Charles Haddon Spurgeon and his contribution to Victorian thought.

By Avril Smith

Introduction

Charles Spurgeon. Reproduced with permission from Pilgrim

Publications at: http://members.aol.com/pilgrim
 It has been estimated that Charles Spurgeon preached to at least 10,000,000 people in his

lifetime. He often preached ten times in one week. The collected sermons from his London

ministry, The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit fill 63 volumes,

consisting of some 20-25 million words; equivalent to the 27 volumes of the Encyclopædia

Britannica. They represent the largest body of work by a single author, in the history of

Christianity. His personal library consisted of 12,000 volumes, 1,000 of which were printed

before 1700 – the largest collection of Puritan books in the world. By the time Spurgeon was

twenty, he had preached over 600 times. He once addressed 23,654 people (at the Crystal

Palace), without any mechanical amplification.1 By 1865, after ten years in London, his

sermons were selling 25,000 copies weekly and were being translated into more than twenty

languages. Spurgeon’s All of Grace, the first book to be published by Moody Press (formerly

the Bible Colportage Association), and still its all-time best seller has sold more than 1,000,000

copies, as has the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit series. He was featured on the cover of

Vanity Fair, and cast by Madame Tussaud. W.E. Gladstone and Lord Shaftesbury counted him

as a friend. In spite of all this, Spurgeon never attended college, because a servant girl showed

him into the wrong room on the day of his interview and he felt that God was telling him not to

seek great things for himself.2 G. Holden Pike, writing in 1894, reported that when Spurgeon

died, over sixty thousand people passed through the Tabernacle to view the coffin, a fact which

is borne out by the newspaper reports and police orders at the time of his death.3

1
G. Holden Pike, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Edinburgh, The Banner of Truth
Trust, 1991 – first pub. 1894) Vol. I p.278
2
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. I p.71-3
3
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. VI p.329 and various press cuttings held by the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
 This essay will attempt to evaluate the impact Spurgeon made on the society of his time.

Though he was the most popular and famous dissenting preacher of his day, he has been largely

ignored by secular historians and is little known outside of evangelical circles today. For that

reason a more comprehensive biography will be included than would otherwise have been

necessary, and in order to convey an understanding of Spurgeon’s thought and influence, a

liberal amount of quotation from his writings will be used. Chapter One will give an overview

of life in England during Spurgeon’s lifetime. Chapter Two provides a brief biography and

Chapter Three will discuss Spurgeon’s interaction with his contemporaries. Chapter Four will

consider Spurgeon’s relationship with Gladstone. Chapter Five will deal with Spurgeon’s

attitude to the State, and Chapter Six, his response to the social issues of his day. The final

chapter will draw some conclusions as to what contribution Spurgeon made to the social and

political thought of his time.

Chapter One

Spurgeon’s England

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in 1834 and died in 1892. The year he was born,

T. R. Malthus, writer of An Essay on the Principles of Population, and described by some as the

grandfather of evolution, died, and William Morris, the artist, poet and socialist, was born. 1834

was also the year in which W. E. Gladstone entered politics.

For many, this was an era of religious doubt and uncertainty, as illustrated by Matthew

Arnold’s poem Dover Beach. German theologians such as F. E. D. Schleiermacher were

questioning the inerrancy of Scripture, and Marx, Hegel and Darwin, in their respective fields

of history, philosophy and science, were challenging accepted principles and casting doubt on

the existence of moral and social absolutes.

For others, this was a period of progress and innovation, as the Industrial Revolution

accelerated and railways and factories multiplied. Major advances were made in medicine and

technology, such as the discovery of the existence of bacteria and the development of
anaesthetics. It was also the age of ‘self-help’ and the book written by Samuel Smiles in 1859

and entitled Self-Help: with illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance had sold 250,000 copies

by 1900.4 In his preface to the 1866 edition, Smiles explains his objective in writing the book, it

is:

to re-inculcate these old-fashioned but wholesome

lessons which perhaps cannot be too often urged, that
youth must work in order to enjoy, that nothing creditable
can be accomplished without application and diligence,
that the student must not be daunted by difficulties, but
conquer them by patience and perseverance, and that
above all, he must seek elevation of character, without
which capacity is worthless and worldly success is
naught.5

During Spurgeon’s lifetime two Reform Acts were passed (1867 and 1884), massively

extending the franchise. Liberalism became a major force in politics, with Dissenters providing

much of its support. John Bowle describes it as a time when eighteenth-century Catholics or

Rationalists had been replaced by laissez-faire Utilitarians and Liberal Romantics, and that

eighteenth-century order had given way to a ‘dynamic way of life, where personality, national

aspirations and economic enterprise had free play’.6 This was the world in which Charles

Spurgeon lived and died. This essay will attempt to assess the impact he made on it during his

relatively short life.

Chapter Two

A Brief Biography

4
Samuel Smiles, Self-Help: with illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance (London: IEA Health and
Welfare Unit, 1996) p.vi (Foreword by Lord Harris of High Cross).
5
Smiles, Self-Help p.xiii
6
John Bowle Politics and Opinion in the 19th Century (London: Cape, 1963) p.467
 Reproduced from Henry Davenport Northrop, Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon: His Life and Labors
(Chicago: L.P. Miller & Co, Publishers, 1890) Bk. One, Ch. I. (In the public domain).

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born on the 19th June 1834, in Kelvedon, Essex, the first

child of John Spurgeon, a coal merchant’s clerk and his nineteen-year-old wife, Eliza. Fourteen

months later, shortly before the birth of another child, Charles was sent to live with his

grandparents in the nearby village of Stambourne. He stayed there for five years, a time he

recalled with much affection. His grandfather, James, was the minister of Stambourne

Congregational (Independent) Church and he was very fond of Charles. He would keep him at

his side when engaged in theological discussions with other ministers or when advising and

praying with members of his congregation.

Charles spent much of his time studying the books in his grandfather’s Puritan library

and at the age of three came across the illustrations in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. He recalls

‘When I first saw in it the woodcut of Christian carrying the burden on his back I felt so

interested in the poor fellow that I thought I should jump for joy when, after he had carried it

for so long, he at last got rid of it.’7 Charles also had a strong sense of morality and was not

afraid to express it, as a church member recorded after Charles had confronted him in the

local tavern, saying: ‘What doest thou here Elijah? Sitting with the ungodly; and you a

7
Quoted in Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985) p.6
member of a church, and breaking your pastor’s heart! I’m ashamed of you! I would not break

my pastor’s heart, I’m sure’.8

Charles returned to live with his parents at their new home in Colchester in 1840,

where there were now three more children, a brother and two sisters. His brother James

recalled that he was always studious:

Charles never did anything else but study…

While I was busy here and there, meddling with
anything and everything that a boy could touch, he
kept to books and could not be kept away from
study… he used to read about everything, with a
memory as tenacious as a vice and as copious as a
barn.9

In spite of his studious nature and strong sense of morality, Charles did not believe

himself to be a Christian in his early years. He was deeply troubled by his own sense of

sinfulness and spent many hours struggling with his view of a holy and just God, and his own

guilt. Whilst working as an ‘usher’ (part-time teacher and part-time student) in Newmarket, he

began attending church after church in order to find out how he might be saved. When the

school was closed because of an outbreak of fever, Charles returned home. Prevented from

reaching the church of his choice, by a snowstorm, he turned into a tiny Primitive Methodist

Chapel, containing less than twenty people. The preacher had also been unable to make it

through the snow and eventually a member of the congregation stood up to speak. Spurgeon

later described him as ‘really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason

that he had little else to say.’10 His text was ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the

Earth’ (Isaiah 45.22), and Spurgeon relates his reaction as he noticed a young stranger in his

congregation:

Just fixing his eye on me, as if he knew all my heart

he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did,
but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from
the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it
was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you
will always be miserable – miserable in life and miserable in
death – if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this
88
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. I p.19
9
Quoted in Dallimore, Spurgeon p.12
10
Robert Backhouse (ed.) The Autobiography of C.H. Spurgeon: Compiled by his wife and private
secretary (abridged), (London: Hodder and Stoughton,1993) pp.27-8
 moment, you will be saved.” Then lifting up his hands he
shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young
man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have
nothing to do but look and live!” I saw at once the way of
salvation…There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness
rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun…11

As a boy of fourteen, Spurgeon had discussed the issue of baptism with an Anglican

clergyman visiting his school. The clergyman explained that faith and repentance were

prerequisites for baptism, but because infants cannot possess these qualities, they must be

supplied by sponsors. He informed Spurgeon that he was not truly baptized, as his grandfather

did not use sponsors, and suggested to Charles that he spent a week studying the Scriptures so

that he could see for himself that all those in the Bible who were baptized, were believers. After

following this advice, Charles saw that faith and repentance must be present in the heart of the

person to be baptized, rather than in the sponsor. He responded: ‘I resolved from that moment,

that if ever Divine grace should work a change in me, I would be baptized.’12 Following his

conversion in 1850, Spurgeon sought out a Baptist Church in Isleham and was baptized by the

Reverend Cantlow on May 3rd that year. His parents were not overjoyed at this and his mother

complained ‘Ah, Charles, I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but never asked that

you might become a Baptist.’ to which Charles replied ‘Ah, Mother, the Lord has answered

your prayer with his usual bounty, and has given you exceedingly abundantly above what you

asked or thought.’13

Spurgeon preached his first sermon in 1851 at the tender age of sixteen. He had been

asked to accompany another young man who he believed had been asked to preach, but in fact

the other young man had no idea of preaching and insisted that as Charles was used to teaching

Sunday School he could just repeat one of those messages.14 Soon he was acting as the full time

pastor of a Baptist Church in Waterbeach in Cambridge, where he became known as ‘The Boy

Preacher’. At the age of twenty he was called to pastor a church in South London, the New Park

Street Baptist Chapel.

11
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. I pp. 87-90
12
Quoted in Dallimore, Spurgeon p.25
13
Dallimore, Spurgeon p.26
14
Ibid p.33
 Reproduced from Northrop, Spurgeon Bk One, Ch. III

Within months, the building proved too small to contain the crowds who flocked to

hear him, and it was decided that the services would be held in Exeter Hall, until the building

could be enlarged. The Baptist Messenger reported on the phenomena of Spurgeon’s popularity:

‘It will easily be believed how great must be the popularity of this almost boyish preacher,

when we mention that yesterday, both morning and evening, the large hall, capable of

containing from 4,000 to 5,000 persons, was filled in every part’.15 Soon, this too was becoming

overcrowded and the congregation was moved temporarily to the Surrey Gardens Music Hall.

This was to be the site of a great disaster, when, soon after the first service began, with a

congregation of more than ten thousand people inside the building and thousands more outside,

an unknown and possibly malicious voice cried ‘Fire!’ The ensuing panic resulted in the deaths

of seven people.16 Most of those in the building, including Spurgeon, were unaware of the full

extent of the tragedy, but the decision to continue the service was considered by the press to be

callous in the extreme. In fact, when Spurgeon became aware of the facts, he was so overcome

that he almost suffered a complete breakdown, and his friend feared that he would not preach

again. However, after a brief spell out of London, he was able to return to the pulpit after

missing just one Sunday.17 By 1856, the decision had been taken that a larger church must be

built, and on August 15th 1859, the foundation stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was laid.
15
Quoted in Pike, Spurgeon p.161
16
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. II pp.238-10
17
Ibid pp.250-1
At the beginning of his New Park Street ministry, the church had 232 members. At the end of

his pastorate, the Tabernacle had a membership of 5,311.

Reproduced from Northrop, Spurgeon Bk. One, Ch. IV

Spurgeon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle for thirty-one years, until his death

in 1892. This essay will be chiefly concerned with his influence throughout this period.

Chapter Three

Spurgeon and his Contemporaries

Many of the foremost thinkers and doers of the 19th century would have known of

Spurgeon and there is evidence that many had heard him preach. His Autobiography includes

letters from: Florence Nightingale, Lord Shaftesbury, Admiral Sir W. King Hall, Sir Charles

Reed, W.E. Gladstone, Lord Radstock, Thomas Blake and Thomas Barnado.18

18
Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: compiled from his diary, letters, and records by his wife
and his private secretary. (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899) pp. 180-186
 Matthew Arnold attended a Tabernacle meeting with his brother-in-law, William Forster,

in 1866, and writing to his mother, says:

Spurgeon’s lecture was well worth hearing…It was a

study in the way of speaking and management of the
voice; though his voice is not beautiful as some people call
it, nor is his pronunciation quite pure. Still, it is a most
striking performance, and reminded me much of Bright’s.
Occasionally there [were] bits in which he showed unction
and real feeling – sometimes he was the mere dissenting
Philistine – but he kept up one’s interest and attention for
more than an hour and a half and that is the great thing. I
am very glad I have heard him.19

Arnold mentions Spurgeon by name at least eight times in Culture and Anarchy,

describing him as a ‘born Hebraiser’20 and accusing him of having an antipathy to

establishments rather than to injustice, because he would rather things remained as they were in

Ireland than ‘to do anything to set up the Roman image’.21 Here, he is referring to a letter

written by Spurgeon in support of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, in which

Spurgeon states that:

…bad as the present evil is, we would sooner let it

alone than see Popery endowed with the national property.
Not one single farthing should any religious denomination
receive…We are not agitated by the dead horse of “No
Popery”…but we are very determined that it never shall be
said that, under the guise of removing the grievances of
Ireland, we made an exchange of endowed churches, and
put down the Anglican to set up the Roman image.22

There is nothing in The Sword and the Trowel to indicate that Spurgeon was aware of the

existence of Matthew Arnold, although he was a staunch supporter of his brother-in-law, W.E.

Forster, unlike most Nonconformists.23 This may well have been partly because of the respect

Spurgeon had for Quakers, since one of his own ancestors, Job Spurgeon, had been imprisoned

in Chelmsford during a severe seventeenth-century winter, on account of being a Quaker.24 In

19
Clinton Machann and Forrest D. Burt (ed.s) Selected Letters of Matthew Arnold (USA: University of
Michigan Press, 1996) p.193
20
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy Ch. VI at:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca_ch6.html
21
Ibid
22
Quoted in Pike, Spurgeon Vol. IV p.255
23
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. V p.146
24
Pike Spurgeon Vol. I p.102
1866, Forster attended a meeting of Quakers at the Institute, Bishopsgate Street, at which

Spurgeon spoke on the ‘Life and Work of George Fox’.25

John Ruskin and Charles Spurgeon enjoyed a close friendship between 1857 and 1862.

Ruskin regularly attended services at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall and at the Metropolitan

Tabernacle as well as joining Spurgeon in his home to test one another’s knowledge of

Scripture. Writing to the Brownings, Ruskin explained: ‘His doctrine is simply Bunyan’s,

Baxter’s, Calvin’s and John Knox’s…Why should we find fault with it especially in Spurgeon

and not in St Francis or Jeremy Taylor?’26 Once Ruskin called Spurgeon a fool: ‘for devoting

your time and talents to that mob of people down at Newington when you might employ them

so much more profitably upon the intellectual and cultured few, like that Jewish gentleman who

came to Paul [1 Corinthians 15.35], and a few others I could name’, to which Spurgeon replied,

‘I always like to be the means of saving people whose souls are worth saving, and I am quite

content to be the minister of that “mob” down at Newington and let those who wish to do so

look after the cultured and refined’.27

The affection with which each viewed the other can be seen by the following

correspondence, dated 25th November 1562:

My Dear Friend,
I want a chat with you. Is it possible to get it, –
quietly, – and how, and where, and when? I’ll come to you,
– or you shall come here, – or whatever you like. I am in
England only for ten days, - being too much disgusted with
your goings on – yours as much as everybody else’s – to
be able to exist among you any longer. But I want to say
‘Good-bye’ before going to my den in the Alps.
Ever with sincerest remembrances to Mrs Spurgeon,
Affectionately yours, J. Ruskin.28

Spurgeon lost no time in replying:

My Dear Mr Ruskin,
I thought you had cut me off; but I perceive that
you let me alone when all is right, and only look me up
25
Pike Spurgeon Vol. III pp.188-190
26
Quoted in Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Early Years 1819-1859 (London: Yale University Press,
1985) p.261
27
Spurgeon Autobiography vol. iii p.196
28
Personal letters held in the Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
 when you are getting disgusted with me. May that disgust
increase if it shall bring me oftener into your company!
I shall be delighted to see you tomorrow, here, at any time
from 10 to 12 if this will suit you.
I wish I had a den in the Alps to go to…
Yours ever most truly and affectionately,
C. H. Spurgeon.29

Spurgeon treasured the memory of Ruskin’s friendship long after Ruskin had abandoned

the beliefs which Spurgeon held throughout his life, and after his death his wife recalled an

occasion when Ruskin had visited her seriously unwell husband and had been reduced to tears

at the condition in which he found Spurgeon. Susannah records that he brought with him ‘two

charming engravings…which still adorn the walls of one of the rooms at “Westwood”, and

some bottles of wine of a rare vintage, which he hoped would prove a cordial to the sufferer’s

much weakened frame’.30

Spurgeon and the Liberal MP, John Bright, enjoyed a cooperative relationship,

particularly over the issue of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, which will be discussed

in some detail later. Bright chaired the meeting of the National Reform Union, held at the

Metropolitan Tabernacle on April 22nd 1868, at which the letter referred to by Matthew Arnold,

was read. Spurgeon was unable to attend because of a particularly severe attack of gout.31

Spurgeon had a longstanding association with the Liberation Society and spoke at its annual

meeting in 1866 and its Triennial Conference on May 5th 1868. The Society was formed in 1844

as the British Anti-State Church Association.32 At this period it was the main organ of

opposition to the Established Church, concerned with removing the abuses and restrictions

suffered by Dissenting churchmen.

Spurgeon enjoyed a cordial relationship with Lord Shaftesbury, who was rebuked by The

Record (the main organ of the Evangelical party) for appearing on the same platform, at Exeter

Hall, with one who was prominent in his opposition to the state Church.33 In his reply

29
Personal letters held in the Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
30
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol. ii p.289
31
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. IV pp.254-5
32
Ibid. pp.261-2
33
Ibid.p.256
Shaftesbury affirmed his commitment to the Established Church but added: ‘…although I do

not always concur in all Mr Spurgeon’s sentiments, nor always approve the language in which

they are conveyed, I regard him as a man of great ability, of great earnestness, and doing a great

work’.34 Lord Shaftesbury often presided at the annual meetings of Spurgeon’s Stockwell

Orphanage and the Pastor’s College, and supported the work of the Colportage Association, the

Book Fund and the Pastor’s Aid Fund.35 He officiated at Spurgeon’s fiftieth birthday

celebrations and paid Spurgeon the following tribute:

He has not been puffed up by success, but humbled

and animated the more to go on in his noble career of good
which God in His merciful providence had marked out for
him…That list of associations, instituted by his genius, and
superintended by his care, were more than enough to
occupy the minds and hearts of fifty ordinary men. It
seems to me to be the world in a nutshell.36

Speaking privately of Lord Shaftesbury, Spurgeon said: ‘Those of us who often come into

contact with him admire the depth and earnestness of his piety. No doubt he is thoroughly a

member of the Church of England; but he is much more a member of the Church of Christ’.37

Spurgeon could not ignore the controversy raging within the Christian community over

Charles Darwin and his theories, but he neither feared them, nor paid them much attention. His

faith in the inerrancy of Scripture was such that he considered such theories almost as childish

irrelevancies, which would eventually fail. When questioned by one of his students on whether

it was justifiable to accept ‘Mr Darwin’s or any other theory of evolution?’ he replied:

Does Revelation teach us evolution? It has never

struck me, and it does not strike me now, that the theory of
evolution can, by any process of argument, be reconciled
with the inspired record of creation…there are abundant
evidences that one creature inclines towards another in
certain respects, for all are bound together in a wondrous
way which indicates that they are all the product of God’s
creative will…the greatest discoveries made by man must
be quite babyish to the infinite mind of God.38

34
Ibid p.257
35
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. V p.177
36
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. VI p.275
37
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. IV p.356
38
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol iv. p.133-4
 When giving a ‘secular’ lecture on ‘the Gorilla and the Lands he Inhabits’ based on Paul

B. Du Chaillu’s Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, he commented: ‘I do not

wish to hold an argument with the philosopher who thinks himself related to a gorilla; I do not

care to claim the honour for myself, but anyone else is perfectly welcome to it’.39

Chapter Four

Spurgeon and Gladstone

39
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol. iii p.54
 :
One of many cartoons linking Gladstone and Spurgeon, this shows Spurgeon representing the ‘speech’
area of Gladstone’s brain. Reproduced with permission, from The Spurgeon Archive at:
http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/abio081.htm

By the time Spurgeon began his London ministry in 1854, W.E. Gladstone had already

been in politics for twenty years, as long as Spurgeon had been alive. Throughout his entire life,

Spurgeon would retain great respect and affection for the man he referred to as ‘honoured chief’

after his election victory of 1880.40 However, Spurgeon was not a ‘party loyalist’ and his

politics were always determined by his belief in the vital necessity of spreading the Gospel. In

1868 he believed that in Gladstone, Britain had a leader ‘actuated by a sense of right’ and

rejoiced ‘that I live to see the day in which right is thought to be a possible policy’.41

40
Gladstone Papers, Brit. Museum, quoted in Patricia Stallings Kruppa Charles Haddon Spurgeon: a
preacher’s progress (N.Y.: Garland Pub., 1982) p.352
41
Gladstone Papers, quoted in Kruppa Spurgeon p.352
 Spurgeon rightly judged Gladstone to be the one person who might be able to carry

through the Bill to disestablish the Irish Church, and he threw his full support behind the

campaign. He believed absolutely in the Voluntary principle, that ministers should be supported

by their congregations, and neither subsidised by, nor beholden to, secular authorities. He was

taken to task on this issue in the House of Commons, by his habitual adversary, Samuel

Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and commonly known as ‘Soapy Sam’. Wilberforce accused

him of inconsistency, since on the one hand, he advocated Voluntaryism, whilst on the other, he

wrote letters appealing for assistance for those Dissenting Pastors who could ‘improve their

circumstances if they were to follow the commonest handicrafts’42. Spurgeon responded in a

letter to The Times printed on July 4th 1868. ‘If I advocate the voluntary system, must I shut my

eyes to its failures, or be impeached for its folly…If I point out its shortcomings in order to

amend them, am I self-convicted of inconsistency?’43 As far as the press was concerned,

Wilberforce did not win this encounter. Both the Daily News and The Daily Telegraph

considered that the Bishop had been too interested in amusing the peeresses in the gallery, to

treat the issue with becoming gravity, the Telegraph concluding that ‘He thought no doubt of

Mother Church; but, at the moment, he preferred to amuse her daughters’.44 The Daily News

was even less sympathetic and declared that ‘The Bishop’s arguments are as bad as his

manners, and his facts as specious as his rhetoric’.45

Spurgeon not only argued in favour of Voluntaryism, but also emphasised the injustice of

expecting a Catholic population to pay for a church they detested. Writing in The Sword and

the Trowel, he said ‘…how men calling themselves Christians, let alone Christian bishops, can

have voted for the gross wickedness of compelling a Romish population to support a church

which they abhor, utterly staggers us’.46

Spurgeon did not find himself so much in accord with Gladstone’s policies during his

second spell as Prime Minister, from 1880 to 1885. Writing to a friend in June, 1880, he
42
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. IV. p.277
43
Ibid. p.281
44
The Daily Telegraph 30th June, 1868. Scrapbook clipping, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
45
The Daily News 30th June, 1868. Scrapbook clipping, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
46
C. H. Spurgeon, ‘Memoranda’ The Sword and the Trowel Vol. V (1869), (London: Passmore and
Alabaster, 1910). p.381
complained ‘To cheapen beer, to confirm the opium curse, to keep in office the shedders of

blood, and to put Papists to the front [a reference to the appointment of a Catholic, Lord Ripon,

as Viceroy to India], are things I never expected from Mr Gladstone; but “cursed be the man

that trusteth in man”, Yet I am a Gladstonite despite all this’.47

Many saw Spurgeon’s split with Gladstone over Home Rule in Ireland, as signifying the

end of the Liberal-Nonconformist alliance. It did not, however, signal the end of the friendship

between the two men. Spurgeon had the Puritan’s detestation of ‘Popery’ and saw Home Rule

as posing a threat to Irish Protestants from resentful Catholics. Writing to Alderman Cory, in

Cardiff, he expressed himself in strong terms that led some to accuse him of calling Gladstone

‘mad’.

I feel especially the wrong proposed to be done to

our Ulster brethren. What have they done to be thus cast
off? The whole scheme of home rule is full of dangers and
absurdities as if it had come from a mad man, and yet I am
sure Mr Gladstone believes he is only doing justice and
acting for the good of all. I consider him to be making one
of those mistakes which can only be made by great and
well-meaning men.48

Writing to a friend who was concerned that his support for the Bill would offend

Spurgeon, he reveals his continuing respect for Gladstone as a man and a leader, in spite of

their differences of opinion:

If others think the bill wise and good, I hope they

will do their best to carry it. I believe it to be a fatal stab at
our common country, and I am bound to oppose it. I am as
good a Liberal as any man living, and my loving
admiration of Mr Gladstone is the same as ever, hearty and
deep; but this bill I conceive to a very serious error.49

On January 3rd, 1882, Gladstone wrote to Spurgeon, requesting a seat for the following

Sunday evening service. In his reply, Spurgeon claimed that he would ‘feel like a boy who is to

preach with his father to listen to him’.50 The visit gave rise to speculation in the press that a

47
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol. iv. p.126
48
James J. Ellis, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (London: Nisbet, N.D.) p.126
49
Spurgeon Autobiography vol. iv p.127
50
Gladstone Papers, quoted in Kruppa Spurgeon p.354
new political alliance was being formed, and Spurgeon was sent the following acrostic which

Mrs Spurgeon saved in one of her many scrapbooks:

G – reat in evasion and equivocation

L – eader of all ritualists in nation
A – nd yet to the rationalists an inclination
D – isregarding fear, his party to uphold
S – o that be done, his country may be sold
T – ruckles to Rome, the romish vote to win
O – r to the House, held atheist Bradlaugh in
N – ot long since Enraght’s ritual he approves
E – ven as now, Spurgeon’s dissent he loves.51

The Saturday Review claimed that ‘Mr Spurgeon is worth in point of votes at least two

bishops’.52

Of all the congratulatory greetings that Spurgeon received on the occasion of his fiftieth

birthday, he claimed to treasure a brief note from Gladstone most highly. Gladstone wished to

…unite my voice with the voices of thousands in

acknowledging the singular power with which you have
so long testified before the world…and the splendid
uprightness of public character and conduct, which have,
I believe, contributed perhaps equally with your
eloquence and mental gifts to win for you so wide an
admiration.53

When Spurgeon was suffering his final illness in 1891, Gladstone, who had recently

suffered the loss of his eldest son, wrote to Mrs Spurgeon: ‘I cannot help conveying to you the

earnest assurance of my sympathy with you, and with him, and my cordial admiration, not only

of his splendid powers, but still more of his devoted and unfailing character’.54

Chapter Five

Spurgeon and the State.

51
Scrapbook clipping, 1882, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
52
Scrapbook clipping, 1882, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
53
Letter preserved in Scrapbook, held in Heritage Room.
54
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol. iv p.183-4
 Spurgeon was outspoken in his criticism of the British government abroad and would

even express these sentiments when addressing a prayer meeting, as recorded in the

posthumously published ‘Only a Prayer Meeting!’, ‘…wherever great powers have interfered

with smaller, inoffensive nationalities, for the sake of increasing their territories, or their

influence, they are verily guilty…I blush to own the part of my own country in the enormous

infamy of the opium traffic’.55 On the Day of Fasting observed on account of the Indian Mutiny,

he addressed an audience of 23,654 people at the Crystal Palace, without the aid of a

microphone.56 Describing the events in India as a judgement from God, he continued:

The sins of the government of India have been black and deep. He who has
heard the shrieks of tormented natives, who has heard the well-provoked cursing of
dethroned princes, might have prophesied that it would not be long before God
would unsheath his sword to avenge the oppressed…
O! England, thou wast once true, upright, honest; men
could not rightly call thee, then, "Perfidious Albion;" but
now, O Britain, alas! for thee! Unless thou dost recover
thyself, who can trust thee?57

When, in 1879, he was accused of praying for the removal of the Beaconsfield (Disraeli)

government, he responded ‘Parties are of small consequence to us, but wholesale slaughter

brought about by unrighteous plundering ought not to be passed over without

remonstrance’.58 And in an article entitled ‘Mistress of the Nations and yet a Slave’ he wrote:

‘While we bully Russia, invade Afghanistan, pour out our wrath upon the Zulus, and stand

sword in hand over against Burmah, is not our nation becoming the slave of drunkenness?’59

If Spurgeon disliked Imperialism, he loathed war and did not hesitate to express his

revulsion. Speaking to the YMCA in 1859, he said ‘For English cannon to make way in

Canton for an English missionary, is too glaring a lie for me to believe for a moment. I cannot

comprehend the Christianity which talks thus of murder and robbery…’60 In 1870 he even

addressed an open letter from ‘John Ploughman’ directly to ‘Napoleon, Emperor of France

and William, King of Prussia’, in which he asked –

55
C.H. Spurgeon, ‘Only a Prayer Meeting!’: forty addresses at the Metropolitan Tabernacle and other
prayer meetings (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1901) p.55
56
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. II p.278
57
C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit at: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0154.htm
58
Spurgeon, ‘Memoranda’ Sword and Trowel XV (1879) p.245-6
59
Spurgeon, ‘Mistress of the Nations and still a Slave’ The Sword and the Trowel XV (1879) p.338
60
Spurgeon, Autobiography vol. iii p.44
 How can you sit down to eat when you have caused
war?…Whichever of you that has been the wicked cause
of this war, I say you smell of blood; you ought to be hated
more than the common hangman, and instead of being
called “his majesty” you ought to be hooted as a demon.61

In an editorial in the Sword and Trowel of April 1878, he quotes Romans 3.15-17: ‘Their

feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace

they have not known’ with reference to the Crimean War and the public reaction to it. He

continues:

War brings out the demon in man…its natural

tendency is to haul nations back into barbarism, and
retard the growth of everything good and holy. When
undertaken from a dire necessity, as the last resort of an
oppressed people, it may become heroic, and its after
results may compensate for its immediate evils, but war
wantonly undertaken, for self-interest, ambition, or
wounded pride is evil, only evil, and that continually.62

Spurgeon shared the hatred of slavery common to most Nonconformists, and felt that the

Christian church bore much responsibility for its continuance. He condemned the bishops and

ministers who whined out ‘Cursed be Canaan’ and quoted Philemon and Onesimus as a

justification for slavery, which he described as ‘a sin, and a damnable one, inconsistent with

grace’.63 His opposition to the trade lost him valuable financial support from the USA, but

this did not deter him, and he invited an escaped slave to speak of his sufferings at a

Tabernacle service. He declared that ‘although I commune at the Lord’s table with men of all

creeds, yet with a slave-holder I have no fellowship of any kind…and would as soon think of

receiving a murderer into my church, or into any sort of friendship, as a man-stealer’.64

Spurgeon frequently encouraged his fellow Nonconformists to use their vote and was an

enthusiastic supporter of the extension of the franchise. In 1876, he writes ‘We have

aforetime urged every Christian to exercise the franchise and use his political privileges as in

the sight of God, and we do so still’.65 He adds, however, that the most essential factors to

61
Spurgeon ‘John Ploughman’s Letter on the War’ The Sword and the Trowel (1870) pp.352-4
62
Spurgeon, ‘Editorial’ The Sword and the Trowel XIV(1878) pp.145-149
63
C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit (1860) at: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0154.htm
64
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. II p.331
65
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel XII (1876) p.307
 maintain the best interests of Nonconformity were soundness of faith and depth of piety. He

dismissed accusations that he was too political for a man of God, insisting that as a social

being, the Christian had a duty to exert an influence for good, wherever God had placed him.

In an issue of The Sword and the Trowel in 1873, he writes:

The truth is that many of us are loath to touch

politics at all, and would never do so if we were not
driven to it…if we are political, give us our rights and
we shall be so no more…For a Christian minister to be
an active partisan of Whigs or Tories, busy in
canvassing, and eloquent at public meetings, would be of
ill repute…but there are points of inevitable contact
between the higher and the lower spheres, points where
politics persist in coming into conflict with our faith, and
there we shall be traitors to both heaven and earth if we
consult our comfort by slinking into the rear.66

Spurgeon was almost unique amongst Nonconformists of his day, in not opposing the

election of Charles Bradlaugh on account of his atheism. He insisted that unless a man was

being chosen for a religious post, his religion, or lack of it, should not prohibit him from

standing. Regarding a Lambeth candidate, Mr Lawrence, Spurgeon writes, ‘At an election, if a

man is eligible in other respects, we cannot discuss his soundness in theology. To do so would

be persecution. It is one of our first principles that a man’s civil rights are not to be affected by

his religion’.67 Charles Bradlaugh’s close friend and associate, Annie Besant, was so impressed

with Spurgeon’s response to Bradlaugh’s election that she wrote in the National Reformer:

No one can question [Mr Spurgeon’s] intense

abhorrence of Mr Bradlaugh’s Atheism, but being a liberal
in fact instead of only in name, he calmly declared to the
bigots who attacked him…that people of every faith and
no faith had a right to parliamentary representation. And
while saying, as he had every right to say, that he preferred
to see Christians in the House of Commons, he pointed out
that the recommendations to that house should be political,
not religious. But then Mr Spurgeon belongs to the Verte
brata, not to the Mollusca.68

Although Spurgeon’s attitude in this case seems to be at odds with his opposition to the

appointment of a Catholic to a high position, in the case of Lord Ripon, Spurgeon objected to a

66
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel IX (1873) p.108
67
Spurgeon Sword and Trowel III (1868) p.567
68
Annie Besant, National Reformer April 25th, 1880. Scrapbook clipping, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s
College.
man with a confessed allegiance to a foreign authority (the Pope), representing the interests of

Britain, whereas Bradlaugh would be representing the interests of British people, within the

British parliament.

Spurgeon was so appalled at a victory of the Conservatives in a Southwark election, that

he wrote a pamphlet urging the ‘Liberals of Southwark, [to] quit yourselves like men, and bestir

yourselves for the grand old cause!’69 He continued:

Are we to have another six years of Tory rule?…

Are we to go on slaughtering and invading in order to
obtain a scientific frontier and feeble neighbours?…how
many of our weaker neighbours will have their houses
burned and their fields ravaged by this Christian (?)
nation?…In the name of Peace, Justice, Reform, and
Progress, muster your forces.
Southwark once led the van in advanced
Liberalism, and it has now come down to be represented
by two Conservatives!70

He had written a similar leaflet to the Liberal Electors of Lambeth in support of the

Liberal candidates McArthur and Lawrence in which he urged them to imagine six more years

of Tory rule ‘devoid alike of peace and progress’.71 The Weekly Dispatch gave great emphasis to

Spurgeon’s influence, in November 1879: ‘Mr Spurgeon continues to be the greatest single

influence in South London in favour of Liberalism. At elections, School boards and

Parliamentary, his followers display an energy and discipline which leaves nothing to be

desired. It would be hard to find a better Radical than Mr Spurgeon’.72 Cohen and Rogers, the

Liberal candidates for Southwark, put up posters all over Southwark bearing Spurgeon’s attack

on the Tory candidate, because he paid his labourers only two-pence halfpenny for an hour’s

overtime. The Liberal victories in Lambeth and Southwark in the 1880 General election were

widely attributed to Spurgeon’s influence, not least by April 4th issue of The Standard, a cutting

from which was kept by Mrs Spurgeon, to be pasted into one of the numerous scrapbooks of

such cuttings now held at Spurgeon’s College in South London.

69
Spurgeon, ‘To the Liberals of Southwark’ Leaflet dated March 19th, 1880 quoted in A.R. Meredith
(Ph.D Thesis) The Social and Political Views of Charles Haddon Spurgeon 1834-1892 (USA:
Michigan State Univ., 1973), (microfilm copy) p.116-118
70
Ibid.
71
C.H. Spurgeon , To the Liberal Electors of Lambeth Scrapbook clipping 1879, Spurgeon’s College,
Heritage Room.
72
Weekly Dispatch November 9th 1879, Scrapbook clipping in Spurgeon’s College, Heritage Room
 Although Spurgeon declared himself to be a Liberal on numerous occasions, he did not

fear the consequences of extending the vote to the working classes. He had enormous

confidence in the good sense of the common man, and his congregation included many of those

who occupied the ‘lower orders’. (In an 1872 issue of The Sword and the Trowel he insisted,

‘Take away the working men from the dissenting churches of London, and many of them would

become extinct, and nearly all would be brought very low, both in numbers and grace’73).

In an interview with W.T. Stead, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, he affirms his belief

that democracy is not something to be feared:

I have no fears about the future nor any terrors of the

growing power of the democracy. I do not think that the
great body of Englishmen ever go very far wrong in
matters of political justice when a case is fairly put before
them…I have far more confidence in the mob than in the
rich and idle few who sneer superciliously at those who are
doing good work for God and man…The instincts of the
masses can be much more safely relied upon than the
caprices of the wealthy and leisured few.74

However, he did not believe that social problems were to be blamed exclusively on

flawed or inadequate institutions, or that changing those institutions was all that was needed

to put society right, as he observes in a sermon at New Park Street:

Others turn round and find fault with the whole of

society; they tell us that the whole organism of society is
wrong; they tell us that everything in government,
everything that concerns the state, everything which melts
men into commonwealths, is all so bad that they cannot be
good while things are what they are. They must have a
revolution, they must upset everything; and then they think
they could be holy!75

Spurgeon may not have longed for revolution, but he was not content for things to stay

as they were. In a sermon preached just a month later, in August 1857, he deplores the class

system:

In England we have a caste almost as strong as the

Hindostan. My lord will not speak to any one who is a

73
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel VIII (1872) p.10
74
W.T. Stead, ‘Topics of the Day by Heroes of the Hour’ Pall Mall Gazette, June 19, 1884, quoted in
Meredith Social and Political Views
75
C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1857-1880) vol. I p.285
 little beneath himself in dignity, and he who hath the next
degree of dignity thinks the tradesman infinitely below
him [etc]…Oh for the day when these shall be broken
down, when the impulse of one blood shall be felt…76

Spurgeon believed the solution to social ills was to change the individual, and that the

way to accomplish that was to preach the gospel, as he explains in a review of Alfred Barry’s

Christianity and Socialism: ‘no other balm for broken hearts, nor any other cure for social

ills…no plans will make our earth a paradise while sin still curses it, and Satan is abroad’.77

Chapter Six

Spurgeon and social issues

Charles Spurgeon believed absolutely in the doctrine of the Christian as ‘salt and light’ in

the world. His own activities bore out his preaching on the duty of the Christian to seek to

improve the lot of his fellow man. Speaking at his fiftieth birthday celebrations, he explained

what he wished to do with the £4,500 that had been presented to him:

I want to give something to St. Thomas’s Hospital,

which helps our friends. …I want to make up what is
given to the Almshouses to two hundred pounds; also to
give the deacons two hundred pounds to lend…I want to
give the Baptist Missionary Society fifty pounds, fifty
pounds to the augmentation of the salaries of our poor
ministers, two hundred pounds to the Colportage, two
hundred and fifty pounds to my son’s chapel…and one
hundred pounds to my wife’s book fund [for poor
pastors]…If you ever wish to see what the money does,
go to the College, the Orphanage, the Almshouses, and
see what God has done through your liberality.78

In A Good Start, a book written for the guidance of young men and women, he advises:

‘If all other hands be fast closed, the hands of the Christian man should always be open to

relieve human necessity….the believer is the brother to all men – rich and poor, sick and

76
Ibid p.305
77
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel XXVIII (1892) p.87
78
Pike, Spurgeon Vol.VI p.276
healthy – and he should seek their good in every possible way’.79 Of course, being Spurgeon, he

added that the Christian should aim at the highest good, which is the saving of their souls.

One example of the way in which Spurgeon put his preaching into practice was in the

opening of the Stockwell orphanages. In 1866, having received a gift of £20,000 from a Mrs

Hillyard, the widow of a Church of England clergyman, who expressed a desire that the money

should be used to train and educate orphan boys, Spurgeon immediately purchased a piece of

land in Stockwell, not far from the Tabernacle. Ten years later, sufficient funds had been raised

to open a home for girls. The striking aspect of the Stockwell orphanages was the advanced

ideas that were put into practice. Unlike the regimented institutions common for the time,

where children were herded together in vast numbers, clothed identically and displayed as

objects of charity, these homes aimed to provide a family setting for each child. The boys were

placed in individual houses, with fourteen boys to a house, cared for by a matron. The houses

were to be run on similar lines to those which Spurgeon had seen Hamburg, in the ‘Rauhe

House’(Orphan Asylum). He describes them in an issue of the Sword and Trowel:

The secret lies in the thorough family feeling with

which each house is inspired…Nature is followed as
much as possible in the constitution of a family…the
elder children always have some younger ones about
them, who need their help and indulgence. The younger
children, on the other hand, always see some elder ones
near them, whom they have to thank for kindness, or to
rely on for direction.80

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Stockwell Orphanage was the inclusion of a

swimming pool, which enabled Spurgeon to proudly report that ‘nearly every boy can swim’.81

Spurgeon frequently visited orphanages and often spent Christmas Day there, where he

would give out fruit and shillings to the children. The following excerpts from letters he wrote

when he was unable to visit at Christmas show the affection he felt for the residents. The first is

addressed to the boys, the second to the girls.

79
C.H. Spurgeon A Good Start: a book for young men and women (London: Passmore and Alabaster,
1898) p.22
80
Quoted in Pike, Spurgeon Vol. IV p.215
81
Quoted in ‘The Stockwell Orphanage’ at: http://www.vauxhallsociety.org
 I am very pleased to hear that as a rule you are a
good lot of fellows, obedient, teachable, and true; therefore
you have a right to be happy, and I hope you are…we want
you to be very jolly while you are with us, and then to
grow up and go out into business, and to turn out first-rate
men and true Christians.

I hope you will be happy too, with Miss Moore and

the other kind folks. You cannot make quite so much noise
as those uproarious boys, but your voices are very sweet,
and I shall be glad one day to hear them when I get well
and come home. Enjoy yourselves all you can, and try to
make everybody happy in your new home’.82

Spurgeon was particularly concerned to visit and write to any child who became sick, and

was touched when they responded, as did a lad by the name of Bray. Spurgeon thanked him for

writing whilst in such pain and urged him to remember that: ‘The Lord Jesus will be very near

you. He feels for dear suffering children…If there is anything you want, be sure to let me know.

Your loving friend, C.H. Spurgeon’.83

George Needham records that ‘In selecting the most needy boys…the trustees are in no

way influenced by the religious opinions of their parents’.84 This is borne out by a report on

those resident shortly before the opening of the girls’ orphanage. Of a total of 205 boys, 69

were Church of England, 26 Independent, 51 Baptist, 4 Presbyterian, one Catholic and 35 came

from families who professed no religion.85 The report continued with details of those boys who

had already left the orphanage: ‘Almost every boy who has gone into a situation has given

satisfaction…Some of the lads are in good positions, and command the esteem of their

employers’.86 A government inspectors report concluded that the orphanage was ‘an admirable

institution, good in design, and, if possible, better in execution’. 87 However, perhaps the

testimony of one of the orphans is more telling:

Dear Mr Spurgeon,
You must excuse the liberty I am taking in writing to
you…
82
C.H. Spurgeon in Iain Murray (ed.) Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (USA: Banner of Truth
Trust, 1992) pp.109-110
83
Ibid
84
George C. Needham, The Life and Labours of C.H. Spurgeon (Boston: D.L. Guernsey, 1883) pp.
212-213.
85
Ibid p.216
86
Needham, Spurgeon p.216
87
Ibid p.214
 I must tell you that I was in the Orphanage for seven and
a half years, and was very happy indeed, and wish
myself back again. Now I must close, thanking you for
your kindness in giving us such a beautiful home to live
in. It will always be something to look back on with
pleasure for the rest of our lives, and for which we can
never thank you enough.

Reproduced from Northrop, Spurgeon Bk One, Ch.s V. and VIII.

Spurgeon frequently used the pulpit and the Sword and Trowel to speak out against social

wrongs. A regular feature of The Sword and the Trowel was the ‘John Ploughman’ article

already mentioned, which often addressed topical issues. These articles were later collected into

two books John Ploughman’s Talk and John Ploughman’s Pictures. In John Ploughman’s Talk,

he writes ‘I wish our governors would not break up so many poor men’s homes by that

abominable poor law’.88 And, in Pictures, ‘a real hard-working man ought to be able to get for a

day’s work enough to keep himself and family from hunger’.89

Spurgeon was anxious that education, which he prized highly, should be available to all.

He was involved in the founding of several Sunday Schools and Ragged Schools, and the

school at Vauxhall, funded by the Metropolitan Tabernacle, catered for four hundred children.

The Tabernacle Sunday School was comprised of over a hundred teachers who taught more

than one thousand children. An evening school for young men, held at the Tabernacle, averaged
88
C.H. Spurgeon John Ploughman’s talk: or, advice for plain people (London: Passmore and Alabaster,
ND) p.86
89
C.H. Spurgeon John Ploughman’s pictures, or, more plain talk for plain people (London: Passmore
and Alabaster, 1904) p.52
an attendance of two hundred. Spurgeon formed his ‘Pastors’ College’ in 1856, with the express

purpose of helping:

…men who, through lack of funds, could not

obtain an education for themselves…Scholarship for its
own sake was never sought…but to help men become
better preachers…I shall not, in order to increase our
prestige, refuse poor men, or zealous young Christians
whose early education has been neglected. Pride would
suggest we take a “better class of men,” but experience
shows that…eminently successful men spring from all
ranks.90

These young men were soon recruited to visit the surrounding districts, particularly the

lodging houses, where poverty and sickness was rife, to teach, preach and to offer assistance.91

A.R. Meredith argues that initially, Spurgeon believed that education should be non-

sectarian, but that he came to hold the opposite view over time.92 In fact, the evidence shows

that Spurgeon always held the view that doctrine should be taught by the Christian church or

parent, but that the Bible should be read in schools. Writing in 1868 with reference to the

proposed Education Act, he maintained that: ‘We should like to see a system of universal

application which would give a sound secular education to children, and leave the religious

training to the home and the church of Christ’.93 However, he did not underestimate the

complexity of the problem as he revealed in The Sword and the Trowel early in 1870: ‘we see

no course of which we approve, and have none of our own to suggest. The matter can only

appear easy to those who have not carefully considered it’.94 Also in 1870, an Education

Meeting was held at Exeter Hall, attended mainly by working men. Spurgeon reported on the

outcome in The Sword and the Trowel: ‘when the resolution, that the Bible be permitted to be

read in National Schools, by those children whose parents wished it, was put to the meeting, it

was carried amid a tumult of cheers, about twenty hands only being held up for the secularist

amendment’.95 Unlike many Nonconformists of the time, he supported Forster’s Education Act

90
Quoted in Dallimore, Spurgeon) p.102
91
Dallimore, Spurgeon p.157
92
Meredith, Social and Political Views p.112
93
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel Vol. III, (1868) pp.139-40
94
Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel Vol. V, (1870) p.189
95
Ibid p.332
and attempted to act as a mediator between Forster and the Nonconformists who believed he

had ‘sold out’ to the Established Church.96

Conclusions

Although the name Charles Haddon Spurgeon means little now to those who are not

evangelical Christians, the response of the national press at the time of his death, shows how

influential he was during his lifetime. This excerpt from The Daily News summarises the

reaction of the press to Spurgeon’s death:

His name was probably known as widely as that of

any other great Englishman all over the world…He was
admired by agnostics of all kinds, and by downright and
positive, and even aggressive unbelievers…He drew to the
Metropolitan Tabernacle some of the most accomplished
scholars, and the most brilliant rhetoricians of his day…He
could probably speak no language but his own English,
and he was not in any sense a scholar. But he had the gift
of sympathy, which brought him into full understanding
with all the natures over which he felt it his duty to exert
an influence.97

The public reaction was more emotional, as tens of thousands visited the Metropolitan

Tabernacle to view the body, and more lined the streets as the funeral procession made its

way to the Norwood Cemetery. As the procession passed the Stockwell Orphanages, as one

paper reported: ‘on a raised platform, stood the fatherless children, now twice bereaved, the

very picture of grief. They had essayed, as the coffin drew up, to sing, but grief broke them

down’.98 The library at Spurgeon’s College holds more than thirty biographies of Spurgeon,

the earliest having been written in 1877 (by George J. Stevenson), and the most recent, in

2002, (Travel with C.H. Spurgeon, by Clive Anderson). Many were written within ten years

of his death, and at least five whilst he was living.

Spurgeon was a Nonconformist, but he did not slavishly follow the ‘party line’. His one

concern was to preach the gospel, and all of his activities, whether they are seen as political,

social or religious, sprang from that concern. He supported the Liberal Party when he saw its

96
Pike, Spurgeon Vol. V p.146
97
The Daily News Feb.1st 1892, Scrapbook clipping held at Metropolitan Tabernacle
98
Unattributed press cutting held at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
policies as likely to promote the Gospel cause, but he did not hesitate to speak out if he felt that

cause to be endangered. He refused to moderate his language to please his hearers, as illustrated

by his determination to speak out against slavery, even when this resulted in a significant drop

in financial support from the United States. Many of those who were most critical of Spurgeon

when he first arrived in London, were won over by the time of his death. Pike describes the

change in attitude of The Daily Telegraph which had begun as ‘a violent opponent’, but in its

obituary of Spurgeon writes:

…much might be said of Mr Spurgeon, in his

capacity as a Christian philanthropist, whose hand was
ready to any good work, and whose zeal for the poor and
needy will “smell sweet and blossom in the dust”; much
also, of his capacity as an administrator, and of the
knowledge of human nature which enabled him to deal
with the concerns of a vast and varied enterprise without
offence to any…Assuredly among the Christian worthies
of the nineteenth century whose names will go down to
late posterity not the least honoured by all good men will
be Charles Haddon Spurgeon.99

Thirty-six years earlier, this same paper had described Spurgeon as a ‘ranting

charlatan’.100 Of the numerous institutions for which Spurgeon was responsible, few remain

today. The Orphanages have evolved into Spurgeon’s Child Care, an organisation that works

with families throughout the United Kingdom. The Pastor’s College, now known as Spurgeon’s

College, still trains men for the ministry, but has abandoned Spurgeon’s strictly biblical and

reformed stance. The Metropolitan Tabernacle, still a large and vibrant urban church, has

adhered closely to Spurgeon’s theology, and even produces a regular Sword and Trowel. It also

houses probably the largest Sunday School in the country, with around four hundred children

attending regularly, on three sites. Members testify that almost every week visitors arrive,

usually from the United States, wanting to worship in the church where Spurgeon preached.

Our secular age may have forgotten Spurgeon, but amongst evangelical Christians his name

lives on.

99
The Daily Telegraph February 1st, 1892, quoted in Pike, Spurgeon Vol. VI p.346
100
The Daily Telegraph October 21st, 1856, quoted in Pike, Spurgeon Vol. II p.247
 Bibliography

Primary sources ¹

•Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy at:

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca
•Robert Backhouse (ed.) The Autobiography of C.H. Spurgeon: Compiled by his wife and
private secretary (abridged), (London: Hodder and Stoughton,1993)
•James J. Ellis, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (London: Nisbet, N.D.)
•Iain Murray (ed.) Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (USA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1992)
•Clinton Machann and Forrest D. Burt (ed.s) Selected Letters of Matthew Arnold (USA:
University of Michigan Press, 1996)
•George C. Needham, The life and Labours of C.H. Spurgeon (Boston: D.L. Guernsey, 1883)
•G. Holden Pike, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in six volumes.
(Edinburgh, The Banner of truth Trust, 1991 – first pub. 1894)
•Samuel Smiles, Self-Help: with illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance. (London: IEA
Health and Welfare Unit, 1996)
•C.H. Spurgeon A Good Start: a book for young men and women (London: Passmore and
Alabaster, 1898)
•Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: compiled from his diary, letters, and records by
his wife and his private secretary. (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899)
•C.H. Spurgeon, ‘Only a Prayer Meeting!’: forty addresses at the Metropolitan tabernacle
and other prayer meetings (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1901)
•C.H. Spurgeon John Ploughman’s talk: or, advice for plain people (London: Passmore and
Alabaster, ND)
•C.H. Spurgeon John Ploughman’s pictures, or, more plain talk for plain people (London:
Passmore and Alabaster, 1904)
•C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1857-1880)
•C.H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit (1860) at:
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0154.htm
•C. H. Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel Vol. IV-XXVIII (1868-1892) (London: Passmore
and Alabaster, 1910).
•Personal letters held in the Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
•Scrapbook clipping, Heritage Room, Spurgeon’s College
•Scrapbook clipping held at Metropolitan Tabernacle

Secondary sources ²

•John Bowle Politics and Opinion in the 19th Century (London: Cape, 1963)
•Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1985)
•Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Early Years1819-1859 (London: Yale University Press, 1985)
•G.S.R. Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England: being the Ford lectures delivered
before the University of Oxford (Oxford: Methuen, 1965).
•Patricia Stallings Kruppa Charles Haddon Spurgeon: a preacher’s progress (N.Y.: Garland
Pub., 1982)
•A.R. Meredith (Ph.D Thesis) The Social and Political Views of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
1834-1892 (USA: Michigan State Univ., 1973), (microfilm copy)
• ‘The Stockwell Orphanage’ at: http://www.vauxhallsociety.org
¹ Includes works written during Spurgeon’s lifetime and within a decade of his death.
² I am particularly indebted to the works of A.R. Meredith and P.S. Kruppa for directing me to the most
relevant source materials.