of God. He got his inspiration
for work from studying Christ. Hope found its foundation in the promises Christ
affirmed and confirmed. He got his courage in suffering from the supporting
power of those everlasting arms. Christ was to him, not a flower in a garden,
but a living, present, almighty Saviour. Christ was to him not a vision of the
past, but a vivid reality of the present, and when he communed with Jesus Christ
it was as a man talks with his friend; and because Christ was to him inseparably
associated with the Holy Scriptures,—because those Scriptures everywhere
testified of him, because they foretold him and he fulfilled them, he had no
patience with those who, in the name of scholarship and learning, disintegrate
the Rock of Ages, so that a man has no firm footing for his feet!

If I pause to consider how he was thoroughly furnished for all good works, it
will be gathering up and braiding together all the other thoughts I have
presented. Nothing is more wonderful about him than how he was furnished for
everything he did by the study of the Word of God, and contact with a personal
Redeemer. That is what I have specially sought to emphasize, because all the
rest largely goes without saying. His furnishing unto all good works was derived
from the Scriptures of Christ, and the Christ of the Scriptures. It was a
singular providential diversion of plan, which led him away from university
training and caused him to enter the gospel ministry without what men call in
these days, "a thorough classical education." Why did God ordain that, but to
give you and me encouragement? Had Charles Haddon Spurgeon been a university
trained man, a prize scholar in Oxford or Cambridge, men would have attributed
his success very largely to what he had learned and acquired in those great
schools of human learning. But God decreed that that mighty man should come
before the people without a university to back him, that he might prove to men
that it was "not by might, nor by power," but by the Spirit of the living God,
and that his success might say, in all future years, to young men like you, and
the young men of other generations after you, that thoroughly to know Christ in
the Word of God, and to know the Word of God as interpreted by the Christ and
the Holy Spirit, is the grandest qualification for a Christian minister, and a
Christian worker, that can possibly be bestowed. I wish that I had a thousand
times the power of emphasis to proclaim and enforce this truth.

Look at his kaleidoscopic preaching. I can think of nothing to represent it but
a kaleidoscope, which, at every turn, reveals new beauties, new combinations,
new glories of form and colour out of a few small pieces of coloured glass! He
took these few great initial truths of the Holy Scripture: atonement by blood,
substitutionary sacrifice, justification by faith, the work of the Holy Ghost in
regeneration and sanctification, and kindred truths to these; he put them within
the kaleidoscope of his preaching, and at every new turn men saw, from the
combination of those simple elements, forms of symmetry and colours that had all
the variety of the rainbow, and they wondered that out of the old word of God
alone such ever new attractions should be revealed. There is the secret of his
furnishings for all good works. No man will dare to affirm that his furnishing
came essentially from any source but the Word of God and the personal experience
of the Christ.

What did Mr. Spurgeon mean when he said that, if at any time he lost his track
of thought, he put himself into his gun and fired himself at the people? What
did he mean but that from the depths of an experience of the communion of his
soul with Christ, he drew that impulsive and propulsive force that, like the
gunpowder in the gun, drives the ball to its mark? Even a mastery of Holy
Scripture without an experience of grace, is only like the finest ordnance
without gunpowder or spark of fire. But give us first the knowledge of God as
here revealed, and then the knowledge of God as confirmed by personal contact of
faith: and you have a mighty piece of ordnance provided with an explosive force,
that can shake the very walls of the fortress of the devil!

Here was found his furnishing for all good works. Take those two thousand
sermons of his, preached in this pulpit, printed at a penny a piece, and then
scattered in twenty-five languages over the entire world, read by thousands and
millions of readers. Whence came the furnishing for these sermons? From that
blessed Word. I read with greatest interest that address which he delivered
before the Conference, and which is now published under the name of The Greatest
Fight in the World. I have no hesitation in saying that I think that to be the
greatest single utterance that Mr. Spurgeon ever gave to the church. It is, I
suppose, the last one that he prepared with careful and painstaking elaboration
before he left this world. If you will read that you will find that, in the
first place, it is full of the most glorious gospel truths. In the second place,
it fairly bristles with Biblical illustrations and figures of speech. And, in
the third place, which is more wonderful, it runs in the mould of a Scriptural
dialect, as though the man were himself first of all saturated with the
phraseology of Scripture, and when he came to express himself on that critical
occasion, his thoughts fell into the forms of Scriptural expression as naturally
as water runs in the channel scooped out for it by the brook. That is a
marvellous address. I wish it might be published in the cheapest form and given
away to every living soul that can read the. English tongue, and then translated
into every language on earth, that every man that is open to convictions of
truth might read it. And I would to God that the men that have learned the art
of preaching a sermon and leaving out the Christ, or of preaching the Christ in
the language and after the fashion of the schools, and so shooting their arrows
over the heads of the common people, could, from that single address, learn the
secret of telling the truths of the Word of God, "not in words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," expressing spiritual things
in spiritual terms. I never have met, in all my own experience, a discourse that
made a deeper impression on my mind as to reproducing the prophetical style of
utterance in the modern pulpit, and so stamping a preacher as one of God's
prophets. Here is another example of his furnishing unto all good works, and its
source.

Whence came those twenty-seven volumes of The Sword and the Trowel? What are
they? Those volumes are full of exposition of the Word, and the practical
application of the Scriptures to the experience of the godly life. That is the
soul and substance of twenty-seven years of that monthly issue. Take his hundred
books: commentaries, tracts, leaflets, collections of proverbs. What are they?
They are historical, and biographical, and expository, and exegetical; but the
foundation of them is this: Scripture, on the one hand; experience of God's life
in the soul, on the other. So again, for all this wonderful work of an author,
he got his furnishing in the Word of God, and in the contact with a personal
Christ. The Treasury of David, that seven-volumed commentary on that single book
of the Bible, the Psalms,—which some "higher critics" would make us believe is
not worthy, after all, of very much study,—has sold more largely than any other
single commentary in the English tongue on one book of the Bible. What are those
volumes, again, but the evidence that the furnishing for his work was a
furnishing in Bible knowledge, and in the interpreting power of the Christian
experience.

Whence came these institutions? First of all, where did he get the model for
this church of Christ? There is nothing else like it, that I know of, anywhere
in the world. It is a Baptist church in this, that believers' baptism is here
emphasized, and that immersion in water is the form of baptism. It is a
Methodist church in the ardent zeal, and the fervent prayer, and the aggressive
work, manifested here, and in the audible "amens" and responses that you hear in
prayer and preaching. It is a Congregational church in this, that it is
independent of all outside ecclesiastical authority, and the people are the
ultimate rulers. It is a Presbyterian church in this, that the bench of elders
is the centre of its authority and its life, only that these are more consistent
Presbyterians than most others, because when they choose a man as an elder, that
choice carries with it the authority to preach, and teach, and administer the
sacraments, if circumstances require, and if the brother exhibits the fitness
for these duties; whereas, in other Presbyterian churches, if a man is set apart
for the eldership, and afterwards shows fitness for preaching and teaching, and
is called to the pastorate of a church, he must be ordained over again to make a
minister of the gospel of him, which I have consistently held for many years to
be utterly opposed to all New Testament precedent. Mr. Spurgeon, when he
completed the organization of this church, looked to the Holy Scriptures for his
mode), and because he found, or believed that he found, in the New Testament, a
bench of elders that, being once consecrated to the eldership, had right and
authority to fulfil any function of teaching, preaching, ruling, or oversight,
he modelled his church on that New Testament basis; and I say again in your
hearing, and venture my reputation upon it, that it is the purest and most
apostolic specimen of Scriptural Presbyterianism in the world. And then I like,
again, the Scriptural sentiment here, that if any man has or develops the gift
of preaching, he has the right to preach. These deacons and elders are
preachers, all of them who have the gift, and I wish that they all felt that
they had the gift and would go to work; but what I seek to impress is, that,
according to his perception and understanding of the Word of God, Mr. Spurgeon
sought to model this greatest church in Christendom; here, then, is another good
work which found its furnishing in this blessed Book.

Whence came the Pastors' College? Whence came the Orphanage? Whence came the
Almshouses? Their suggestion was found in the Word of God. He looked upon those
orphans as fatherless ones of whom Christ said, "Suffer them to come to me and
lead them to my sheltering arms." He looked upon the Pastors' College, as a
school to train those who were dear to Christ, to perpetuate the true apostolic
succession in the preaching of an apostolic gospel. And when these Almshouse
were built, or enlarged and provided with inmates, was it not for the sake of
Jesus and the charity commended in the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians,
that all this colossal work was done?

I have not attempted anything like a eulogium of this wonderful man. His works
are his encomium; but I yearn to say—especially to young men before me—that you
are verily guilty before God if your life does not attain a high degree of
success, for in the midst of the metropolis of the world you have a living
illustration of how a child, trained in the Scriptures, may begin at sixteen
years of age to preach a mighty gospel, may keep up that preaching without
interruption, except as his health and strength forbade, until he is nearly
fifty-eight years of age, and then die in the midst of the prime of his life,
and at his bier draw forth the tears of more disciples of Christ, and I venture
to add, of more men of the world, than any one man that has departed during the
present century. Young men, you may not have a chance for scholarly learning,
but the Bible is in your hands, and you can study that. You may not have a
chance for wealth and worldly honour, but you can be rich in the experience of a
saint, and be honoured as a chosen vessel of God, to bear his name before the
Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. You may not have opportunities
for gratifying a secular ambition, but you can gratify in God the aspiration
after the highest attainments in holiness and the largest spheres of service to
God and man. I pray you look back to-night through the years to the time when
the little boy knelt in the arbour of his home, and Mr. Knill put his hands
together on his head in benediction and prayer, beseeching God that that little
boy might be taken up by the power of the Holy Spirit, anointed to be a preacher
of the gospel, and made a distinguished instrument by whom that gospel should
pervade the world. We shall not perhaps find very much of Mr. Knill on the
records of history, any more than we hear much of Ananias in Damascus in the
period of church history in which the apostles lived; but Mr. Knill's prayer
over that little boy in the arbour, like Ananias's uplifted hands on the head of
the converted Saul, inseparably links him with the glory of Spurgeon's future,
as Ananias is linked with the glory of Paul the evangelist.

If you cannot preach like Spurgeon, cannot you pray like Knill? If you cannot
claim the genius of Spurgeon, cannot you claim the spiritual contact with God
that sets apart a child under your hand as a chosen vessel for the Lord? If you
can do nothing more, parents, cannot you take your children, and, Sunday-school
teacher, cannot you take your pupils, and lead them to Christ? You can come down
to a level with them, make them feel at home in your society, and induct them
into the mysteries of God and a holy life. You cannot possibly tell what God may
do with the little child that you, as a mother, nourish at your breast, or as a
teacher seek to lead into the knowledge of God.

There was a little waif picked up by a Sunday-school teacher who gave him a
sixpence to induce him to go to a Sunday-school, and to that converted man in
after years we owe the greatest triumphs of Christ in the vast empire of India.
There was a bishop in the church in the United States who was found in a sugar
barrel on the Pacific coast, and who was as a poor, homeless little orphan taken
up in loving arms, led to the Sunday-school, and taught the things of God. We
look too far for the spheres of service. They lie at hand and close by us; and
he that has the spirit of his Master, and like him, can take little children in
his arms, and put his hands upon them and bless them, may be setting apart a
Samuel, or a John, the Baptist, or a Paul, for the work of the modern prophet,
preacher, and evangelist. My closing word is one of appeal. You sometimes hear
the gospel preached where only the tongue does the preaching, and where there
seems to be no heart and no spiritual experience at the back of the utterance.
Charles Spurgeon was a man whose heart answered to the heart of man, as in water
face answereth to face.

Once more, in the presence of God and this assembly, let it be said, as on a
previous occasion, that Charles Spurgeon was the perpetual and all-convincing
evidence of Christianity. The gospel that he preached can never be a falsehood
while it makes such a man. One such disciple in these days is an answer to all
infidelity and all irreligion the world over—a triumphant vindication of the
existence of a God, of the truth of these holy Scriptures, of the reality of a
crucified and risen Christ, and of the verity of a present Spirit abiding in the
church, and working in the world. We, at least, have no excuse for our
infidelity. The sceptic that knows the story of Spurgeon will stand speechless
before the bar of God when called to account. In the early days of the apostles,
when the Sanhedrim accused them, and forbade them to preach any longer in the
name of Christ, we are significantly told that the man who was healed by Peter
and John stood beside them, and they "could say nothing against it"; and when
they went aside to confer about this new religion, this concession they were
compelled to make—"that a notable miracle hath been done by these men we cannot
deny." So I say to you, that the man who stood here, spiritually healed of God,
was a sufficient answer to all the attacks of modern doubt, and so long as the
memory of Charles Haddon Spurgeon survives, and the savour of his presence is
shed abroad in the fragrance of that memory, you, that hear me now, if you
perish, will go down to perdition with a weight that will sink the soul to the
lowest depths, in that you have seen such a visible and living proof of the
truth of God, and have turned your ears to fables.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 25: CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
========================================================================

Chapter 22. List of Deputations From Various Societies Represented at Mr.
Spurgeon's Funeral

Baptist Union.

Baptist Missionary Society.

Particular Baptist Fund.

Baptist Building Fund.

Baptist Total Abstinence Association.

Irish Baptist Mission.

Home Counties' Baptist Association.

Metropolitan Association of Strict Baptist Churches.

Strict Baptist Mission.

Suffolk and Norfolk Baptist Union.

East London Baptist Ministers' Fraternal.

Essex Baptist Union.

Strict Baptist Pastors' Conference.

North-West Kent Baptist Association.

Manchester District Baptist Union.

Northern Association of Baptist Churches.

Regent's Park College.

Bristol Baptist College.

Nottingham Baptist College.

Leicestershire Association of Baptist Churches.

Congregational Union of England and Wales.

Congregational Union of Wales.

Congregational Total Abstinence Association.

Cheshunt College.

London Missionary Society.

Wesleyan Methodist Conference.

Wesleyan Missionary Society.

Primitive Methodist Conference.

United Methodist Free Churches.

Bible Christian Conference.

West London Mission.

London Nonconformist Union.

Protestant Dissenting Ministers' Association. The Moravian Church.

Evangelists' Fraternal.

Oldham Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Chesham District Ministers' Fraternal.

China Inland Mission.

Young Men's Christian Association.

Young Women's Christian Association.

Religious Tract Society.

Sunday School Union.

Ragged School Union.

British and Foreign Bible Society.

Evangelical Alliance.

Evangelistic Mission.

Evangelization Society.

National Temperance League.

Open-Air Mission.

City of London Total Abstainers' Union.

Liberation Society.

Hebrew Christians' Prayer Union.

Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society.

Salvation Army.

Monthly Tract Society.

Hospital Saturday Fund.

Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children. The Corporation of Croydon.

Legation of the United States, London.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 26: CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
========================================================================

Chapter 23. List of Churches, Societies, and Public Bodies From which Letters of
Condolence and Sympathy were received by the church at the metropolitan
tabernacle or Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon. [See Page 17.] Baptist Churches Abbey Road,
St. John's Wood.

Abercarn (English).

Aberdare (Welsh).

Abertillery, "Ebenezer."

Acton.

Aldershot.

Appledore, North Devon.

Ashford, Kent.

Ashton-under-Lyne, Welbeck Street. Ayr, N.B.

Bacup, "Ebenezer." Barnsley.

Bath, Manvers Street. Barrow-in-Furpess, Abbey Road. Barnoldwick, near Colne.
Barnstaple, Boutport Street. Battersea Park Road. Battersea, York Road. Barking,
Queen's Road. Beccles, Martyrs' Memorial. Bedford Row, John Street Chapel.
Belfast, Regent Street. Belfast Great Victoria Street. Birmingham, Stratford
Road. Birmingham, Graham Street. Birmingham, Great King Street. Birmingham,
Longmore Street. Birmingham, Spring Hill. Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Union).
Birkdale, Lancashire.

Bishop Burton, Yorkshire. Bilston, Blackburn.

Blaenavon, "Horeb." Blaenavon, "Ebenezer." Bloomsbury Chapel. Bombay (India).
Borough Road.

Bow, East London Tabernacle. Bow Common, Blackthorn Street. Bowdon, Cheshire.
Bournemouth, Lansdown. Brompton, Onslow Chapel. Bristol, Philip Street. Bristol,
City Road. Bristol, Buckingham Hall. Bristol, Tyndale Chapel. Bristol, Hillsley.
Bristol, Broadmead. Bristol Tabernacle. Bristol, Counterslip. Bristol,
Kensington. Bristol, "Bethesda," Alma Road, Stokes Croft, and Totterdown.
Brixton, Gresham Chapel. Brixton, Kenyon Chapel. Brixton, Wynne Road. Bradford,
Westgate. Bradford, "Bethel." Brentford, Park Chapel. Bures, Suffolk.
Burton-on-Trent, Derby Street.

Burnley.

Burwell, Cambridgeshire. Buckley, "Bethel." Brockley Road (Church and School).
Bromley, Kent.

Bromley Road, Burnt Ash Hill, Lee.

Caersalem, Glamorganshire.

Calstock and Metherill, Cornwall.

Camberwell, Cottage Green.

Camberwell, Denmark Place.

Camberwell, Clarendon Chapel.

Cambridge, "Zion."

Camden Road.

Canning Town, Barking Road.

Cardiff, Longcross Street Cardiff, Maindy Place.

Cardiff, Woodville Road.

Cardigan, Bethania (Welsh).

Caversham, New Zealand.

Chatham, "Zion."

Chester, Grosvenor Park (Church and School).

Chelsea, Lower Sloane Street. Cheltenham, Cambray Chapel. Christchurch, New
Zealand. Church, near Accrington. Chiswick, Annandale Road. Cinderford,
Gloucestershire. Cirencester.

Clapham, Courland Grove. Clapham, Victoria Chapel. Clapton Downs. Coatbridge,
N.B. Coseley, Darkhouse. Coventry, Gosford Street. Coventry, Queen's Road.
Coventry, St. Michael's. Colne, East Parade. Combmartin, Devonshire. Corwen,
North Wales. Coxall, Shropshire. Crovdon (Strict and Particular). Croydon, West
(Church and School Crewe. Cross Keys, Monmouthshire.

Dalston Junction. Darlington, Grange Road.

Dartmouth.

Dartford.

Deal, Victoria Chapel.

Desborough, Market Harborough.

Devonshire Square.

Devonport, Hope Chapel.

Dewsbury.

Dorchester, Dorford.

Dulwich, East, Barry Road.

Dulwich, East, Lordship Lane.

Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.A. Endion.

Durban, Natal (Church and School).

Ealing, Haven Green. East Dereham, High Street. East Finchley. East Plumstead.
Eastbourne, Ceylon Place. Edinburgh, Charlotte Square. Edinburgh, Dublin Street.
Elgin, N.B. Epworth. Erith.

Falmouth, "Emmanuel."

Faringdon, Berkshire. Farnworth, Lancashire. Farsley, Yorkshire. Faversham.

Forest Gate, Wood Grange. Forfar, N.B.

Gillingham.

Glasgow, Queen's Park. Gosport Tabernacle. Gravesend, Windmill Street.
Greenwich, South Street.

Hackney, Shoreditch Tabernacle. Hackney, Mare Street. Hackleton, Carey Memorial.
Halifax, "United Meeting." Hampstead, Heath Street. Hamburg.

Harlesden (Church and School). Harpole, Northamptonshire. Harrow Road, Queen's
Park. Hastings, Wellington Square. Hartlepool, East. Hereford.

Hebden Bridge and Birchcliffe, Yorkshire. Helensburgh, N.B. Heywood, Lancashire.
Highgate. Highgate Road. Hitchin, Walsworth Road. Hitchin, Tilehouse Street.
Honor Oak.

Holyhead, New Park Street. Huddersfield, Salendine Nook. Huddersfield, New North
Road. Hull, George Street. Hull, South Street.

Illfracombe.

Ipswich.

Islington, Salters' Hall Chapel.

Jarrow-on-Tyne.

Kansas City, Third Baptist Church.

King's Cross Road, Vernon Chapel.

Kingstanley, Gloucestershire.

Kingston.

Knighton, Radnorshire.

Lancaster, White Cross Street.

Lee.

Leeds, Hunslet Tabernacle.

Leeds, York Road.

Leeds, South Parade.

Leicester, Carley Street.

Leicester, Melbourne Hall.

Leigh, Lancashire.

Leith, N. B.

Leyton, Vicarage Road.

Leytonstone, Cann Hall Road.

Leytonstone, Fillebrook.

Leighton Buzzard, Hockliffe Road.

Liverpool, Waterloo.

Liverpool, Myrtle Street.

Long Preston, Yorkshire.

Louth, Lincolnshire, Northgate.

Lower Tooting.

Llangollen, Penybryn.

Llangollen, "Ebenezer."

Luton, Park Street.

Lydbrook.

Macclesfield, St. George's Street (Church and School). Maidenhead. Marlow Road.
Mason, Michigan, U.S.A. Maryport, Cumberland. Manchester, Haline. Manchester,
Wakefield Road. Manchester, Oxford Road, Union Church.

Manchester, Moss Side. Margate, "Ebenezer." Merthyr Tydvil. Middlesbrough,
Newport Road. Milnsbridge, Yorkshire. Minneapolis, First Baptist Church. Morley,
Yorkshire. Morriston Tabernacle. Mount Eden, New Zealand (Church and School).

Netherton and Dudley.

New Brompton.

New Maiden.

New South gate.

Newbridge, Monmouthshire (English). Newbury.

Newport, Castlehold. Newport, Commercial Street. Newport, Stow Hill. Newport,
Summer Hill. Newport, Usk Road. Newcastle-on-Tyne, Jesmond Road.
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Westgate Road. Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove. Notting Hill,
Talbot Tabernacle. Northampton, College Street. Northampton, Grafton Street.
Northampton, Mount Pleasant. Northampton, Princes Street. Norwich, St.
Clement's. Norwich, Sayer Street. Norwich, Unthank's Road. Nottingham, Hyson
Green. Nottingham, Woodborough Road. Norbiton, Bunyan Chapel. Nuneaton and
Attleborough. Nupend, Gloucestershire.

Old Breatford, North Road.

Old Kent Road, Maze Pond (Church and School). Oldham, King Street. Oxford,
Commercial Road (Church and Bible-class for Young Women).

Paignton, Devonshire. Paisley, Victoria Place. Peckham Park Road. Peckham, Rye
Lane. Penarth.

Penarth, Stanwell Road. Petizance. Penge Tabernacle. Peterhead, N.B., King
Street. Plumstead, Conduit Road. Plymouth, George Street. Portsea, Kent Street.
Portslade-by-Sea, Sussex. Portsmouth, Lake Road. Pontypridd, "Carmel."
Pontypridd (Welsh). Poplar, Cotton Street Presteign, Radnorshire. Preston, Pole
Street. Putney, Werter Road.

Radcliffe, Lancashire. Ramsgate, Cavendish Chapel. Raunds, Northamptonshire,
Reading, Providence Chapel. Redditch. Regent's Park. Rhondda Valley, Pentre.
Rhondda Valley, Porth. Rhondda Valley, Tonypandy. Rickmansworth. Rickmansworth,
Mill End. Rochdale, "Ebenezer." Ross, Herefordshire. Roseberg, Oregon, U.S.A.
Rowley and Blackhill. Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Sandown, Isle of Wight. Scarborough, Albermarie and "Ebenezer." Sheerness
Tabernacle. Sheffield, Cemetery Road.

Sheffield, Townhead Street.

Shepherd's Bush Tabernacle.

Shipley, Yorkshire, "Bethel."

Shrewsbury, Claremont Street.

Skipton-in-Craven, Yorkshire.

Southend-on-Sea, Clarence Road.

Southend-on-Sea Tabernacle.

Southsea.

Southsea. Elm Grove.

Southwell, Nottinghamshire.

South Norwood.

Southport, Town Hall.

Streatham, Lewin Road.

Stockport.

Stockton-on-Tees.

Stamford Hill, Woodberry Down.

Stanningley, near Leeds.

Stow-on-the-Wold.

St. Helen's, Lancashire, Park Road. Stafford.

Stratford New Town, Major Road. Stoney Stratford. Sunderland, "Bethesda."
Sunderland, "Enon." Surbiton Hill, Oakland's Chapel. Swansea, "Mount Pleasant."
Swindon Tabernacle.

Talysarn, Carnarvonshire, "Salem."

Taunton, Silver Street.

Teignmouth.

Teddington.

Tenterden.

Tenby.

Thornton Heath, "Beulah" Chapel.

Tonbridge.

Trowbridge, Back Street.

Tredegar, Church Street (English).

Treharris, Glamorganshire, "Bethel" and Brynhyfryd. Transvaal, Pretoria.
Twickenham Green.

Upton Chapel, South Lambeth Road.

Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Waltham Abbey. Paradise Row.

Waltham Cross.

Walthamstow, Boundary Row.

Walworth Road.

Walworth, Arthur Street.

Walworth, Wansey Street.

Walsali, Stafford Street.

Walsall, Vicarage Walk.

Wandsworth Road, Victoria Chapel.

Wandsworth, East Hill.

Waterbeach.

Watford, Chalk Hill.

Watchet and Willington.

Waterford.

Warminster.

Wellington, Somerset.

West Mailing, Kent.

West Norwood, Chatsworth Road.

Westbourne Grove.

Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire. Westbury, "Providence." Weston-super-Mare, Wadham
Street. Whitestone.

Willingham Tabernacle. Wimbledon, Queen's Road. Wisbech, Hill Street. Windsor,
Victoria Street. Wick, N. B. Willesden Green. Wigan.

Woolwich, Parson's Hill. Woolwich, Queen Street. Wolverhampton, Waterloo Road.
Worcester, Sansome Walk.

York, Priory Street.

Baptist Societies, Associations, Etc.

Anglesea Baptist Association.

Baptist Mission Camp (14 miles from Agra), India.

Baptist Union of South Africa.

Baptist Total Abstinence Association.

Baptist Churches of Leicester.

Baptist Churches of Belfast.

Baptist and Congregational Fraternal, Burnley.

Baptist Ministers' Conference of Boston, U.S.A.

Baptist Association of Bucks.

Baptist Building Fund Committee.

Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

Baptist Union of Scotland.

Baptist Union of New Zealand.

Baptist Tract and Book Society.

Baptist Missionary Society.

Baptist Home Missionary Society for Scotland.

Baptist Tract Society.

Breconshire Baptist Association.

Bristol Baptist College.

Burnley Baptist and Congregational Ministers' Fraternal.

Cambridge Baptist Association.

Cardiff, Brunei Street, Baptist Church Young People's Improvement Class.

Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., Baptist Ministerial Conference.

Coventry District of the West Midland Baptist Association.

Dacca, Eastern Bengal Mission.

Delhi, Baptist Zenana Mission.

Devon Baptist Association (Northern Division).

Devonport, Three Towns Ministers' Fraternal (Baptists and Congregationalists).

East London Baptist Ministers' Fraternal. Essex Baptist Union.

Farsley and District Baptist Union.

General Baptist Committee. German Union of Baptist Churches.

Home Counties Baptist Association.

Irish Baptist Association.

Ladies' Association for Zenana Work in India.

Leeds, Meanwood Road, Baptist Friendly Society.

Leicester Representative Baptist Ministers' Meeting, held in Belvoir Street
Chapel Vestry.

Liverpool Baptist Association Committee.

Liverpool Baptist Union.

London Baptist Association Committee.

London Baptist Board of Ministers.

London Strict Baptist Ministers' Association.

Manchester Baptist Ministers' Fraternal.

Manchester District Baptist Union.

Metropolitan Association of Strict Baptist Churches.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Men's Bible-class.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Women's Bible-class.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Poor Ministers' Clothing Society.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Sunday-school.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Almshouses' Sunday-school.

Midland Baptist Association.

New York and Ohio, U.S.A., Brethren of the Pastors' College.

Northern Baptist Association.

North-West Kent Baptist Association.

Norway, Trondhjem, Baptist Community.

Particular Baptist Fund.

Pastors' College, Tutors and Students.

Pastors' College Evangelical Association, the Emergency Committee, on behalf of
the whole brotherhood.

Philadelphia, U.S.A., Conference of Baptist Ministers.

Pioneer Mission.

Pontrhydyrun, near Pontypridd, Faternal Union Baptist Ministers.

Rawdon Baptist College. Regent's Park Baptist College Committee. Regent's Park
Baptist College Students. Rochester, New York, Baptist Social Union.

Secunderabad Baptist Mission House.

South Australian Baptist Association.

South Australia, Mount Barker, Furreedpore Mission.

Strict Baptist Mission, London.

Suffolk and Norfolk Baptist Union.

Tamworth Baptist Community. Treherbert Hope Baptist Sunday-school.

Union des églises évangèliques Baptistes de France.

Washington City, U.S.A., Baptist Ministers' Conference. Wallington Strict
Baptist Mission. Welsh Baptists' Association.

Yorkshire Association of Baptist Churches.

Congregational Churches, Societies, Etc.

Anerley. Annan. Ashton-under-Lyne.

Battersea.

Barnard Castle, Hall Street.

Bedworth, Old Meeting.

Beverley.

Birmingham, Carr's Lane, Bisbopsgate Chapel. Borough (Welsh). Borough Road.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. Brighton, Clifton Road. Bromley, Kent. Brixton.

Camberwell New Road. Canonbury, Harecourt Chapel and Sunday-school. Cardigan
(United). Cheshunt College. Chishill.

Clayland's Road, Clapham. Colchester, Lion Walk. Commercial Street
Congregational Young Men's Society. Congregational Board, Memorial Hall.
Congregational Union of England and Wales.

Congregational Union of Wales. Congregational Total Abstinence Association.
Cork. Cork, George Street.

Dedham, Essex.

Doncaster.

Dulwich, "Emmanuel."

East Carmarthenshire Congregational Association. East Dereham, Cowper.
Edinburgh, Charlotte Street. Ely.

Enfield Highway. Exeter. Exeter, Southernhay.

Forest Gate.

Glamorganshire and Carmarthenshire English Congregational Union.

Haddington.

Hanham, near Bristol. Heathfield.

Kentish Town.

Kidderminster, Dudley Street. Kilburn, Greville Place.

Lambeth, York Road. Lancashire Congregational Association.

Lancaster Road, W. Leeds, Headingley Hill. Leicester, Humberston Road.
Leominster.

Linton, Cambridgeshire. Liverpool, Wavertree. London Missionary Society. Lower
Edmonton.

Maidstone, West Street. Manchester Congregational Board. Millwall, West Ferry
Road.

Needham Market. Newport, Monmouthshire (Welsh). Nottingham Congregational
Institute. Nottingham, Mansfield Road.

Old Kent Road, Marlborough Chapel. Old Street, New Tabernacle.

Peckham, Hanover Chapel.

Peckham, Clifton Chapel.

Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley Welsh Congregational Association.

Radnorshire and Wye Side Congregational Association. Ramsgate.

Scarborough, Peak. Scarborough, "The Bar." Sheffield, Attercliffe. Sheffield,
Broome Park. Sheffield Tabernacle. Sheffield and Doncaster District
Congregational Union.

Sherborne, Dorset.

Southampton, Albion Chapel.

Southampton Road, N.W., Gospel Oak.

South London Congregational Ministers' Association.

South-west Carnarvonshire Congregational Association.

Spalding.

Stamford Hill.

Stamford.

Stockwell Green.

Stratford.

Sunderland, Grange Chapel. Swansea, St. Paul's.

Walworth, Sutherland Chapel.

Wanstead.

West Brompton.

West Kensington.

Westminster.

Westminster Bridge Road, Christ Church.

Wolverhampton, Snow Hill. Wolverhampton, Queen Street. Wolverhampton, Cleveland
Street.

Presbyterian Churches, Etc.

Arbroath Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland. Armagh Presbyterian Church.
Athlone Presbytery.

Belfast Presbytery.

Birmingham Presbyterian Church of England.

Brechin Free Church Presbytery. Bristol Presbytery.

Carlisle Presbyterian Church of England.

Carricktergus Presbytery. Cavan Presbytery of the Presbyterian Churches in
Ireland. Church of Scotland. Clapham Road, Trinity Church:

Presbytery of South London. Cullybackey Presbyterian Church.

Dingwall Free Church of Scotland.

Dublin, Ministerial Meeting of Presbyterian Ministers.

Dumbarton Free Church of Scotland.

Duns, N.B., Free Church Presbytery of Duns and Chirnside.

Dundee Free Church of Scotland.

Elgin and Inverness Presbytery.

Forfar Presbytery of the Church of Scotland.

Forfar Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland.

General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. Glasgow Presbytery of the
United Presbyterian Church. Glasgow Free Church Presbytery. Glasgow, Gorbals'
Tabernacle Church.

Glasgow, Free Anderton Church. Glasgow, London Road Church. Greenock Free Church
Presbytery.

Helensburgh, N.B., Presbyterian Court.

Irvine Free Church Presbytery.

Kilmarnock and Ayr Presbytery. Kirkaldy United Presbyterian Presbytery.

Liverpool Presbytery. Manchester Presbytery.

Nairn Free Church Presbytery. Newcastle-on-Tyne, Walker Presbyterian Church.
North London Presbytery.

Perth and Aberdeen Presbytery of United Original Seceders. Paisley Free
Presbytery.

Saltcoats Free Presbyterian Church. South London Presbytery.

Stafford, Presbytery of Birmingham. Somers Town Presbytery. Swansea, St.
Andrew's Presbytery. Stranraer Presbytery. Synod of the Presbyterian Church of
Eastern Australia.

Wesleyan and Other Methodist Churches, Etc.

Anglesea Calvinistic Methodists. Ashton-under-Lyne Methodist New Connection.

Bala Calvinistic Methodist College. Barnsley Wesleyan Reform Union. Bristol
Wesleyan Methodist Council.

Cable Street, St. George's Chapel. Cardiff, Plas-Newydd, English Calvinistic
Methodists. Cardiff Wesleyan Methodist Council. City Road, Wesleyan Methodist
Chapel. Combined Methodist Bodies of Manchester.

Demerara Wesleyan Mission. Denmark, sixteen Pastors of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Denmark, Svendborg Methodist Church.

Dublin Methodist Ministers. Dublin, Rathmines Methodist Church.

Falmouth Road, Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. Flintshire Wesleyan Council.

General Committee of the Primitive Methodist Connection.

Hayle, Copperhouse Wesleyan Church. Huddersfield United Wesleyan Ministers.
Hyderabad, Wesleyan Mission House.

Ireland, Newtown Barry Methodist Church.

Liverpool Presbytery of the Calvinistic Methodist Church of Wales.

Liverpool Wesleyan Ministers.

London District, United Methodist Free Churches.

London Methodist Free Church, 7th Circuit.

London Wesleyan Methodist Council.

London Wesleyan Ministers.

Loughborough Methodist Free Church.

Manchester Methodist Bodies.

"Methodist Monthly Magazine"

Staff. Montgomeryshire Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. Manchester Presbytery of
the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.

North Cardiganshire Monthly Meeting of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.

North Wales Calvinistic Methodist Association.

Nottingham Primitive Methodist Council.

Philadelphia Episcopal Methodist Church. Pembroke Dock Welsh Calvinistic
Methodist Presbytery. Primitive Methodist Church, New Surrey Chapel, Blackfriars
Road.

Primititive Methodist Church, Sumner Road, Peckham. Primitive Methodist Church,
Norbiton. Primitive Methodist Connection, First District. Primitive Methodist
Sunday-school, Portsmouth. Pontypridd Monthly Meeting of Methodist Churches.

Sheffield Wesleyan Methodist Council. Sunderland United Methodist Free Church.
Sunderland Methodist Ministers' Association. Sunderland Methodist Free Church,
South Durham Street.

Sydenham Wesleyan Men's Sunday Afternoon Bible-class.

Wakefield United Methodist Free Church.

Wesleyan Missionary Society, Centenary Hall, Bishopsgate.

West Hartlepool Wesleyan Churches.

West Indian Wesleyan Methodist Church, Eastern Annual Conference.

West Kensington Methodist New Connection.

West London Mission, St. James's Hall.

West Merioneth Calvinistic Methodist Presbytery.

Woodford Wesleyan Church.

Welsh Calvinistic Methodists of London.

United Nonconformist Churches, Etc.

Abergele: All the Nonconformist Ministers.

Birmingham Meeting of Pastors of Baptist, Congregational, and Presbyterian
Churches.

Buckley United Churches.

Burnley United Nonconformist Churches.

Colchester Evangelical Nonconformist Churches.

Deptford, New Cross, and Brockley Free Churches.

General Body of Protestant Dissenting Ministers of the three Denominations.

London Nonconformist Council.

Montgomeryshire, Meifod Nonconformists.

Norwich Nonconformist Ministers.

Ryde, Isle of Wight, Nonconformist Ministers' Monthly Meeting.

South-West Ham Nonconformist Council.

United Service of Evangelical Churches, held in the Reformed (Dutch) Church of
St. Thomas, West Indies.

Ministers' Associations, Fraternals, Etc.

Aberdeen Evangelical Association. Auckland (N. Z.) Ministers' Association.

Birmingham and West Midland Evangelical Association.

Brighton and Hove Association of Free Churches. Brisbane, Ministers' Association
of Queensland. Broughton District Evangelists' Association.

Burnley Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Cambridge Village Preachers' Association.

Canada Ministerial Association.

Cardiff Ministerial Union.

Carlisle Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Chesham District Ministers' Fraternal.

Chester Nonconformist Association.

Coventry Preachers' Union.

Croydon Ministers' Association.

Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.A., Ministers' Association.

Dunstable and Luton Ministers' Fraternal Union.

Glasgow Congregational and Evangelical Union.

Hastings and St. Leonards Ministers' Fraternal. Hinckley Nonconformist
Ministers' Association.

King's Langley Ministers' Fraternal.

London Hospital Christian Association.

Medical Missionary Association. Midlothian Evangelists' Association. Montreal
Protestant Ministerial Association.

Mountain Ash Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Nelson, Colne. and District Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Nottingham Nonconformist Ministers' Fraternal.

Oldham Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Pastors' College Evangelical Association.

Penzance Nonconformist Ministerial Association.

Preston Nonconformist Ministerial Association.

Pontypridd Dissenting Ministers' Association.

Portsmouth Ministerial Union.

Reading Ministers' Fraternal.

Scarborough Nonconformist Ministerial Association.

Scotland Sabbath Protection Association.

Sheffield Ministers' Fraternal.

South-East London Nonconformist Ministers' Union.

South Shields Nonconformist Ministers' Association.

Stroud District United Ministers' Fraternal.

Swansea Nonconformist Ministers' Union.

Sunday Schools, Etc.

Barsbridge Mission Sabbath School, Belfast.

Birmingham Sunday School Union. Bristol Sunday School Union. Brixton Auxiliary
Sunday School Union.

Camberwell Mission and Ragged School Union.

India Sunday School Union.

Lambeth Auxiliary Sunday School Union.

Nottingham, Arnold, Pleasant Sunday Afternoons.

Spalding United Sunday School Teachers. Stockwell Orphanage Sunday Schools.
Sunday School Union.

Wintown Street, Leeds, Women's Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

Wolverhampton, Mount Zion, Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

Wolverhampton, Wood Street, Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

Mission Halls Birmingham, Vauxhall Railway Mission. Borough, Arcadia Mission.

Costers' Mission Hall, Hackney.

Edgware Road, Metropolitan Mission Hall.

Morley Hall, Hackney.

Nottingham, Redoubt Street, Gospel Mission.

Pimlico, Ebury Mission.

Philippopolis, Bulgaria, Mission Hall.

Richmond Hall, Seven Sisters Road, Holloway. Richmond Street, Walworth, Workers'
Annual Meeting.

Southampton, Nichols Town Mission Maternal Society.

Surrey Gardens Memorial Hall, Young Men's Bible-class.

Working Men's Mission, New Cut, Lambeth.

Young Men's Christian Associations Acton. Adelaide.

Birmingham. Bristol.

Cardiff.

Central.

City of London.

Cork.

Croydon.

Dublin.

Glasgow United. Grays.

Halifax. Hammersmith.

National Council. Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Temperance Societies Bishop's Waltham Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance Union.

Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance Mission.

British Women's Temperance Association.

City of London Total Abstinence Union.

Derby Temperance Society.

Gosport, Union Chapel, Temperance Institute.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Happy Home Lodge, No. 269.

Independent Order of Good Temp-Jars, Ponder's End.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Gunnersbury Lodge, No. 1,292.

Independent Order of Good Templars, South-West Lancashire District.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Staffordshire District Lodge.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Battersea Advance Lodge, 3,036 Independent
Order of Good Templars, Sunningdale.

Independent Order of Good Templars, East and Mid Surrey District Lodge.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Star of Worcester Lodge.

Independent Order of Good Templars, Dublin Castle Lodge.

Moss Side, Manchester, Baptist Temperance Society.

National Temperance League.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Abbott's Terrace, Gospel Temperance Society.

New Surrey Chapel Gospel Temperance Society.

North of England Temperance League.

United Kingdom Railway Temperance Union.

Resolutions From Various Sources Abergele, English Calvinistic Churches.

Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society. Alford Scripture Reading and Prayer Union.

Bedminster Union. Bible Christian Church, Crediton. Bible Christian Conference.
Birmingham, Bloomsbury Institute. Birmingham Police Institute. Board of
Delegates Hospital Saturday Fund.

British and Foreign Bible Society. British and Foreign Bible Society, Bombay
Auxiliary Committee.

Cabragh Society, Ballymena. Camberwell, Albany Institute. Cape General Mission.
Cardiff Town Mission. Children's Home, Bonner Road. China Inland Mission. Church
of England Zenana Mission. Clapham Reform Club. Committee, Free Church of
England, Rockdale, New South Wales. Conscantinople, Churches in and around.
Croydon Protestant Alliance.

Dublin United Religious Services.

East London Mission to the Jews. Ebenezer Young Men's Mutual Improvement
Society. Evangelical Alliance. Evangelical Alliance, South London Branch.

Evangelistic Mission. Evangelization Society. Exeter Local Preachers' Union.

Festiniog Local Board, N. Wales. Free Church of England, Cathay's Terrace,
Cardiff. French Reformed Evangelical Church.

Hackney Road Conservative Club. Hamburg English Reformed Church.

Hanley Salvation Mission. Hastings Calvinistic Protestant Union.

Hebrew Christians' Prayer Union. Highland Orphanage, Inverness. Holy Trinity
Church, Gray's Inn Road. Holywell School Board, Flintshire.

Kentish Town Adult School.

Lambeth Board of Guardians. Lambeth Vestry, Kennington Road.

Legation of the United States.

"Lewiston Journal," Editorial Rooms.

Liberation Society. London City Mission. London United District of Ancient Order
of Foresters. Loyal Orange Institution of England. Loyal Orange Lodge, No. 17,
Portsmouth District. Loyal Orange Lodge, No. 667, Hatcham.

Magistrates and Town Council of the Royal Burgh of Wick.

Margate, Emmanuel Church.

Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of Great Torrington, Devon.

Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund Council.

Monthly Tract Society.

Moravian Churches.

Northampton, Commercial Street, Young Men's Society. Nottingham Men's Sunday
Morning Institute.

Open Air Mission. Open Air Mission, South London Auxiliary.

People's Mission, Great Arthur Street, Golden Lane. Plymouth Church, Brooklyn,
New York, U.S.A. Pontypridd Eisteddfod. Preachers' Preparation Class, Bristol.

Ragged School Union.

Religious Tract Society. Royal Hospital for Incurables.

Salvation Army. Scottish Protestant Alliance. Seamen's Institute, Rotterdam.
Society for the Propagation of Bibles and Religious Books, Port-au-Prince,
Hayti. Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children. Society for the
Suppression of the Opium Trade.

Society of Friends in Great Britain. South London Association for Assisting the
Blind. South London Early Closing Association. South London Hospital Sunday
Fund.

South Norwood Literary Societies. St. Luke's Institute. St. Mary's Vestry,
Newington. St. Winifred's Youths' Institute, 112, Lower Road. Stepney Meeting.
The Christian League, St. Philips, Sydney, New South Wales.

Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.

Tremont Temple, Boston, U.S.A.

Trowbridge Local Board.

Upper Tooting Reformed Episcopal Church.

Women's Prayer Union, Christ-church, New Zealand.

Working Men's Lord's Day Rest Association.


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  CHAPTER 27: APPENDIX
========================================================================

Appendix. The Final Sermons of Charles H. Spurgeon "Lo, I Come" and A Doctrinal
Sermon Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 26th, 1891, by C. H. Spurgeon At
the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened: burnt
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, "Lo, I come: in
the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God:
yea, thy law is within my heart'."—Psalms 40:6-8.

Explained to us by the apostle Paul in Hebrews 10:5-7 :

"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, 'Sacrifice and offering thou
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.' Then said I, 'Lo, I come in (the
volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.'"

WE HAVE, in the use made of the passage by the inspired apostle, sufficient
authority for applying the quotation from the fortieth psalm to our divine Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. With such a commentary, we are sure of our way and our
whereabouts. We might have been perplexed as to its meaning had it not have been
for this; although, I think, even without the guidance of the New Testament
passage, those who are familiar with Holy Writ would have felt that the words
could not be fulfilled in David, but must belong to a greater than he, even to
the divine Messiah, who in the fullness of time would come into the world. We
rejoice that the Lord Jesus himself here speaks of himself. Who but he can
declare his own generation? Here he is both the subject of the words and the
speaker also. The word is from himself and of himself, and so we have double
reason for devout attention. He tells us what he said long ago. He declares,
"Then I said, Lo, I come."

Because he has come to us, we gladly come to him; and now we reverently wait
upon him to hear what our Lord shall speak; for, doubtless, he will speak, peace
to us, and will cause us to learn, through his Spirit, the meaning or his words.
O Savior, say to each of our hearts, "Lo, I come"!

I. Without further preface, I call upon you to notice, first, THE SWEEPING AWAY
OF THE SHADOW. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire... burnt offering
and sin offering hast thou not required." When the Son of God is born into the
world, there is an end of all types by which he was formerly prefigured. The
symbols end when the truth itself is made fully manifest. The sacrifices of the
law had their times and place, their teaching and their influence. Blessed were
those in Israel whose spiritual minds saw beneath the outward sign, and
discerned the inward truth! To them the sacrifices of the holy place were a
standing means of fellowship with God. Day after day they saw the Great
Propitiation as they beheld the morning and the evening lamb: so often as they
looked upon a sacrifice, they beheld the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin
of the world. In the Paschal supper they were instructed by the slaying of the
unblemished victim, the roasting with fire, the sprinkling of the blood upon the
door without, and the feasting upon the sacrifice within. Spiritual men could
have found in the rites and ceremonies of the old law a very library of gospel
literature; but, alas! the people were carnal, sensual, and unbelieving, and
therefore they often forgot even to celebrate the appointed sacrifices: the
Passover itself ceased for long periods, and when the festivals were maintained,
there was no life or reality in them. After they had been chastened for their
neglect, and made to wander in exile because of the wandering of their hearts
after their idols, they were restored from captivity, and were led to keep the
ceremonial law; but they did it as a heartless, meaningless formality, and thus
missed all spiritual benefit: with the unlighted candle in their hand they
blindly groped in the dark. They slew the sacrifices, and presented their
peace-offerings; but the soul had gone out of the service, and at last their God
grew weary of their formal worship, and said, "Bring no more vain oblations;
incense is an abomination unto me." We read, "To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the bums offerings of
rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or
of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required
this at your hand, to tread my courts?" When once the life is gone out of the
best symbolism, the Lord abhors the carcase; and even a divinely ordained ritual
becomes a species of idolatry. When the heart is gone out of the externals of
worship, they are as shells without the kernel. Habitations without living
tenants soon become desolations, and so do forms and ceremonies without their
spiritual meaning. Toward the time of our Lord's coming, the outward worship of
Judaism became more and more dead: it was time that it was buried. It had
decayed and waxed old, and was ready to vanish away, and vanish away it did; for
our Lord set aside the first, or old, that he might establish the second, or
new. The stars were no longer seen with their twinklings, for the sun had
arisen. The removal of these things was wholesale. We have four sorts of
sacrifice mentioned here, but I need not go into details. Sacrifices in which
blood was shed were abolished when the Son of God offered himself without spot
unto God. Bloodless offerings, such as fine flour, and wine, and oil, and sweet
cane bought with money, and precious incense—which were tokens of gratitude and
consecration—these also were no longer laid upon the altar. Sacrifice and
offering both were not desired; and burnt-offerings, which signified the delight
of God in the great Sacrifice, were ended by the Lord's actual acceptance of
that Sacrifice itself. Even the sin-offering, which was burned without the camp
as a thing accursed, altogether ceased. It represented sin laid upon the victim,
and the victim's being made a curse on that account. It might have seemed always
useful as a reminder, for they were always sinning, and always needing a
sin-offering; but even this was not required. Nothing of the old ceremonial law
was spared. Now we have no ark of the covenant, with its Shekinah light between
the wings of the cherubim. Now we have no brazen laver, no table of shewbread,
no brazen altar, and no sacred veil: the holy of holies itself is gone.
Tabernacle and temple are both removed. "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father"; but the time is come when "they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." A clean sweep has been
made of all the ancient rites, from circumcision up to the garment with its
fringe of blue. These were for the childhood of the church, the pictures of her
first school-books; but we are no longer minors, and we have grace given us to
read with opened eyes that everlasting classic of "the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ." Now hath the brightness of the former dispensation been quite
eclipsed by the glory which excelleth. As these outward things vanish, they go
away with God's mark of non-esteem upon them: they are such things as he did not
desire. "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire." The Lord God had no
desire for matters so trivial and unsatisfactory. They were good for the people,
to instruct them, if they had been willing to learn; but they fulfilled no
desire of the heart of God. He says, "Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink
the blood of goats?" By the prophet Micah he asks, "Will the Lord be pleased
with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil." These furnish
no delight for the great Spirit, and give no pleasure to the thrice holy
Jehovah. The formal worshipper supposed that his offerings were, in and of
themselves, pleasing to God, and therefore brought his "burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old." So far as they believingly understood the meaning of a
sacrifice, and presented it in faith, their offerings were acceptable; but in
themselves considered these were far from being what the Lord desired. He that
filleth heaven and earth saith, "I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or
thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock
out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest
is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the
mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would
not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof." The spiritual,
the infinite, the almighty Jehovah could not desire merely outward ritual,
however it might appear glorious to men. The sweetest music is not for his ear,
nor the most splendid roses of priests for his eye. He desired something
infinitely more precious than these, and he puts them away with this note of
dissatisfaction. And more, these sacrifices passed away with the mark upon them
that they were not what God required. "Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou
not required." What did God require of man? Obedience. He said by Samuel, "To
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." He saith in
another place, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?" The requirement of the law was love to God and love to men. This has
always been God's great requirement. He seeks spiritual worship, obedient
thought, holy living, grateful praise, devout prayer—these are the requirements
of the Creator and Benefactor of men. Ritualistic matters were so far required
as they might minister to the good of the people, and while they stood they
could not neglect them without loss; but they were not the grand requirement of
a just and holy God, and therefore men might fulfill these without stint or
omission, and yet God would not have of them what he required. Yes, he asks,
"Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?" To see his law
magnified, his justice vindicated, his sovereignty acknowledged, and his
holiness imitated, is more to his mind. Absolute conformity to the standard of
moral and spiritual rectitude which he has set up is his demand, and he can be
content with nothing less. These things are not found in sacrifice and offering,
neither do they always go therewith, and therefore the outward sacrifice was not
what God required.

They were so to be put always as never to be followed by the same kind of
things. Shadows are not replaced by other shadows. The ceremonials of Aaron are
not to be followed by another set of carnal ordinances. There are some who seem
to think that they are so to be. Instead of Aaron, whom God ordained, we have a
so-called priesthood among us at this day, claiming an apostolic succession,
which is impossible if they are priests, since no apostle was a priest. Instead
of rites which God has ordained we have rites of man's invention. The blessed
ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ, such as baptism and the Lord's Supper, have
been prostituted from their instructive and memorial intent into a kind of
witchcraft; so that by what is called baptism children are said to be born
again, and made members of Christ and children of God, while in the second, or
what they call Holy Communion, the sacrifice of Christ is profanely said to be
repeated or continued, even in the unbloody sacrifice of the mass. Ah, friends!
our Lord did not put away that grand, magnificent system of Mosaic rites to
introduce the masquerade in which Rome delights, which certain Anglicans would
set up among us. No, no; we have done with the symbolic system, and have now but
the two outward ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are meant
only for believers who know what it is to be buried with Christ, and to feed on
him. You have no right to bring in your own forms and ceremonies, and place them
in the church of Christ. Beyond what God has ordained we may not dare to go; and
even in those things we may not rest as though there were anything in them of
their own operation, apart from their sacred teaching. These are instructive to
you if you have a mind to be instructed, and if you know the truths which they
set forth; but do not imagine that men have come under another kind of
ceremonialism, another system of ritual and rubric, for it is not so. The rites
appropriate to priests are abolished with the Aaronic priesthood, and can never
be restored: "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." When
he cometh into the world these carnal ordinances must go out of the world.
Sacrifice and offering, burnt offering and sin offering, and all other patterns
of heavenly things, are swept away when the heavenly things themselves appear.

II. Thus much upon the shadows being swept away; and now, secondly, let us view
THE REVELATION OF THE SUBSTANCE. We find the Son of God himself appearing. We
read here, and we hear him say—"Mine ears hast thou opened." The Lord himself
comes, even he who is all that these things foreshadowed. When he comes he has a
prepared ear. The margin hath it, "Mine ears hast thou digged." Our ears often
need digging; for they are blocked up by sin. The passage to the heart seems to
be sealed in the cave of fallen man. But when the Savior came, his ear was not
as ours, but was attentive to the divine voice. He says, "He wakeneth mine ear
to hear as they that are taught. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was
not rebellious." Our Lord was quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord: he
knew what the will of the Lord was, and he could say, "I do always the thing
that pleases him." As man, he had a divine instinct of holiness, which made him
to know and love the Father's will, and caused him always to translate that will
into his own life. You see he came with an opened ear, and some think that here
we have an allusion to the boring of the ear in the case of the servant who had
a right to liberty, but refused to quit his servitude, because he loved his
master, and wished to remain with him for ever. It is not certain that there is
any such reference; but it is certain that our Lord was bound for ever to the
service which he had undertaken for his Father, and that he would not go back
from it. He pledged himself to redeem us, and he set his face like a flint to do
it. He loved his Father, and he loved his chosen so much that he vowed to
execute the Father's work, even to what I might call "the bitter end," if I did
not know that it was a sweet and blessed end to him. His ear was prepared for
his service. But our Lord came also with a prepared body: hence, the apostle
Paul, when he quoted this passage, probably taking the words from the Septuagint
translation, writes, "A body hast thou prepared me." You will wonder how, in one
passage, it should speak of the ear, and the next should speak of the body, and
yet there is small difference in the sense. We do not think of an ear without a
body—that would be a sorry business. The reading in the Hebrews is involved in
the text as it stands in the Psalm. If the ear is there, a body is there; you
cannot even dream of an ear hearing if separate from the rest of the body. The
apostle gives us the sense of the text rather than the words; and, at the same
time, dealing as he was with Jews by whom the Septuagint was prized, he quoted
from the version which they would be sure to acknowledge—and very properly and
wisely so—because that version was perfectly accurate as to the meaning of the
Hebrew. Any way, he was inspired to read it—"A body hast thou prepared me."
There was fashioned by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the blessed Virgin, a body
fitted to embody the Son of God. Wrought mysteriously, by means into which we
must not inquire—for what God hath veiled must remain covered—that body was
suited to set forth the great mystery, "God manifest in the flesh." The whole
body of Christ was prepared for him and for his great work. To begin with, it
was a sinless body, without taint of original sin, else God could not have dwelt
therein. It was a body made highly vital and sensitive, probably far beyond what
ours are; for sin has a blunting and hardening effect even upon flesh, and his
flesh, though it was in the "likeness of sinful flesh," was not sinful flesh,
but flesh which yielded prompt obedience to his spirit, even as his whole human
nature was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His body was
capable of great endurance, so as to know the griefs and agonies and unspeakable
sorrows of a delicate, holy, and tender kind which it was necessary for him to
bear. "A body hast thou prepared me." In the fullness of time he came into that
body, which was admirably adapted to enshrine the Godhead. Wondrous mystery,
that the infant of Bethlehem should be linked with the Infinite; and that the
weary man by the shores of Galilee should be very God of very God, revealed in a
body prepared for him! "A body hast thou prepared me": he had a prepared ear and
a prepared body.

He who assumed that body was existent before that body was prepared. He says, "A
body hast thou prepared me. Lo, I come." He from old eternity dwelt with God:
the Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God. We could not any
one of us have said that a body was prepared for us, and therefore we would come
to it; for we had had no existence before our bodies were fashioned. From
everlasting to everlasting our Lord is God, and he comes out of eternity into
time—the Father bringing him into the world. He was before all worlds, and was
before he came into the world to dwell in his prepared body.

Beloved, the human nature of Christ was taken on him in order that he might be
able to do for us that which God desired and required. God desired to see an
obedient man, a man who would keep his law to the full; and he sees him in
Christ. God desired to see one who would vindicate the eternal justice, and show
that sin is no trifle; and behold our Lord, the eternal Son of God, entering
into that prepared body, was ready to do all this mighty work, by rendering to
the law a full recompense for our dishonor of it! An absolutely perfect
righteousness he renders unto God: as the second Adam, he presents it for all
whom he represents. He bows his head a victim beneath Jehovah's sword, that the
truth, and justice, and honor of God might suffer no detriment. His body was
prepared to this end. Incarnation is a means to atonement. Only a man could
vindicate the law, and therefore the Son of God became a man. This is a
wonderful being, this God in our nature. "Emmanuel" is a glorious word. Surely
for the incarnation and the atonement the world was made from the first. Was
this the reason why the morning stars sang together when they saw the
cornerstone of the world, because they had an inkling that here God would be
manifest as nowhere else beside, and the Creator would be wedded to the
creature? That God might be manifested in the Christ, it may even be that sin
was permitted. Assuredly, there could have been no sacrifice on Calvary if there
had not first of all been sin in Eden. The whole scheme, the whole of God's
decrees and acts, worked up to an atoning Savior. Of the pyramid of creation and
of providence Christ is the apex: he is the flower of all that God hath made.
His divine nature in strange union with humanity constitutes a peerless
personage, such as never was before, and can never be again. God in our nature
one Being, and yet wearing two natures, is altogether unique. He saith, "A body
hast thou prepared me. Lo, I come." Think of this: it is a truth finer for
meditation than for sermonizing. The Lord give us to know it well by faith!

III. But now, thirdly, I call your attention to THE DECLARATION OF THE CHRIST,
made in the text: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. Then said I,
Lo, I come." Observe when he says this. It is in the time of failure. All the
sacrifices had failed. The candle flickered, and was dying out, and then the
great light arose, even the eternal light, and like a trumpet the words rung
out, "Lo, I come." All this has been of no avail; now I come. It is in the time
of failure that Christ always does appear. The last of man is the first of God;
and when we have come to the end of all our power and hope, then the eternal
power and Godhead appears with its "Lo, I come." When our Lord comes, it is with
the view of filling up the vacuum which had now been sorrowfully seen. God does
not desire these things; God does not require these things; but he does desire
and he does require something better: and lo, the Christ has come to bring that
something. That awful gap which was seen in human hope when Moses had passed
away, and the Aaronic priesthood, and all the ordinances of it were gone, Christ
was born to fill. It looked as if the light of ages had been quenched, and God's
glorious revelation had been for ever withdrawn; and then, in the dark hour,
Jesus cries, "Lo, I come!" He fills the blank abyss: he gives to man in reality
what he had lost in the shadow. When he appears, it is as the personal Lord. Lay
the stress upon the pronoun, "Lo, I come." The infinite Ego appears. "Lo, I
come." No mere man could talk thus, and be sane. No servant or prophet of God
would ever say, "Lo, I come." Saintly men talk not so. God's prophets and
apostles have a modest sense of their true position: they never magnify
themselves, though they magnify their office. It is for God to say, "Lo, I
come." He who says it takes the body prepared for him, and comes in his own
proper personality as the I AM. "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily." He comes forth from the ivory palaces to inhabit the tents of manhood.
He takes upon himself the body prepared for him of the Lord God, and he stands
forth in his matchless personality ready to do the will of God. "It pleased the
Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Everything is stored up in his
blessed person, and we are complete in him.

Observe the joyful avowal that he makes—"Lo, I come." This is no dirge: I think
I hear a silver trumpet ring out—"Lo, I come." Here is a joyful alacrity and
intense eagerness. The coming of the Savior was to him a thing of exceeding
willingness. "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross,
despising the shame."

He comes with a word calling attention to it; for he is not ashamed to be made
partaker of our flesh. "Lo," saith he, "I come. Behold, behold, I come." This is
no clandestine union; he bids heaven behold him come into our nature. Earth is
bidden to gaze upon it. O ye sinners, listen to this inviting "Lo!" Others have
cried to you, "Lo, here! and Lo, there"; but Jesus looks on you, and cries, "Lo,
I come." Look hither turn all your thoughts this way, and behold your God in
your nature ready to save you. Verily, the incarnate God is a subject meet for
the loftiest thoughts of sages, and for the lowliest thoughts of children.
Blessed are the children of grace who can sit at the feet of the incarnate God
and look up, forgetting all the wisdom of the Greeks, and all the sign-seeking
of the Jews in the satisfaction which they find in Jesus.

I think, too, I hear in this declaration of the coming One a note of finality.
He takes away the sacrifice from Aaron's altar; tut he says, "Lo, I come." There
is an end of it. "Lo, I come." Is there anything after this? Can anything
supersede this—"Lo, I come." "Lo, I come" has been the perpetual music of the
ages. Read it, "Lo, I am come"; for it is in the present tense, and how sweet
the sound! Christ is come, and joy with him. Read it as well in the future, if
you will, "Lo, I come," for he comes "the second time without sin unto
salvation"; here is our chief hope! "Lo, I come." He himself is the last word of
God. "In the beginning was the Word"; and so he was God's first word. But he is
the end as well as the beginning: God's last word to man; Christ is God's
ultimatum. Look for no new revelation—"Lo, I am come," shines on for ever. Do
not ask, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" He has come;
look for no other. Behold, he came to give what God desires, what God requires;
what would you more? Let him be all your salvation and all your desire. Let him
be "the desire of all nations." He is the fulfillment of all the requirements of
the human race, as well as the full amount of what God requires.

IV. Next, I beg you to note THE REFERENCE TO PRECEDING WRITINGS. He says, "Lo, I
come: in the volume of the book it is written of me." If I preached from the
passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, I might fairly declare that in the whole
volume of Holy Scripture much is written of our Lord and prescribed for him as
Messiah. The page of inspiration is fragrant with the name of Jesus. He is the
top line of the entire volume, and in the Greek word I see a half allusion to
this. He is the head-line of contents to every chapter of Scripture. He is of
all Scripture the sum. "In the beginning was the word." Everything speaks of
him. The Pentateuch, and the books of the prophets, and the Psalms, and the
gospels, and the epistles all speak of him. "In the volume of the book it is
written of me."

Preaching as I am from the Psalms, I cannot take so long a range. I must look
back and find what was written in David's day, and within the Pentateuch
certainly; and where do I find it written concerning his coming? The Pentateuch
drips with prophecies of Christ as a honeycomb overflowing with its honey.
Chiefly is he to be found in the head and front of the book: so early as the
opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve had sinned, and we
were lost, behold he is spoken of in the volume of the book in these terms: "The
seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." So early was it written that
the Redeemer would be born in our nature to vanquish our foe. But I confess I do
not feel shut out from another interpretation. I conceive that our Lord here
refers to another book, the book of the divine purposes, the volume of the
eternal covenant. There was a time before all time, when there was no day but
the Ancient of Days, when all that existed was the Lord, who is all in all: then
the sacred Three entered into covenant, in mutual agreement, for a sublime end.
Man sinning, the Son of God shall be the surety. Christ shall bear the result of
man's offense; he shall vindicate the law of God, and make Jehovah's name more
glorious than ever it has been. The second person of the divine Unity was
pledged to come, and take up the nature of men, and so become the firstborn
among many brethren to lift up a fallen race, and to save a number that no man
can number, elect of God the Father, and given to the Son to be his heritage,
his portion, his bride. Then did the Well-beloved strike hands with the eternal
God, and enter into covenant engagements on our behalf: "In the volume of the
book it is written." That sealed book, upon whose secrets no angel's eye has
looked, a book written by the finger of God long before he wrote the Book of the
law upon tables of stone, that book of God may be spoken of in the Psalm, "And
in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them." Our Lord came to carry out all his
suretyship engagements: his work is the exact fulfillment of his engagements
recorded in the eternal covenant, "ordered in all things and sure." He acts out
every mysterious line and syllable, even to the full. Then he said, "A body hast
thou prepared me. Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me." It
is ever a pleasing study to see our Lord, both in the written Word, and in the
eternal covenant of grace.

V. I must close with the fifth point, THE DELIGHT OF HIM THAT COMETH He said,
"Lo, I come." As I have already told you, there is wonderful delight in that
exclamation—"Lo, I come"; but lest we should mistake our Lord, he adds, "I
delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." There can be
no denial of his joy in his service.

Note well, that he came in compete subserviency to his Father, God. "I delight
to do"—what? "Thy will." His own will was absorbed in the divine will. His
pleasure it was to say, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." It was his meat and
his drink to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work. Though he
was Lord and God, he became a lowly servant for our sakes. Though high as the
highest, he stooped low as the lowest. The King of kings was the servant of
servants that he might save his people. He took upon him the form of a servant,
and girded himself, and stood obediently at his Father's call.

He had a prospective delight as to his work. Before he came, he delighted in the
thought of his incarnation. The Supreme Wisdom saith, "My delights were with the
sons of men." Happy in his Father's courts, he yet looked forward to an access
of happiness in becoming man. "Can that be?" saith one. Could the Son of God be
happier than he was? As God, he was infinitely blessed; but he knew nothing by
experience of the life of man, and into that sphere he desired to enter. To the
Godhead there can be no enlargement, for it is infinite; but still there can be
an addition; our Lord was to add the nature of man to that of God. He would live
as man, suffer as man, and triumph as man, and yet remain God: and to this he
looked forward with a strange delight, inexplicable except upon the knowledge of
the great love he bore to us. He had given his heart so entirely to his dear
bride, whom he saw in the glass of predestination, that for her he would endure
all things.

"Yea, saith the Lord, for her I'll go Through all the depths of care and woe,
And on the cross will even dare The bitter pangs of death to bear."

It was wondrous love. Our Lord's love surpasses all language and even thought. I
am talking prodigies and miracles at every word I utter. It was delightful to
our Lord to come hither.

"What did he delight in?" saith one. Evidently he delighted in God's law. "Thy
law is within my heart." He resolved that the beauties of the law of the Lord
should be displayed by being embodied in his own life, and that its claims
should be vindicated by his own death. To achieve this, he delighted to come and
keep it and honor it by an obedience both active and passive. He delighted in
God's will also, and that is somewhat more; for law is the expression of will,
and this may be altered; but the will of the great King never changes. Our Lord
delighted to carry out all the purposes and desires of the Most High God. He so
delighted in the will of God that he came to do it, and to bear it, "by the
which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all."

He delighted also in God. He took an intense delight in glorifying the Father.
He came to reveal the Father, and make him to be beloved of men. He did all
things to please God. Moreover, he took a delight in us; and here, though the
object of his love is less, the love itself is heightened by the conspicuous
condescension. The Lord Jesus took a deep delight in his people, whose names
were written on his heart, and graven on the palms of his hands. His heart was
fixed on their redemption, and therefore he would present himself as a sacrifice
on their behalf. The people whom the Father gave him from before the foundation
of the world lay on his very soul; for them he had a baptism to be baptized
with, and he was straitened till it was accomplished. He gave himself no rest
till he had left both joy and rest to ransom his own. May I go a step further
and say that he had an actual delight in his coming among men? "I delight to do
thy will, O my God"—not merely to think of doing it. When our Lord was here, he
was the most blessed of men. Do you start? Do you remind me that he was "a man
of sorrows"? I grant you that none was more afflicted; but I still stand to it,
that within him dwelt a joy of the highest order. To him it was joy to be in
sorrow, and honor to be put to shame. Do you think that lightens our estimate of
his self-denial and disinterestedness? Nay, it adds weight to it. Some people
fancy that there is no credit in doing a thing unless you are miserable in doing
it. Nay, brethren, that is the very reverse. Obedience which is unwillingly
offered and causes no joy in the soul, is not acceptable. We must serve God with
our heart, or we do not serve him. Obedience rendered without delight in
rendering it is only half obedience. You shall say what you will about the
greatness of my Lord's agonies. You shall never go too far in your estimate of
his unfathomable griefs; but going with you to the full in it all, I shall take
liberty still to say that he had within himself a fountain of joy, which enabled
him to endure the cross, and even to despise the shame. Blessed among men was
he, even when he was made a curse for us! With delight he gave himself for us,
and made a cheerful surrender of himself, that he might be the ransom for many.
The text is express upon that fact. And all this because our Lord came with such
intense heartiness. He says, "Yea, thy law is within my heart." Our Lord is most
thorough in all that he does. His work is never slovenly, nor in a half-hearted
way. He does not even sit on the well and talk to a poor woman, but what his
heart is there. He does not go into a fisherman's hut, but what his heart is
there, and he heals the sick one. He does not sit down to supper with his
followers, but what his heart is there, and he reveals his love. I wish we were
always at home when the Lord calls for us! Sometimes we are all abroad, and our
heart is away from the service of our Father; but he loved the Lord with all his
heart, and mind, and strength. For us he gave his whole being, rejoicing to
redeem us. He was always intense. Whether he preached or practiced, Jesus was
all there and always there. Hence his delight; for what a man does with his
heart he delights to do. These two sentences are melodious of joy to my ear. "I
delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart."

Hear this one other word. It is all done now. Jesus has fulfilled the Father's
will in the salvation in the midst of his ransomed ones. And shall I tell you,
need I tell you, what must be the delight, the heavenly joy of our lord, now
that the work is finished? He is now the focus, the center, the source of bliss.
What must be his own delight! We often say of the angels that they rejoice over
one sinner that repenteth. I doubt not that they do, but the Bible does not say
so. The Bible says, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner that repenteth." What means the presence of the angels? Why, that the
angels see the joy of Christ when sinners repent. Hear them say to one another,
"Behold the Father's face! How he rejoices! Gaze on the countenance of the Son!
What a heaven of delight shines in those eyes of his! Jesus wept for these
sinners, but now he rejoices over them. How resplendent are the nail-prints
today, for the redeemed of the Lord's death are believing and repenting! That
blessed countenance which is always as a sun, shineth in the fullness of its
strength, now that he sees of the travail of his soul." He who suffered feels a
joy unsearchable,

"The firstborn sons of light Desire in vain its depths to see:

They cannot read the mystery— The length, the breadth, the height."

Oh, the joy of triumphant love! The joy of the crucified, whose prepared body is
the body of his glory as once it was the body of his humiliation! In that
manhood he still rejoices, and delights to do the will of the Father. My time
has fled, and yet I am expected to say something about missions. What shall I
say? My brothers, sisters, all or you, do you know anything about the truths I
have spoken? Then go and tell the heathen that the Lord is come. Here is a
message worth the telling. Mary Magdalene, and the other Maries, haste to tell
the disciples that the Lord had risen; will you not go and tell them that he has
come down to save? "Lo, I come," saith he. Will you not take up his words, and
go to the people who have never heard of him, and say, "Lo, he has come." Tell
the Ethiopians, the Chinese, the Hindus, and all the islands of the sea that God
has come hither to save men, and has taken a prepared body, that he might give
to God all he required, and all that he desired, that sinful men might be
accepted in the Beloved, with whom God the Father is well pleased. Go, and take
to the heathen this sacred Book. "In the volume of the book it is written of
him." Do not begin to doubt the Book yourself. Why should you send missionaries
to teach them about a book in which you do not yourself believe? Tell the
nations that "In the volume of the book it is written of him." Believe this
Book, and spread it. Help Bible societies, and all such efforts; and aid
missionary societies, which carry the Book and proclaim the Savior. The men of
the Book of God are the men of God, such as the world needs. Bid such men go and
open the Book of God, and teach the nations its blessed news. Go, dear friends,
and assure the heathen that there is happiness in obedience to God. So the
Savior found it. He delighted in God's will, even to the death, and they will
also know delight as in their measures they bow before the authority of the Word
and the will of the one living and true God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and
of Jacob. Jehovah, the I AM, must be worshipped, for beside him there is none
else. Give glory unto God, whom our Lord Jesus has come to glorify. Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon—Psalms 40 Hymns From "Our Own Hymn Book"

Hymn # 383—High Priest and Surety JESUS, my great High Priest, Offer'd Mis
blood, and died; My guilty conscience seeks No sacrifice beside. His powerful
blood did once atone; And now it pleads before the throne.

To this dear Surety's hand Will I commit my cause;

He answers and fulfills His Father's broken laws;

Behold my soul at freedom set! My Surety paid the dreadful debt.

My Advocate appears For my defense on high; The Father bows his ears, And lays
His thunder by, Not all that hell or sin can say, Shall turn His heart, His love
away.

Immense compassion reigns In my Immanuel's heart, He condescends to act A
Mediator's part:

He is my friend and brother, too, Divinely kind, divinely true.

Isaac Watts, 1709

Hymn # 271—Gethsemane MANY woes had He endured, Many sore temptations met,
Patient, and to pains inured: But the sorest trial yet Was to be sustained in
thee, Gloomy, sad Gethsemane.

Came at length the dreadful night;

Vengeance with its iron rod Stood, and with collected might Bruised the harmless
Lamb of God.

See, my soul, my Saviour see, Prostrate in Gethsemane.

There my God bore all my guilt; This through grace can be believed; But the
horrors which He felt Are too vast to be conceived.

None can penetrate through thee, Doleful, dark Gethsemane.

Sins against a holy God;

Sins against His righteous laws;

Sins against His love, His blood;

Sins against His name and cause;

Sins immense as is the sea—

Hide me, O Gethsemane!

Here's my claim, and here alone;

None a Saviour more can need;

Deeds of righteousness I've none;

No, not one good work to plead:

Only a glimpse of hope for me, Only in Gethsemane.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost, One almighty God of love, Hymned by all the heavenly
host In Thy shining courts above, We poor sinners, gracious Three, Bless Thee
for Gethsemane.

Joseph Hart, 1759

Hymn # 229—The Covenant God Extolled The God of Abraham praise, Who reigns
enthroned above;

Ancient of everlasting days, and God of Love;

Jehovah, great I AM! by earth and Heav'n confessed;

I bow and bless the sacred Name forever blessed.

The God of Abraham praise, at Whose supreme command From earth I rise—and seek
the joys at His right hand;

I all on earth forsake, its wisdom, fame, and power; And Him my only Portion
make, my Shield and Tower.

The God of Abraham praise, Whose all sufficient grace Shall guide me all my
happy days, in all my ways.

He calls a worm His friend, He calls Himself my God! And Me shall save me to the
end, thro' Jesus' blood.

He by Himself has sworn; I on His oath depend, I shall, on eagle wings upborne,
to Heav'n ascend.

I shall behold His race; I shall His power adore, And sing the wonders of His
grace forevermore.

Thomas Olivers, 1772

"Lo, I Come" and an Application Sermon Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, May 3rd,
1891, by C. H. Spurgeon At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "Then said I,
Lo, I come."—Psalms 40:7. TO MY GREAT SORROW, last Sunday night I was unable to
preach. I had prepared a sermon upon this text, with much hope of its
usefulness; for I intended it to be a supplement to the morning sermon, which
was a doctrinal exposition. The evening sermon was intended to be practical, and
to commend the whole subject to the attention of enquiring sinners. I came here
feeling quite fit to preach, when an overpowering nervousness oppressed me, and
I lost all self-control, and left the pulpit in anguish. I come hither this
morning with the same subject. I have been turning it over, and wondering why it
was so. Peradventure, this sermon was not to be preached on that occasion,
because God would teach the preacher more of his own feebleness, and cast him
more fully upon the divine strength. That has certainly been the effect upon my
own heart. Perhaps, also, there are some here this morning who were not here
last Lord's-day evening, whom God intends to bless by the sermon. The people
were not here, peradventure, for whom the eternal decree of God had designed the
message, and they may be here now. You that are fresh to this place, should
consider the strange circumstance, which never happened to me before in the
forty years of my ministry; and you may be led to enquire whether my bow was
then unstrung that the arrow might find its ordained target in your heart. The
two sermons will now go forth together from the press; and perhaps, going
together, they may prove like two hands of love wherewith to embrace lost souls,
and draw them to the Savior, who herein saith, "Lo, I come." God grant it maybe
so! The times when our Lord says, "Lo, I come," have all a family likeness.
There are certain crystals, which assume a regular shape, and if you break them,
each fragment will show the same conformation; if you were to dash them to
shivers, every particle of the crystal would be still of the same form. Now the
goings forth of Christ which were of old, and his coming at Calvary, and that
great advent when he shall come a second time to judge the earth in
righteousness, all these have a likeness the one to the other. But there is a
coming of what I may call a lesser sort, when Jesus cries "Lo, I come" to each
individual sinner, and brings a revelation of pardon and salvation, and this has
about it much which is similar to the great ones. My one desire this morning is
to set forth the Lord Jesus as saying to you, as once he did to me, "Lo, I
come." Still he cries to the weak, destitute, forlorn, hopeless sinner, "Lo, I
come." I shall talk about that coming, and hope that you will experience it now,
and thus be able to follow me in what I say. I speak to the unconverted mainly,
but while I do so I shall hope to be refreshing the grateful memories of those
already saved; but this will all depend upon the working of the Spirit of God.
To him, then, lift up your hearts in prayer.

I. I will commence with this observation: THE LORD CHRIST HAS TIMES OF HIS FIRST
COMINGS TO MEN; "Then said I, Lo, I come."

What are these times? Mayhap some here present have reached this season, and
this very day is the time of blessing when the text shall be fulfilled: "Then
said I, Lo, I come." Go with me to the first record in the volume of the Book,
when it was said that he should come. You will find it in the early chapters of
Genesis.

Jesus said, "Lo, I come" when man's probation was a failure. Man in the Garden
of Eden had every advantage for obedience and life. He had a perfect nature,
created without bias towards evil, and he was surrounded with every inducement
to continue loyal to his Maker. He was placed under no burdensome law. The
precept was simple and plain: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Only one
tree was reserved: all the rest were given up to be freely enjoyed. In a very
short time—some think it was on the first day, but that we do not know—our
mother Eve ate of the fruit, and father Adam followed her, and thus human
probation ended in total failure. They were weighed in the balances, and found
wanting: "Adam being in honor continued not." At that point we read in the
volume of the Book that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.
Then our Redeemer said, "Lo, I come." Hearken to me, my friend: you also have
had your probation, as you have thought it to be. You quitted your father's roof
with every hope, your mother judged you to be of a most amiable character, and
your friends expected to see in you one whose life would honor the family. You
thought so yourself. Your probation has reversed that hope: you have turned out
far other then you should have been; and looking back upon the whole of your
life to this moment, you ought to be ashamed. It has been a terrible breaking
down for you, and for all who know you; and you are sitting in this place
feeling, "Yes, it is so; the tests have proved me to be as a broken reed. I am
under condemnation by reason of my transgressions against God." How rejoiced I
am to tell you that, at such a time when you are conscious that you are a dead
failure, Jesus says, "Lo, I come!" If you had not been a failure you would not
have wanted him, and he never comes as a superfluity, but now in your complete
break-down you must have him or perish, and in infinite pity he cries, "Lo, I
come." Is not this good news for you? Believe it and live. That also was a time
when man's clever dealings with the devil had turned out a great failure. The
serpent came and said, "God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." How
craftily he put it! How cunningly he insinuated that God was jealous of what man
might become, and was keeping him back from a nobler destiny! He even dared to
say, "Ye shall not surely die," thus giving the Lord the lie direct. He seemed
to say—His threat is a mere bugbear, a thing to scare you from a great advance
in knowledge and position. "Ye shall not surely die." Eve, in her supposed
wisdom, was not able to cope with the serpent's subtlety. "And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a
tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." The devil had played
his cards so well that man was left bankrupt of virtue, bankrupt of happiness,
bankrupt of hope. Then, in the volume of the Book, it was written, "I said, Lo,
I come." Yes, in the hour when hellish falsehood had robbed man of everything.
No man hath yet dealt with the devil without being a loser. The arch-deceiver
promises very fairly; but he lies from beginning to end. I know he promised you
pleasure unbounded, and liberty unrestrained. Now, the pleasure is burnt out,
and the ashes of that which once blazed and crackled, are terrible to look upon.
As for liberty, where is it? You have become the bond-slave of sin. You were to
enjoy life, and lo, you are plunged in death! It may be, there are in this house
persons who bear in their bodies the marks, not of the Lord Jesus, but of the
devil's temptations. He has made you so to sin that your bones are filled with
the sins of your youth; and you know it. He needs a long spoon who eats out of
the same dish as the devil, and your spoon has not been long enough. Sin has
overreached and betrayed you; and you stand trembling before God as the result
of having listened to the falsehoods of hell, and having rejected the commands
of heaven. Supposing such a person to be present—and I feel sure he is—I pray
that he may hear my text as from the Lord Jesus himself. "Then said I, Lo, I
come." The devil has trodden you down, but Jesus comes to raise you up. Your
paradise is lost, and by him it is to be restored. Jesus has come to give
repentance and remission of sins. That crafty head which deceived you, the Lord
Jesus has broken; he came for this purpose. If you had not been betrayed, you
would not have needed a deliverer; but your misery has made room for his mercy.
Not while Adam is perfect in paradise is there any news of the Seed of the woman
bruising the serpent's head; but after the serpent has done his deceitful work,
and has ruined the race, then we hear that ancient gospel of God, and see the
sole hope of fallen man. Here is good cheer for you who look with shame upon
your foolish yielding to Satan's deceits. You are caught as silly birds in a
snare; you have been as foolish as the fish of the sea which are taken in a net;
but when you are captives, Christ comes to be your Liberator, and God commends
his love towards you in that while you are yet sinners Christ died for the
ungodly.

Further than this, when we find the first promise of our Lord's coming, "in the
volume of the Book," we find that man's covering was a failure. The guilty pair
had gathered the leaves of the fig-tree, and had made themselves aprons, for
they knew that they were naked. This was the first fruit of that boasted tree of
knowledge, and it is the principal one to this day. Their scant coverlet
contented them for a little while; but when the voice of the Lord God was heard
in the garden they confessed that their aprons were good for nothing; for Adam
owned that he was afraid because he was naked, and that therefore he had hidden
himself in the thick groves of the garden. It is easy to make a covering which
pleases us for a season; but self-righteousness, presumption, pretended
fidelity, and fancied natural excellence—all those things are like green
fig-leaves, which shrivel up before long, lose their freshness, and are rather
an exposure than a covering. It may be that my hearer has found his imaginary
virtues failing him. It was when our first parents knew that they were naked
that the Savior said, "Lo, I come." My downcast hearer, if you are no longer in
your own esteem as good as you used to be; if you can no longer hide the fact
that you have broken God's law, and deserve his wrath; if you no longer believe
the devil's lie that you shall suffer no penalty, but may even be the better for
sin, then the Lord the Savior says to you, "Lo, I come." To you, O naked sinner,
shivering in your own shame, blushing scarlet with conviction—to you he comes.
When you have nothing left of your own, he comes to be your robe of
righteousness, wherein you may stand accepted with God. That first news of the
coming Champion came at a time when all man's pleas were failures. Adam had
thrown the blame on Eve—"The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me
of the tree, and I did eat." Eve had also thrown the blame on the serpent; but
the Lord God had silenced all such excuses, and driven them from their refuges.
He had made them feel their guilt, and had pronounced upon them the inevitable
sentence; and then it was that he spake of the "Seed of the woman." Here was
man's first, and last, and best hope. So too, my friend, when you dare no longer
plead your innocence, nor mention extenuations and excuses, then Jesus comes in.
If conscience oppresses you so sorely that you cannot escape from it; if it be
so that all you can say is "Guilty, Willfully Guilty," then Jesus comes. If you
neither blame your surroundings, nor your companions, nor the providence of God,
nor your physical weakness, nor anything else, but just take all the blame to
yourself because you cannot help doing so, then Jesus comes in. Verily you have
sinned against God, against your parents, against your fellowmen, against light,
against knowledge, against conscience, and against the Holy Ghost; no wonder,
therefore, that you stand speechless, unable to offer any plea by way of
self-justification. It is in that moment of shame and confusion that the Savior
says, "Lo, I come." For such as you are he is an Advocate. When a sinner cannot
plead for himself, Christ pleads for him; when his excuses have come to an end,
then will the Lord put away his sin, through his own great sacrifice. Is not
this a precious gospel word? When our Lord did actually arrive, fulfilling the
text by being born of a woman, it was when man's religion had proved a failure.
Sacrifices and offerings had ceased to be of any value: God had put them away as
a weariness to him. The scribes and the Pharisees, with all their phylacteries
and wide-bordered garments, were a mere sham. There seemed to be no true
religion left upon the earth. Then said Christ, "Lo, I come." There was never a
darker thirty years than when Herod slew the innocents, and the chief priests
and scribes pursued the Son of God, and at last nailed him to the tree. It was
then that Jesus came to us to redeem us by his death. Do I speak to any man here
whose religion has broken down? You have observed a host of rites and
ceremonies: you were christened in your infancy, you were duly confirmed, you
have taken what you call "the blessed sacrament"; or it may be you have sat
always in the most plain of meeting-houses, and listened to the most orthodox of
preachers, and you have been amongst the most religious of religious people; but
now, at length, the Spirit of God has shown you that all these performances and
attendances are worthless cobwebs which avail you nothing. You see now that—

"Not all the outward forms on earth, Nor rites that God has given, Nor will of
man, nor blood, nor birth, Can raise a soul to heaven."

You are just now driven to despair, because the palace of your imaginary
excellence has vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision. If I had told you
that your religiousness was of no value, you would have been very angry with me,
and perhaps you would have said, "That is a bigoted remark, and you ought to be
ashamed of making it." But now the Spirit of God has told it you, and you feel
its force: he is great at convincing of sin. When the Spirit of truth comes to
deal with the religiousness of the flesh, he withers it in a moment. All
religion which is not spiritual is worthless. All religion which is not the
supernatural product of the Holy Ghost is a fiction. One breath from the Spirit
of God withers all the beauty of our pride, and destroys the comeliness of our
conceit; and then, when our own religion is dashed to shivers, the Lord Jesus
comes in, saying, "Lo, I come." He delights to come in his glorious personality,
when the Pharisee can no longer say, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other
men"; and when the once bold fisherman is crying, "Lord, save, or I perish." If
you feel that you need something infinitely better than Churchianity, or
Dissenterism, or Methodism—in fact, that you need Christ himself to be formed in
you—then to you, even to you, Jesus says, "Lo, I come." When man is at his
worst, Christ is seen at his best. The Lord walks to us on the sea in the middle
watch of the night. He draws nigh to those souls which draw nigh to death. When
you pan with self you meet with Christ. When no shred of hope remains, then
Jesus says, "Lo, I come."

Once more. The Lord Jesus is to come a second time; and when will he come? He
will come when man's hope is a failure. He will come when iniquity abounds, and
the love of many hath waxed cold. He will come when dreams of a golden age shall
be turned into the dread reality of abounding evil. Do not dream that the world
will go on improving and improving, and that the improvement will naturally
culminate in the millennium. No such thing. It may grow better for a while,
better under certain aspects; but, afterwards the power of the better element
will ebb out like the sea, even though each wave should look like an advance.
That day shall not come except there be a falling away first. Even the wise
virgins will sleep, and the men of the world will be, as in the days of Noah,
eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage. On a sudden, the Lord
will come as a thief in the night. The deluge of fire will find men as
unprepared as did the deluge of water. He will come taking vengeance on his
adversaries. When things wax worse and worse we see the tokens of his speedy
coming. He will shortly appear, for the sky is darkening. When every hope will
seem blotted out, and nothing but grim ages of anarchy and ungodliness are to be
expected, then our Deliverer will come. When the tale of bricks was doubled in
Egypt, Moses came; and when the world attains to its utmost unbelief and
iniquity, Jesus will come. So at this moment my hearer may be saying, "I cannot
be worse than I am; if I am not actually in hell already, yet I feel a fire
within which tortures my soul. The sword of vengeance hangs over my head
suspended by a single hair. I tremble to live, and I fear to die. Lost! Lost!
Lost! I am past hope!" This is the time for my text: "Then said I, Lo, I come."
He who is able to save to the uttermost appears to the soul when every other
hope disappears. In your deep distress I see a token for good. You are now
reduced to spiritual death, and now I trust the eternal life will visit you.

Now all this I put before you in simple language, believing what I say, and
trusting that if I describe your case, you will know that I mean it for you. I
have heard of a preacher who was so fearful lest he should be thought personal,
that he said to his congregation, "Lest any of you should think that what I have
said was meant for you, I would observe that the sermon I am preaching was
prepared for a congregation in Massachusetts." I can plead nothing of the sort.
I refer to you, my hearer, in the most pointed manner. I will attend to
Massachusetts, if ever the Lord sends me there; but just now I mean you. Oh,
that you may have grace to take home these thoughts to yourselves; for if you do
so, they will by the Spirit's power bring the light of hope into your souls!

II. Secondly, I would remark that CHRIST COMES TO SINNERS IN THE GLORY OF HIS
PERSON: "Then said I, Lo, I come." Note that glorious I! Have you not seen
people engaged in urgent work who did not understand their business?
Apprentices, and other unskillful people, are muddling time away. They are
making bad worse, and running great risk. Perhaps a great calamity will occur if
the work is not done well and quickly. A first-rate worker is sent for. See, the
man has come who understands the business. He cries, "Let me come! Stand out of
my way! You are on the wrong tack: let me do it myself!" You have not blamed him
for egotism, for the thing needed to be done, and he could do it, and the others
could not. Everybody recognized the master workman, and gave place to him. The
announcement of his coming was the end of the muddle, and the signal of hope.
Even so Jesus comes to you sinners, and his presence is your salvation. He says,
"Lo, I come." What does he mean?

He means, the setting of all else on one side. There is the priest—he has not
helped you much; he may go, for Jesus says, "Lo, I come." There are your own
efforts and doings; there are your feelings and thinkings; there are your
ceremonies and austerities; there are your prayers and tears; there are your
hearings and readings—all these must be laid aside as grounds of confidence, and
Jesus alone must be your trust. He can do for you what none of these can. You
are trying to work yourself up to repentance and faith, and you cannot succeed.
Let him come, and he will bring every good thing with him. It is glorious to see
our Lord throwing down all our bowing walls and tottering fences, and to hear
him cry, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation." Everything else vanishes
before his perfect salvation.

Before him there is a setting of self aside. You have been your own confidence.
What you could feel, or do, or think, or resolve, had become the ground of your
confidence; but now Jesus puts self down, and he is himself exalted. By working
yourself to death, you cannot effect your own salvation. Lo, Jesus comes to save
you. You cannot weave yourself a garment. Lo, he comes to clothe you from heed
to foot with his own seamless robe of righteousness. He annihilates self that he
may fill all things.

Here is a glorious setting of himself at our side and in our place. Mr. Moody
tells a story, which I would fain hope may be true; for one would like to hear
something good about a Czar of Russia, and especially about our once enemy, the
Emperor Nicholas. The story concerns a soldier in the barracks who was much
distressed by his heavy debts. He was in despair, for he owed a great deal of
money, and could not tell where to get it. He took a piece of paper, and made a
list of his debts, and underneath the list he wrote, "Who will pay these debts?"
He then lay down on the barrack bed, and fell asleep, with the paper before him.
The Emperor of Russia passed by, and, taking up the paper, read it, and being in
a gracious mood signed at the bottom, "NICHOLAS." Was not that a splendid answer
to the question? When the soldier woke up and read it, he could scarcely believe
his own eyes. "Who will pay these debts?" was the despairing question.
"Nicholas" was the all-sufficient answer. So are we answered, Who will bear our
sins? The grand reply is "JESUS." He puts his own name to our liabilities, and
in effect, that he may meet them, he says, "Lo, I come." Your debt of sin is
discharged when you believe in Christ Jesus. "Without shedding of blood is no
remission;" but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanseth us from all
sin. You are not now to bear your own sins. Behold the scapegoat, who carries
them away into the wilderness! Yea, Jesus says, "Lo, I come!" He takes our sins
upon himself, he bears their penalty, and we go free. Blessed word—"Lo, I come":
I come to take your weight of sin, your burden of punishment. I come to be made
a curse for you, that you may be made the righteousness of God in me. Sinner,
stand out of the way, and let Jesus appear for you, and fill your place! He sets
you on one side, and then he sets himself where you have been. Jesus is now the
one pillar on which to lean, the one foundation on which to build, the one and
only rest of our weary souls.

He sets himself where we can see him; for he cries, "Lo, I come"; that is to
say, "See me come." He comes openly, that we may see him clearly. How I wish the
Lord would reveal himself at this moment to each one of those who are weary of
earth, of self, of sin, and possibly even weary of life itself! Oh, if you could
but see Jesus standing in your room and stead, you would have faith to stand in
his place, and so become "accepted in the Beloved"! O Lord, hear my prayer, and
cause poor hearts to see thee descending from the skies, to uplift sinners from
the dark abyss! Holy Spirit, touch that young man's eyes with heavenly salve,
that he may see where salvation lies. Deal with that poor woman's dim eyes also,
that she may perceive the Lord Christ, and find peace in him. Jesus cries, "Lo,
I come! Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth."

"There is life for a look at the Crucified One;

There is life at this moment for thee.

Then look, sinner—look unto him, and be saved—

Unto him who was nail'd to the tree."

Should you even lie in all the despair and desolation which I described, I would
persuade you to believe in Jesus. Trust him, and you shall find him all that you
want. Our Lard sets himself to be permanently our all in all When he came on
earth, he did not leave his work till he had finished it. Even when he rose to
glory, he continued his service for his chosen, living to intercede for them.
Jesus was a Savior nineteen hundred years ago, and he is a Savior still; and he
will be a Savior until all the chosen race shall have been gathered home. He
tells us, "I said, Lo, I come"; but he does not say, "I said, I will go away,
and quit the work." Our Lord's ear is bored, and he goes out no more from the
service of salvation. It is not written of any penitent souls, "Ye shall seek
me, but shall not find me"; but it is written, "If thou seek him, he will be
found of thee." O my hearer, you are now in the place where the gospel is
preached to you—yes, to you, for we are sent to preach the gospel to every
creature; and though you should be the worst, and most benighted, and most
guilty of all the creatures out of hell, yet you are a creature, and we preach
Christ to you. O poor heart, may the Lord Jesus say to you "Lo, I come!" for he
comes to stay,—to stay until he has worked salvation in you as he has worked out
salvation for you. He will not leave a believer till he has presented him
spotless before the throne of God with exceeding joy. I wish I could make all
this most clear and plain. You are altogether ruined by your own fault, and you
cannot undo the evil. You have done all you can, and it has come to nothing. You
are steeped in sin up to your throat; yea the filth has gone over your head: you
are as one drowned in black waters. Despairing one, cast not your eyes around to
seek for a friend, for you will look in vain to men. No arm can rescue you, save
one; and that is the arm of Jesus, who now cries "Lo, I come." Set everything
else on one side, and trust yourself with the Savior, Christ the Lord.

III. Oh, that many may be comforted while I dwell on a third head! CHRIST IN HIS
COMING IS HIS OWN INTRODUCTION.

Here our Lord is his own herald, "Lo, I come." He does not wait for an eloquent
preacher to act as master of the ceremonies to him: he introduces himself.
Therefore even I, the simplest talker on earth, may prove quite sufficient for
my Lord's purpose if he will graciously condescend to bless these plain words of
mine. It is not I that say that Jesus comes, but in the text our Lord himself
declares, "Then said I, Lo, I come." You need not do anything to draw Christ's
attention to you; it is Christ who draws your attention to himself. Do you see
this? You are the blind bat; and he is all eye towards you, and bids you look on
him. I hear you cry, "Lord, remember me," and I hear him answer, "Soul, remember
me." He bids you look on him when you beseech him to look on you.

He comes when quite unsought, or sought for in a wrong way. To many men and
women Christ has come though they had not even desired him. Yea, he has come
even to those who hated him. Saul of Tarsus was on his way to worry the saints
at Damascus, but Jesus said, "Lo, I come"; and when he looked out of heaven he
turned Saul, the persecutor, into Paul, the apostle. The promise is fulfilled,
"I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that
asked not after me." Herein is the glorious sovereignty of his love fully
exercised, and grace reigns supreme. "Lo, I come," is the announcement of
majestic grace which waiteth not for man, neither tarrieth for the sons of men.
Our Lord Jesus is the way to himself. Did you ever notice that? He comes himself
to us, and so he is the way by which we meet him. He is our rest, and the way to
our rest; he says, "I am the way." You want to know how to get to Christ? You
have not to get to Christ, for he has come to you. It is well for you to come to
Christ; but that is only possible because Christ has come to you. Jesus is near
you: near you now. Backslider, he comes to you! Wandering soul, roving to the
very brink of perdition, the good Shepherd cries, "Lo, I come." He is the way to
himself.

Remember, also, that he is the blessing which he brings. Jesus not only gives
life and resurrection, but he says, "I am the resurrection and the life." Christ
is salvation, and everything needful to salvation is in him. If he comes, all
good comes with him, or rather in him. An enquirer once said to a minister, "The
next step for me is to get a deeper conviction of sin." The minister said, "No
such thing, my friend: the next step is to trust in Jesus, for he says, Come
unto me." To come to Jesus, or rather to receive Jesus who has come to us, is
the one essential step into eternal salvation. Though our Lord does say, "Come
unto me," he has preceded it with this other word, "Lo, I come." Poor cripple,
if you cannot come to Jesus, ask him to come to you; and he will. Here you lie,
and you have been for years in this case; you have no man to put you into the
pool, and it would do you no good if he did; but Jesus can make you whole, and
he is here. You cannot stir hand or foot because of spiritual paralysis; but
your case is not hopeless. Listen to my Lord in the text, "Then said I, Lo, I
come." He has no paralysis. He can come, leaping over the mountains of division.
I know my Lord came to me, or I should never have come to him: why should he not
come to you? I came to him because he came to me.

"He drew me, and I followed on, Charmed to confess the voice divine."

Why should he not draw us also? Is he not doing so? Yield to the pressure of his
love.

"Then said I, Lo, I come." You see our Lord is his own spokesman. He says to me,
"Go and tell those people about my coming"; and I gladly do so; but you will
forget my words, and refuse to accept the Coming One. Your consciences will be
unawakened, your hearts unmoved: I fear it will be so. But if this text be
fulfilled concerning our Lord this day—"Then said I, Lo, I come"—you will hear
HIM. If he speaks he is himself the Almighty Word, and his voice will reach your
hearts, and accomplish his purpose. Dear Christian people, join with me in this
prayer. Lord, speak to thy chosen ones that lie here in their death-like
despair, far off from thee, and say to each one of them, "Lo, I come." O
downcast soul, this is your morning: this is the set time to favor you: this day
is salvation come to your house and to your heart. Make haste and come down from
the tree of your frivolity or your self-righteousness. Receive the Lord Jesus,
for today he must abide in your house and in your heart: the hour for the
imperial "must" of the eternal purpose has arrived. God grant it may be so! May
this be an hour of which Jesus shall declare,—"Then said I, Lo, I come!"

IV. Our next point is this—CHRIST, TO CHEER US, REVEALS HIS REASONS FOR COMING.
Only a few words on this. Note the rest of the verse: "Lo, I come: in the volume
of the book it is written of me." When we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly, because it was the due time according to covenant
purposes. Christ comes to a guilty sinner, just as he once came to a manger and
a stable, because so it was appointed. There is nothing for him to get, but
everything for him to give; but he comes because so it is written in the volume
of the divine decrees—

"Thus the eternal counsel ran,—

Almighty grace, arrest that man."

Therefore in love the Savior appears to the sinner, and by grace arrests him in
his mad career.

It is his Father's will. Christ's coming to save a soul is with his Father's
full consent and aid. The Father wills that you who believe in him, lost though
you be, should now be saved, and Jesus comes to do the will of the Father.

He comes became his heart is set on you. He loves you, and so he hastens to your
rescue. Your salvation is his delight. Though your soul is sunk in a sea of
need, and you are in despair because of that need, Jesus loves you, and comes to
meet your case. The best of all is that Jesus loves you. One asked an old man of
ninety, "Do you love Jesus?" and the old man answered with a smile, "I do,
indeed; but I can tell you something better than that." His friend said,
"Something better than loving Jesus! What is that?" The old disciple replied,
"He loves me." O soul, I wish you could see this fact, which is indeed better
than your love to Jesus, namely, his love to you! Because he loved his redeemed
from before the foundation of the world, therefore in due time he says, "Lo, I
come." The fact is, you have need, and he has love, and so he comes. There is no
hope for you unless he does come, and that is why he comes. If you had a penny
of your own, he would not give you his purse; if you had a rag or your own, he
would not give you his robe; if you had a breath of your own, he would not give
you his life. But now you are naked, and poor, and miserable, and lost, and
dead, Jesus reveals himself, and you read concerning him, "Then said I, Lo, I
come." He gives you his reasons—reasons not in yourself, but all in his grace.
There is no good in you; there is no reason in you why the Lord should save you;
but because of his free, spontaneous, rich, sovereign, almighty grace, he leaps
out of heaven, he descends to earth, he plunges into the grave to pluck his
beloved from destruction.

V. Here is my last word: CHRIST'S COMING IS THE BEST PLEA FOR OUR RECEIVING HIM,
and receiving him now. O sirs, remember you have not to raise the question
whether he will come or not. He is come. You have not to say, "How can I come to
him?" He comes to you. You do want a Mediator between your soul and God; but you
do not want any mediator between yourself and Jesus; for he says, "Lo, I come."
To you in all your filthiness, in all your condemnation, in all your
hopelessness, he comes. Wait not for anybody to introduce you to him, or him to
you; he has introduced himself, and here is his card—"Then said I, Lo, I come."
No pleas are needed to persuade him to come to you, for he says, "Lo, I come."
Though you cannot think of a single argument why he should appear to you in
mercy, he does so appear. It is written, "I will have mercy upon her that had
not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my
people; and they shall say, Thou art my God." O words of wondrous grace! Our
gracious Lord does not wait for our entreaties; but of his own accord he says,
"Lo, I come." Without asking you, and without your asking him, he puts in an
appearance in the sovereignty of his grace. No search is needed to find the
Lord, for he comes in manifested grace, and calls upon us to see him. "I have
long been searching for Christ" murmurs one. What! seeking for the sun at
noonday? Jesus is not lost. It is you that are lost, and he is searching for
you. He says, "Lo, I come": it is you that will not come. Still one declares
that he has been seeking the Lord Jesus for many a day. This is sadly strange,
for Jesus is near. "Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? or,
Who shall descend into the deep? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and
in thy heart, that if thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved." If thou believest in the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved.
Searching after Christ? Nay, verily he saith, "Lo, I come."

Moreover, no waiting is needed, and no preparation is to be made by you. Why do
you wait? HE does not wait, but cries, "Lo, I come!" "I will get ready for
Christ", say you; but it is too late to talk so, when he cries, "Lo, I am come."
Receive him! If you are in yourself sadly unready, yet he himself will make
everything ready for himself. Only open wide the door, and let him in. Do you
say, "But I am ashamed"? Be ashamed. He bids you be ashamed, and be confounded,
while he declares, "I do not this for your sakes." Yet be not so ashamed as to
commit another shameful deed by shutting the door in your Redeemer's face. Shut
not out your own mercy. A pastor in Edinburgh, in going round his district,
knocked at the door of a poor woman, for whom he had brought some needed help;
but he received no answer. When next he met her, he said to her, "I called on
Tuesday at your house." She asked, "At what time?" "About eleven o'clock; I
knocked, and you did not answer. I was disappointed, for I called to give you
help." "Ah, sir!" said she, "I am very sorry. I thought it was the man coming
for the rent, and I could not pay it, and therefore I did not dare to go to the
door."

Many a troubled soul thinks that Jesus is one who comes to ask of us what we
cannot give; but indeed he comes to give us all things. His errand is not to
condemn, but to forgive. Miss not the charity of God through unbelief. Run to
the door, and say to your loving Redeemer, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou
shouldest come under my roof; but as thou hast come to me, I welcome thee with
all my heart." No assistance is wanted by Christ on your part. He does not come
with half a salvation, and look to you to complete it. He does not come to bring
you a robe half woven, which you are to finish. How could you finish it? Could
the best saint in the world add anything to Christ's righteousness? No good man
would even dream of adding his homespun to that raiment which is of wrought
gold. What! are you to make up the deficient ransom price? Is it deficient?
Would you bring your clods of mud into the royal treasury, and lay them down
side by side with sapphires? Would you help Christ? Go, yoke a mouse with an
elephant! Go harness a fly side by side with an archangel. But dream not of
yoking yourself with Christ.

He says, "Lo, I come", and I trust you will reply, "My Lord, if thou art come,
all is come, and I am complete in thee."

"Thou, O Christ art all I want, More than all in thee I find."

Receive him: receive him at once. Dear children of God, and sinners that have
begun to feel after him, say with one accord, "Even so, come quickly, Lord
Jesus." If he says, "Lo, I come," and the Spirit and the bride say, Come; and he
that heareth says, Come, and he that is athirst comes, and whosoever will is
bidden to come and take the water of life freely; then let us join the chorus of
comes, and come to Christ ourselves. "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go you out
to meet him!" Ye who most of all need him, be among the first and gladdest, as
you hear him say, "Lo, I come."

All that I have said will be good for nothing as to saving results unless the
Holy Ghost shall apply it with power to your hearts. Join with me in prayer that
many may see Jesus just now, and may at once behold and accept the present
salvation which is in him.

(Sadly, we do not have either the Scripture Portion or the Hymns that were sung
for this service, as they are not included in the volumes of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit.)

"The Statute of David for the Sharing of the Spoil"

Final Sermon and Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, June 7th, 1891, by C. H.
Spurgeon At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

(This is the last sermon Charles Spurgeon ever preached at the Metropolitan
Tabernacle in London. He struggled with illness for most of 1891. He finally
went to Mentone on the French Riviera to try to rest and recover, but he
succumbed on January 31, 1892 and never made it back to his pulpit.)

"And David came to the two hundred men, which were so faint that they could not
follow David, whom they had made also to abide at the brook Besor. and they went
forth to meet David, and to meet the people that were with him: and when David
came near to the people, he saluted them. Then answered all the wicked men and
men of Belial, of those that went with David, and said, Because they went not
with us, we will not give them ought of the spoil that we have recovered, save
to every man his wife and his children, that they may lead them away, and
depart. Then said David, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the
Lord hath given us, who hath preserved us, and delivered the company that came
against us into our hand. For who will hearken unto you in this matter? but as
his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by
the stuff: they shall part alike. And it was so from that day forward, that he
made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day. And when David came
to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends,
saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord"—1
Samuel 30:21-26.

THOSE WHO ASSOCIATE themselves with a leader must share his fortunes. Six
hundred men had quitted their abodes in Judaea; unable to endure the tyranny of
Saul they had linked themselves with David, and made him to be a captain over
them. They were, some of them, the best of men, and some of them were the worst:
in this, resembling our congregations. Some of them were choice spirits, whom
David would have sought, but others were undesirable persons, from whom he might
gladly have been free. However, be they who they may, they must rise or fall
with their leader and commander. If he had the city Ziklag given to him, they
had a house and a home in it; and if Ziklag was burned with fire, their houses
did not escape. When David stood amid the smoking ruins, a penniless and a
wifeless man they stood in the same condition. This rule holds good with all of
us, who have joined ourselves to Christ and his cause; we must be partakers with
him. I hope we are prepared to stand to this rule today. If there be ridicule
and reproach for the gospel of Christ, let us be willing to be ridiculed and
reproached for his sake. Let us gladly share with him in his humiliation, and
never dream of shrinking. This involves a great privilege, since they that are
with him in his humiliation shall be with him in his glory. If we share his
rebuke in the midst of an evil generation we shall also sit upon his throne, and
share his glory in the day of his appearing. Brethren, I hope the most of us can
say we are in for it, to sink or swim with Jesus. In life or death, where he is,
there will we, his servants, be. We joyfully accept both the cross and the crown
which go with our Lord Jesus Christ: we are eager to bear our full share of the
blame that we may partake in his joy.

It frequently happens that when a great disaster occurs to a band of men, a
mutiny follows thereupon. However little it may be the leader's fault, the
defeated cast the blame of the defeat upon him. If the fight is won, "it was a
soldiers' battle"; every man at arms claims his share of praise. But if the
battle is lost, cashier the commander! It was entirely his fault; if he had been
a better general he might have won the day. This is how people talk: fairness is
out of the question. So in the great disaster of Ziklag, when the town was
burned with fire, and wives and children were carried away captive; then we read
that they spoke of stoning David. Why David? Why David more than anybody else,
it is hard to see, for he was not there, nor any one of them. They felt so
vexed, that it would be a relief to stone somebody, and why not David? Brethren,
it sometimes happens, even to the servants of Christ, that when they fall into
persecution and loss for Christ's sake, the tempter whispers to them to throw up
their profession. "Since you have been a Christian, you have had nothing but
trouble. It seems as if the dogs of hell were snapping at your heels more than
ever since you took upon you the name of Christ. Therefore, throw it up, and
leave the ways of godliness." Vile suggestion! Mutiny against the Lord Jesus?
Dare you do so? Some of us cannot do so, for when he asks us, "Will ye also go
away?" we can only answer, "Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life." No other leader is worth following. We must follow the Son of
David. Mutiny against him is out of the question.

"Through floods or flames, if Jesus lead, We'll follow where he goes."

When a dog follows a man, we may discover whether the man is his master by
seeing what happens when they come to a turn in the road. If the creature keeps
close to its master at all turnings, it belongs to him. Every now and then you
and I come to turns in the road, and many of us are ready, through grace, to
prove our loyalty by following Jesus even when the way is hardest. Though the
tears stand in his eyes and in ours; though we weep together till we have no
more power to weep, we will cling to him when the many turn aside, and witness
that he hath the living Word, and none upon earth beside. God grant us grace to
be faithful unto death!

If we thus follow our leader and bear his reproach, the end and issue will be
glorious victory. It was a piteous sight to see David leaving two hundred men
behind him, and marching with his much diminished forces after an enemy who had
gone, he scarce knew where, who might be ten times stronger than his little
band, and might slay those who pursued them. It was a melancholy spectacle for
those left behind to see their leader a broken man, worn and weary like
themselves, hastening after the cruel Amalekite. How very different was the
scene when he came back to the brook Besor more than a conqueror! Do you not
hear the song of them that make merry? A host of men in the front are driving
vast herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and singing as they march, "This is
David's spoil!" Then you see armed men, with David in the midst of them, all
laden with spoil, and you hear them singing yet another song; those that bring
up the rear are shouting exultingly, "David recovered all! David recovered all!"
They, the worn-out ones that stayed at the brook Besor, hear the mingled song,
and join first in the one shout, and then in the other; singing, "This is
David's spoil! David recovered all!"

Yes, we have no doubt about the result of our warfare. He that is faithful to
Christ shall be glorified with him. That he will divide the spoil with the
strong is never a matter of question. "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand."

"The old truth by which we stand shall never be blotted out.

Engraved as in eternal brass The mighty promise shines; Nor shall the powers of
darkness rase Those everlasting lines."

We are certain as we live that the exiled truth shall celebrate its joyful
return. The faith once for all delivered to the saints may be downtrodden for a
season; but rejoice not over us, O our adversaries: though we fall we shall rise
again! Wherefore we patiently hope, and quietly wait, and calmly believe. We
drink of the brook Besor by the way and lift up our heads. This morning I want
to utter God-given words of comfort to those who are faint and weary in the
Lord's army. May the divine Comforter make them so!

I. I shall begin by saying, first, that FAINT ONES OCCUR EVEN IN THE ARMY OF OUR
KING. Among the very elect of David's army heroes who were men of war from their
youth up—there were hands that hung down, and feeble knees that needed to be
confirmed. There are such in Christ's army at most seasons. We have among us
soldiers whose faith is real, and whose love is burning; and yet, for all that,
just now their strength is weakened in the way, and they are so depressed in
spirit that they are obliged to stop behind with the baggage.

Possibly some of these weary ones had grown faint because they had been a good
deal perplexed. David had so wrongfully entangled himself with the Philistine
king, that he felt bound to go with Achish to fight against Israel. I dare say
these men said to themselves, "How will this end? Will David really lead us to
battle against Saul? When he could have killed him in the cave he would not, but
declared that he would not lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed; will he
now take us to fight against the anointed of God? This David, who was so great
an enemy of Philistia, and slew their champion, will he wax on their behalf?"
They were perplexed with their leader's movements. I do not know whether you
agree with me, but I find that half-an-hour's perplexity takes more out of a man
than a month's labour. When you cannot see your bearings, and know not what to
do, it is most trying. When to be true to God it seems that you must break faith
with man, and when to fulfill your unhappy covenant with evil would make you
false to your Christian professions, things are perplexing. If you do not walk
carefully, you can easily get into a snarl. If Christians walk in a straight
line it is comparatively easy going, for it is easy to find your way along a
straight road; but when good men take to the new out, that bypath across the
meadow, then they often get into ditches that are not in the map, and fall into
thickets and sloughs that they never reckoned upon. Then is the time for
heart-sickness to come on. These warriors may very well have been perplexed; and
perhaps they feared that God was against them, and that now their cause would be
put to shame; and when they came to Ziklag, and found it burned with fire, the
perplexity of their minds added intense bitterness to their sorrow, and they
felt bowed into the dust. They did not pretend to be faint, but they were really
so; for the mind can soon act upon the body, and the body fails sadly when the
spirits are worried with questions and fears. This is one reason why certain of
our Lord's loyal-hearted ones are on the sick list, and must keep in the
trenches for a while.

Perhaps, also, the pace was killing to these men. They made forced marches for
three clays from the city of Achish to Ziklag. These men could do a good day's
march with anybody, but they could not foot it at the double quick march all day
long. There are a great many Christians of that sort—good, staying men who can
keep on under ordinary pressure, doing daily duty well, and resisting ordinary
temptations bravely, but at a push they fare badly who among us does not? To us
there may come multiplied labours, and we faint because our strength is small.

Worst of all, their grief came in just then. Their wives were gone. Although, as
it turned out, they were neither killed nor otherwise harmed; yet they could not
tell this, and they feared the worse. For a man to know that his wife is in the
hands of robbers, and that he may never see her again, is no small trouble.
Their sons and daughters also were gone: no prattlers climbed their father's
knee; no gentle daughters came forth to bid them "Welcome home." Their homes
were still burning, their goods were consumed, and they lifted up their voice
and wept: is it at all wonderful that some of them were faint after performing
that doleful miserere? Where would you be if you went home this morning, and
found your home burned, and your family gone, you knew not where? I know many
Christians who get very faint under extraordinary troubles. They should not, but
they do. We have reason to thank God that no temptation has happened to us but
such as is common to men; and yet it may not seem so; but we may feel as if we
were specially tried, like Job. Messenger after messenger has brought us evil
tidings, and our hearts are not fixed on the Lord as they ought to be. To those
who are faint through grief I speak, just now. You may be this, and yet you may
be a true follower of the Lamb; and as God has promised to bring you out of your
troubles, he will surely keep his word. Remember, he has never promised that you
shall have no sorrows, but that he will deliver you out of them all. Ask yon
saints in heaven! Ask those to step out of the shining ranks who came thither
without trial. Will one of the leaders of the shining host give the word of
command that he shall step forward who has washed his robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb, but who never knew what affliction meant while here
below? No one stirs in all that white-robed host. Does not one come forward?
Must we wait here for ever without response? See! instead of anyone stirring
from their ranks, I hear a voice that says, "These are they which came out of
great tribulation." All of them have known, not only tribulation, but great
tribulation. One promise of the New Testament is surely fulfilled before our
eyes—"In the world ye shall have tribulation." When trouble came so pressingly
on David's men they felt their weakness and needed to halt at the margin of the
brook. Perhaps, also, the force of the torrent was too much for them. As I have
told you, in all probability the brook Besor was only a hollow place, which in
ordinary times was almost dry; but in a season of great rain it filled suddenly
with a rushing muddy stream, against which only strong men could stand. These
men might have kept on upon dry land, but the current was too fierce for them,
and they feared that it would carry them off their feet and drown them.
Therefore, David gave them leave to stop there and guard the stuff. Many there
are of our Lord's servants who stop short of certain onerous service: they are
not called to do what their stronger comrades undertake with joy. They can do
something, but they fail to do more; they can also bear certain trials, but they
are unable to bear more; they faint because they have not yet come to fullness
of growth in grace. Their hearts are right in the sight of God, but they are not
in condition to surmount some peculiar difficulty. You must not overdrive them,
for they are the feeble of the flock. Many are too faint for needful
controversy. I have found a great many of that sort about lately: the truth is
very important, but they love peace. It is quite necessary that certain of us
should stand up for the faith once delivered to the saints; but they are not up
to the mark for it. They cannot bear to differ from their fellows; and they hold
their tongues rather than contend for the truth. There are true hearts that,
nevertheless, cannot defend the gospel. They wish well to the champions; but
they seek the rear rank for themselves. And some cannot advance any further with
regard to knowledge; they know the fundamentals, and feel as if they could
master nothing more. It is a great blessing that they know the gospel, and feel
that it will save them; but the glorious mysteries of the everlasting covenant,
of the sovereignty of God, of his eternal love and distinguishing grace, they
cannot compass—these are a brook Besor which as yet they cannot swim. It would
do them a world of good if they could venture in; but, still, they are not to be
tempted into these blessed deeps. To hear of these things rather wearies them
than instructs them: they have not strength enough of mind for the deep things
of God. I would have every Christian wish to know all that he can know of
revealed truth. Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us. You
may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is
revealed you ought to know, for these things belong to you and to your children.
Take care you know what the Holy Ghost teaches. Do not give way to a
fainthearted ignorance lest you be great losers thereby. That which is fit food
for babes should not be enough for young men and fathers: we should eat strong
meat, and leave milk to the little ones.

Yet these fainting ones were, after all, in David's army. Their names were in
their Captain's Register as much as the names of the strong. And they did not
desert the colours. They had the same captain as the stoutest-hearted men in the
whole regiment; they could call David "Master" and "Lord" as truly as the most
lion-like man amongst them. They were in for the same dangers; for if the men in
front had been beaten and had retreated, the enemy would have fallen on those
who guarded the stuff. If the Amalekites had slain the four hundred, they would
have made short work of the two hundred. They had work to do as needful as that
of the others. Though they had not to fight, they had to take care of the stuff;
and this eased the minds of the fighting men. I will be bound to say it was a
great trial to them not to be allowed to march into the fight. For a brave man
to see the troops go past him, and hear the last footfall of his comrades, must
have been sickening. Who could pleasantly say, "I am left out of it. There is a
glorious day coming, and I shall be away. I shall, until I die, think myself
accursed I was not there, and hold my manhood cheap that I fought not with them
on that glorious day?" It is hard to brave men to be confined to hospital, and
have no drive at the foe. The weary one wishes he could be to the front, where
his Captain's eye would be upon him. He pants to smite down the enemies, and win
back the spoil for his comrades.

Enough of this. I will only repeat my first point: fainting ones do occur even
in the army of our King.

II. Secondly, THESE FAINTING ONES REJOICE TO SEE THEIR LEADER RETURN. Do you
see, when David went back they went to meet him, and the people that were with
him. I feel very much like this myself. That was one reason why I took this
text. I felt, after my illness, most happy to come forth and meet my Lord in
public. I hoped he would be here; and so he is. I am glad also to meet with you,
my comrades. We are still spared for the wax. Though laid aside a while, we are
again among our brethren. Thank God! It is a great joy to meet you. I am sorry
to miss so many of our church-members who are laid aside by this sickness; but
it is a choice blessing to meet so many of our kindred in Christ. We are never
happier than when we are in fellowship with one another and with our Lord.

David saluted the stay-at-homes. Oh, that he might salute each one of us this
morning, especially those who have been laid aside! Our King's salutations are
wonderful for their heartiness. He uses no empty compliments nor vain words.
Every syllable from his lips is a benediction. Every glance of his eye is an
inspiration. When the King himself comes near, it is always a feast day to us!
It is a high day and a holiday, even with the faintest of us, when we hear his
voice. So they went to meet David, and he came to meet them, and there was great
joy. Yes, I venture to mend that, and say there is great joy among us now. Glory
be to his holy name, the Lord is here! We see him, and rejoice with joy
unspeakable.

David's courtesy was as free as it was true. Possibly those who remained behind
were half afraid that their leader might say, "See here, you idle fellows, what
we have been doing for you!" No; he saluted them, but did not scold them.
Perhaps they thought, "He will upbraid us that we did not manage to creep into
the fray." But no; "he giveth liberally, and upbraideth not." He speaks not a
word of upbraiding, for his heart pities them, and therefore he salutes them.
"My brethren, God has been gracious to us. All hail!" David would have them
rejoice together; and give praise unto the most High. He will not clash their
cup with a drop of bitter. Oh, for a salutation from our Lord at this good hour!
When Christ comes into a company his presence makes a heavenly difference. Have
you never seen an assembly listening to an orator, all unmoved and stolid?
Suddenly the Holy Ghost has fallen on the speaker, and the King himself has been
visibly set forth among them in the midst of the assembly, and all have felt as
if they could leap to their feet and cry, "Hallelujah, hallelujah!" Then hearts
beat fast, and souls leap high; for where Jesus is found his presence fills the
place with delight. Now, then, you weary ones, if you be here, any of you, may
you rejoice as you now meet your Leader, and your Leader reveals himself to you!
If no one else has a sonnet, I have mine. He must, he shall be praised. "Thou
art the King of glory, O Christ! All heaven and earth adores thee. Thou shalt
reign for ever and ever."

III. Thirdly, FAINT ONES HAVE THEIR LEADER FOR THEIR ADVOCATE. Listen to those
foul-mouthed men of Belial, these wicked men: how they rail against those whom
God has accepted! They came up to David and began blustering—"These weaklings
who were not in the fight, they shall not share the spoil. Let them take their
wives and children and begone." These fellows spoke with loud, harsh voices, and
greatly grieved the feebler ones. Who was to speak up for them? Their leader
became their advocate.

First, do you notice, he pleads their unity? The followers of the son of Jesse
are one and inseparable. David said, "Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that
which the Lord hath given us, who hath preserved us." "We are all one," says
David. "God has given the spoil, not to you alone, but to us all. We are all one
company of brothers." The unity of saints is the consolation of the feeble.
Brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ would refresh his wearied ones by the reflection
that we are all one in him. I may be the foot, all dusty and travel-stained; and
you may be the hand, holding forth some precious gem; but we are still one body.
Yonder friend is the brow of holy thought, and another is the lip of persuasion,
and a third is the eye of watchfulness; but still we are one body in Christ. We
cannot do, any one of us, without his fellow; each one ministers to the benefit
of all. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of thee." We are all one
in Christ Jesus. Surely this ought to comfort those of you who, by reason of
feebleness, are made to feel as if you were very inferior members of the body,
you are still living members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ your Lord, and
let this suffice you. One life is ours, one love is ours, one heaven shall be
ours in our one Saviour.

David further pleaded free grace, for he said to them, "Ye shall not do so, my
brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us." He did not say, "With that
which you have conquered, and fairly earned in battle," but "that which the Lord
hath given us." Look upon every blessing as a gift, and you will not think
anyone shut out from it, not even yourself. The gift of God is eternal life; why
should you not have it? Deny not to anyone of your brethren any comfort of the
Covenant of grace. Think not of any man, "He ought not to have so much joy." It
is all of free grace; and if free grace rules the hour, the least may have it as
well as the greatest. If it is all of free grace, then, my poor struggling
brother, who can hardly feel assured that you are saved, yet if you are a
believer, you may claim every blessing of the Lord's gracious covenant. God
freely gives to you as well as to me the provisions of his love; therefore let
us be glad, and not judge ourselves after the manner of the law of condemnation.

Then he pleaded their needfulness. He said, "These men abided by the stuff." No
army fights well when its camp is unguarded. It is a great thing for a church to
know that its stores are well guarded by a praying band. While some of us are
teaching in the school or preaching in the street, we have great comfort; in
knowing that a certain number of our friends are praying for us. To me it is a
boundless solace that I live in the prayers of thousands. I will not say which
does the better service—the man that preaches, or the man that prays; but I know
this, that we can do better without the voice that preaches than without the
heart that prays. The petitions of our bed-ridden sisters are the wealth of the
church. The kind of service which seems most commonplace among men is often the
most precious unto God. Therefore, as for those who cannot come into the front
places of warfare, deny them not seats of honour, since, after all, they may be
doing the greater good. Remember the statute, "They shall part alike."

Notice that David adds to his pleading a statute. I like to think of our great
Commander, the Lord Jesus, making statutes. For whom does he legislate? For the
first three? For the captains of thousands? No. He makes a statute for those who
are forced to stay at home because they are faint. Blessed be the name of our
Lord Jesus, he is always looking to the interests of those who have nobody else
to care for them! If you can look after your own cause, you may do so; but if
you are so happy as to be weak in yourself, you shall be strong in Christ. Those
who have Christ to care for them are better off than if they took care of
themselves. He that can leave his concerns with Christ has left them in good
hands. Vain is the help of self, but all-sufficient is the aid of Jesus. To sum
up what I mean: I believe the Lord will give to the sick and the suffering an
equal reward with the active and energetic, if they are equally concerned for
his glory. The Lord will also make a fair division to the obscure and unknown as
well as to the renowned and honoured, if they are equally earnest. Oh, tell me
not that she who rears her boy for Christ shall miss her reward from him by whom
an apostle is recompensed! Tell me not that the woman who so conducts her
household that her servants come to fear God, shall be forgotten in the day when
the "Well dones" are distributed to the faithful! Homely and unnoticed service
shall have honour as surely as that with which the world is ringing.

Some of God's people are illiterate, and they have but little native talent. But
if they serve the Lord as best they can, with all their heart, they shall take
their part with those that are the most learned and accomplished. He that is
faithful over a little shall have his full reward of grace. It is accepted
according to what a man hath. We may possess no more than two mites, but if we
cast them into the treasury, our Lord will think much of them.

Some dear servants of God seem always to be defeated. They seem sent to a people
whose hearts are made gross and their ears dull of hearing. Still, if they have
truthfully proclaimed the Word of the Lord their reward will not be according to
their apparent success, but according to their fidelity.

Some saints are constitutionally depressed and sad; they are like certain lovely
ferns, which grow best under a constant drip. Well, well, the Lord will gather
these beautiful ferns of the shade as well as the roses of the sun; they shall
share his notice as much as the blazing sunflowers and the saddest shall rejoice
with the gladdest. You Little-Faiths, you Despondencies, you Much-Afraids, you
Feeble-Minds, you that sigh more than you sing, you that would but cannot, you
that have a great heart for holiness, but feel beaten back in your struggles,
the Lord shall give you his love, his grace, his favour, as surely as he gives
it to those who can do great things in his name. Certain of you have but a scant
experience of the higher joys and deeper insights or the kingdom, and it may be
that you are in part faulty because you are so backward; and yet, if true to
your Lord, your infirmities shall not be reckoned as iniquities. If lawfully
detained from the field of active labour this Statute stands fast for ever, for
you as well as for others: "As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so
shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike."

IV. Now, fourthly, FAINT ONES FIND JESUS TO BE THEIR GOOD LORD IN EVERY WAY. Was
he not a good Lord when he first took us into his army of salvation? What a
curious crew they were that enlisted under David! "Every one that was in debt,
and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became
a captain over them." He was a captain of ragamuffins; but our Lord had not a
better following. I was a poor wretch when I came to Christ; and I should not
wonder if that word is near enough to the truth to describe you. I was a
good-for-nothing, over head and ears in debt, and without a penny to pay. I came
to Jesus so utterly down at the heel, that no one else would have owned me. He
might well have said,—"No, I have not come to this—to march at the head of such
vagrant beggars as these." Yet he received us graciously, according to his
promise, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Since then, how
graciously has he borne with us! We are not among those self-praising ones who
have wrought such wonders of holiness; but we mourn our shortcomings and
transgressions; and yet he hath not cast away the people whom he did foreknow.
When we look back upon our character as soldiers of Christ, we feel ashamed of
ourselves and amazed at his grace. If anybody had told us that we should have
been such poor soldiers as we have been, we should not have believed them. We do
not excuse ourselves: we are greatly grieved to have been such failures. Yet our
gracious Lord has never turned us out of the ranks. He might have drummed us out
of the regiment long ago; but here we are still enrolled, upheld, and smiled
upon. What a captain we have! None can compare with him for gentleness. He still
owns us, and he declares, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my
jewels."

Brethren, let us exalt the name of our Captain. There is none like him. We have
been in distress since then: and he has been in distress with us. Ziklag smoked
for him as well as for us. In all, their affliction he was afflicted. Have you
not found it so? When we have come to a great difficulty like the brook Besor he
has gently eased his commands, and has not required of us what we were unable to
yield. He has not made some of you pastors and teachers, for you could not have
borne the burden. He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence. He has
suited the march to the foot, or the foot to the march. How sweetly he has
smiled on what we have done! Have you not wondered to see how he has accepted
your works and your prayers? You have been startled to find that he did answer
your feeble petitions. When you have spoken a word for Jesus, and God has
blessed it, why you have thought, "Surely there is a mistake about this! How
could my feeble word have a blessing on it?" Beloved, we follow a noble Prince.
Jesus is the chief among ten thousand for tenderness as well as for everything
else. How tenderly considerate he is! How gentle and generous! He has never said
a stinging word to us ever since we knew him. He is that riches which has no
sorrow added to it. He has rebuked us; but his rebukes have been like an
excellent oil, which has never broken our heads. When we have left him, he has
turned and looked upon us, and so he has cut us to the quick; but he has never
wounded us with any sword except that which cometh out of his mouth, whose edge
is love. When he goes away from us, as David did from those two hundred who
could not keep up with him, yet he always comes back again in mercy, and salutes
us with favour. We wonder to ourselves that we did not hold him, and vow that we
would never let him go; but we wonder still more that he should come back so
speedily, so heartily, leaping over the mountains, hastening like a roe or a
young hart over the hills of division. Lo! he has come to us. He has come to us,
and he makes our hearts glad at his coming. Let us indulge our hearts this
morning as we take our share in the precious spoil of his immeasurable love. He
loves the great and the small with like love; let as be joyful all round.

There is one choice thing which he will do, that should make us love him beyond
measure. David, after a while, went up to Hebron to be made king over Judah.
Shall I read you in the second book of Samuel, the second chapter, and the third
verse? "And his men that were with him" (and among the rest these weak ones who
could not pass over the brook Besor), "and his men that were with him did David
bring up, every man with his household; and they dwelt in the cities of Hebron."
Yes, he will bring me up, even me! He will bring you up, you faintest and
weakest of the band. There is a Hebron wherein Jesus reigns as anointed King,
and he will not be there and leave one of us behind. There is no kingdom for
Jesus without his brethren, no heaven for Jesus without his disciples. His poor
people who have been with him in faintness and weariness shall be with him in
glory, and their households. Hold on to that additional blessing. I pray you,
hold on to it. Do not let slip that word—"and their households." I fear we often
lose a blessing on our households through clipping the promise. When the jailer
asked what he must do to be saved, what was the answer? "Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." You have heard that answer hundreds of
times, have you not? Did you ever hear the rest of it? Why do preachers and
quoters snip off corners from gospel promises? It runs thus: "Thou shalt be
saved, and thy house." Lay hold of that blessed enlargement of grace, "and thy
house." Why leave out the wives and the children? Will you let the Amalekites
have them? Do not be satisfied without household salvation. Let us plead this
word of the Lord this morning:—O thou blessed David, whom we have desired to
follow, who has helped us so graciously even unto this day, when thou art in thy
kingdom graciously remember us, and let it be said of us, "and David went up
thither, and his men that were with him David brought up (they did not go up of
themselves) every man with his household; and they dwelt in the cities of
Hebron;" "Every man with his household." I commend that word to your careful
notice. Fathers, have you yet seen your children saved? Mothers, are all those
daughters brought in yet? Never cease to pray until it is so, for this is the
crown of it all, "Every man with his household."

What I have to say lastly is this: how greatly I desire that you who are not yet
enlisted in my Lord's band would come to him because you see what a kind and
gracious Lord he is! Young men, if you could see our Captain, you would fall
down on your knees and beg him to let you enter the ranks of those who follow
him. It is heaven to serve Jesus. I am a recruiting sergeant, and I would fain
find a few recruits at this moment. Every man must serve somebody: we have no
choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves.
Depend upon it, you will either serve Satan or Christ, either self or the
Saviour. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters; but
if you wear the livery of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart
that you will find rest unto your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains.
There never was his like among the choicest of princes. He is always to be found
in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold he always takes the
bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his
shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is
anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yea lavish and
superabundant in love, you always find it in him. These forty years and more
have I served him, blessed be his name! and I have had nothing but love from
him. I would be glad to continue yet another forty years in the same dear
service here below if so it pleased him. His service is life, peace, joy. Oh,
that you would enter on it at once! God help you to enlist under the banner of
Jesus even this day! Amen.

Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon—1 Samuel 30. Hymns From "Our Own Hymn
Book"

Hymn # 917—Sweet Rest. My Lord, my Love, was crucified, He all the pains did
bear, But in the sweetness of His rest He makes His servants share.

How sweetly rest Thy saints above Which in Thy bosom lie! The Church below doth
rest in hope Of that felicity.

Welcome and dear unto my soul Are these sweet feasts of love; But what a Sabbath
shall I keep When I shall rest above!

I bless Thy wise and wondrous love, Which binds us to be free; Which makes us
leave our earthly snares, That we may come to Thee!

I come, I wait, I hear, I pray!

Thy footsteps, Lord, I trace!

I sing to think this is the way Unto my Saviour's face!

John Mason, 1683

Hymn # 731—The Refiner sitting by the Fire.

God's Furnace doth in Zion stand; But Zion's God sits by, As the refiner views
his gold With an observant eye.

His thoughts are high, His love is wise, His wounds a cure intend; And though He
does not always smile, He loves unto the end.

Thy love is constant to its line, Though clouds oft come between:

Oh could my faith but pierce these clouds, It might be always seen.

But I am weak, and forced to cry, Take up my soul to Thee:

Then, as Thou ever art the same, So shall I ever be.

Then shall I ever, ever sing, Whilst Thou dost ever shine:

I have Thine own dear pledge for this;

Lord, Thou art ever mine.

John Mason, 1683

Hymn # 737—I will never leave thee.

O Zion, afflicted with wave upon wave, Whom no man can comfort, whom no man can
save; With darkness surrounded, by terrors dismayed, In toiling and rowing thy
strength is decayed.

Loud roaring the billows now nigh overwhelm, But skilful's the Pilot who sits at
the helm, His wisdom conducts thee, His power thee defends, In safety and quiet
thy warfare He ends.

"O fearful! O faithless!" in mercy He cries, "My promise, My truth, are they
light in thine eyes?

Still, still I am with Thee, My promise shall stand, Through tempest and tossing
I'll bring thee to land.

"Forget thee I will not, I cannot, thy name Engraved on My heart doth forever
remain: The palms of My hands whilst I look on I see The wounds I received when
suffering for thee.

"I feel at My heart all Thy sighs and thy groans, For thou art most near Me, My
flesh and My bones, In all thy distresses thy Head feels the pain, Yet all are
most needful, not one is in vain.

"Then trust Me, and fear not; thy life is secure; My wisdom is perfect, supreme
is My power; In love I correct thee, thy soul to refine, To make thee at length
in My likeness to shine.

"The foolish, the fearful, the weak are My care, The helpless, the hopeless, I
hear their sad prayer: From all their afflictions My glory shall spring, And the
deeper their sorrows, the louder they'll sing."

James Grant, 1784


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