THE SOCLAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON. 1834 - 1892

Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNiVERSITY
ALBERT R. MEREDITH
1973

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Michigan State
University

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

The Social and Political Views of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon. 1834-1892

presented by
Albert R. Meredith

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

 

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Major professor

 

 

 

MAR r1 2 ”95‘

 

ABSTRACT

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF CHARLES
HADDON SPURGEON, 1834-1892

BY

Albert R. Meredith

This dissertation gives a detailed account of the
influence that Charles Haddon spurgeon had on the Victorian
society in which he lived regarding the social and politi-
cal issues of his day. A special effort has been made to
determine exactly what his Opinions were in respect to each
issue, and how he endeavored to transform those opinions
into action. Spurgeon was such a prolific writer and out-
spoken preacher that most of his opinions have been well
preserved for posterity. The conclusions drawn in this
dissertation, therefore, have generally come from an
exhaustive study of his numerous publications. As is often
the case with men who make their living by talking and
writing, however, Spurgeon occasionally contradicted him-
self or changed his views on various issues. When this
occurred, possible explanations have been offered using

information gathered from secondary accounts as well.

Albert R. Meredith

Although this dissertation is not intended to add to
the thirty or more biographies of Spurgeon, an introductory
chapter including pertinent biographical material was deemed
necessary. In addition, the concluding chapter attempts to
place Spurgeon in the context of the intellectual trends of
his times and to consider some historiographical questions
regarding the significance of his career.

Nineteenth-century England witnessed the successful
efforts of a number of social and political reform move-
ments, and organized religion played a vital role in these
endeavors. The Victorians established a national system of
education, extended the franchise, recognized the suffering
and deprivation of the poor, and made a concerted attempt
to alleviate the worst of their social problems. All of
this and more have caused historians to look upon the
greater portion of the Victorian Era as an age of reform.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was vitally involved in
these issues. He was highly opinionated and published his
opinions widely. He was not limited to mere words, however,
for he was an active influence in politics, and in the area
of social problems, he established a number of institutions
which lent a pragmatic aspect to his convictions. Politi-
cally, he did all he could to insure that England would be
governed by what he considered to be Christian principles.

He campaigned openly for the candidates he favored, he wrote

Albert R. Meredith

letters of recommendation, gave speeches, and devoted sermons
to the political questions of his time. He publicly de-
nounced the government when he felt it was wrong and praised
it when he believed it was acting justly. He campaigned to
extend the franchise and was considered by some to have
played a key role in at least two general elections.

Spurgeon was at least as influential in matters of
social concern. He established schools on every level from
childhood to college. He found and administered a well-
known and well-run orphanage that cared for hundreds of
children. He ministered to a large church in the heart of
the working-class district of south London and led that
church to become involved in a number of social endeavors
from mission houses to poor relief.

For unknown reasons, most of Spurgeon's biographers
have failed to recount this aspect of his career. On the
whole, Spurgeon has been remembered as an orator, a preacher
with a huge church and a vast literary audience in the
readers of his sermons. Twentieth-century evangelicals
who have seen Spurgeon as a kinsman in doctrine have failed
to recall that he was as actively involved in the social
and political issues of his day as he was in his quest to
win souls for Christ. Indeed, Spurgeon himself saw these
tasks as two sides of the same coin. He believed that the

Gospel provided not only the answer to man's spiritual

Albert R. Meredith

needs, but also the motivation for social concern and a

desire to make the present world a better place to live.

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF CHARLES

HADDON SPURGEON, 1834-1892

BY

Albert Rf Meredith

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

19'73

Copyright By
ALBERT R. MEREDITH
1973

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . .
II. SPURGEON'S POLITICAL INFLUENCE . . . . . .
Spurgeon and Elections
Disestablishment . .

Imperialism . . . .
Spurgeon and War . .

III. SPURGEON AND EDUCATION . .

Public Education . .
The Evening School .
The Pastors' College .
The Colportage Society

IV. SPURGEON AND PHILANTHROPY . . . . . . . .

Lower-Class London in the 1850's . . . . .
Spurgeon's Social Philosophy . . . . . .
The Metropolitan Tabernacle and Social Action
The Stockwell Orphanage . . . . . . . .
Prohibition and Slavery . . . . . . . .

V. SPURGEON AND HIS TIMES . . . . . . . . .

Intellectual Trends in Late Victorian England
Spurgeon in the Context of Nineteenth-
Century Reform . . . . . . . . . .
Spurgeon and Fundamentalism . . . . . .
Spurgeon in Retrospect . . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY . . . . . . . . . . .

ii

Page

iii

54

61
72
79
92

101

101
113
115
132

143
143
159
170
178
184
193
193
217

233
239

244

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1. Statistics on the Pastors' College, June, 1892 . 130

2. Statistics on the Colportage Society, June,
1891 O O O O O O O O O O I O O O 139

iii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

One Sunday afternoon in the autumn of 1850, two
young men, one being no more than sixteen years of age,
walked together on the road from Cambridge to the tiny
village of Teversham. Both had been members of a Preachers'
Association connected with St. Andrew's Street Chapel in
Cambridge, but neither had ever before preached a sermon.
Nor did they expect to do so on this day. Their venerable
pastor, Mr. James Vinter, had realized that both would
demur to his request to preach a sermon, and, therefore,
he had charged them separately, telling each that a young
nan was to preach at Teversham on Sunday night who was not
used to preaching and would very likely be thankful for
company. Thus, he reasoned, they could settle the matter
between themselves.

As they strolled along their way talking about the
things that concern young zealots, the younger man at least
expressed the hope that his colleague would feel the
Presence of God as he preached that evening. The older
man startlingly explained that he had never preached
befcxre in his life, did not plan to begin that night, and

l

had been expecting his young friend to carry out that
responsibility. His friend objected that he too had never
preached, and, even if he had, he was not prepared for the
coming evening. But the older man insisted and, after much
debate, it was decided that the younger man should deliver
the sermon, simple though it might be, to the congregation
gathered in that little Teversham cottage.l
In this rather inauspicious manner began the career
of one of England's greatest Nonconformist preachers,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon. While the twentieth century finds
its superstars in the realms of the cinema, sports, and
politics, Victorian England honored its religious leaders
in a way which we may find difficult to understand. Whereas
we collect pennants of our favorite athletic teams and color
photographs of our heroes, Victorian street-sellers sold
thousands of cheap plaster statuettes of popular divines
to the pious believers who thronged the churches of London.
Today these figurines occupy the dusty back shelves of
obscure antique shops. R. C. K. Ensor, writing in the
Oxford History of England series, recognized the essentially
religious nature of Victorian England:

No one will ever understand Victorian England who does
not appreciate that among the highly civilized, in

 

 

. 1C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, Compiled from his
Qiéggy, Letters and Records by His Wife and His Private
._Se.cretary T4 vols.; London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1897),
I: p. 200.

contradistinction to more primitive, countries it was
one of the most religious that the world has known.2

Another noted historian of the period writes:

Victorian England was religious. . . . The Victorians
changed the face of the world because they were assured.
. . . Part of their confidence was money, and people
increasing in wealth and prosperity, an ocean of
retreating horizons. And part was of the soul. God

is; and we are his servants, and under his care, and

will do our duty.3
And again,

Throughout the mid—Victorian age the evangelical
movement was the strongest force in British life.

D. C. Somervell has said that "during the nineteenth century
Evangelicalism was the moral cement of English society."5
During this eminently religious age, C. H. Spurgeon
stood out like a collossus as one of the pre-eminent
preachers of his time. Magazines and newspapers, Anglican
and Nonconformist alike, recognized Spurgeon as one of the
greatest preachers of his age, perhaps the most significant
voice since the days of Wesley and Whitefield.6 During the

1880's it was common for popular newspapers to conduct polls

—___

2R. C. K. Ensor, England, 1870-1914 (London: Oxford

University Press, 1936), p. 137.

3Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church (2 vols.; New
York: Oxford University Press, 1966), I, p. l.

41bid., I, p. 5.

5D. C. Somervell, English Thought in the Nineteenth
Century (New York: Longmans, Greer and Co., 1929), p. 101.

6The Christian Globe, September 11, 1874.

among their subscribers as to who were the ten greatest
authors, statesmen, Englishmen, and so forth. Almost invari-
ably Spurgeon topped the list as the greatest living preacher,
ahead of such "greats" as Canon Liddon of St. Paul's, Joseph
Parker of The City Temple, and Dr. Dale of Birmingham. When
The Times conducted a census for the Sunday of October 24,
1886, in the churches and chapels of greater London, St.
Paul's had an attendance of 1,662 in the morning and 3,403
in the evening. This remarkable attendance, however, was
only a distant second to the 4,519 and 6,070 who gathered
at Spurgeon's Tabernacle at the Elephant and Castle.7 Nor
was Spurgeon's career a mere flash-in-the-pan. In the
thirty-seven years of his ministry in London, he never
suffered a year of decline. Over 14,000 members were added
to his congregation during that period.8

Spurgeon was not only a popular preacher and orator,
he was also one of the widest-read authors of the nineteenth
century. During his lifetime, 2,241 of his sermons were
published on a weekly basis, and even after his death in 1892
his publishers continued to print, every week, those sermons
which had not been published until 1917. Thus, over 3,800

of his sermons have been published, and, surprisingly, are

 

7The Times (London), November 3, 1886.

 

8Eric W. Hayden, A Centennial History of Spurgeon's
Tabernacle (London: Clifford Frost Ltd., 1962), p. 16.

 

 

now enjoying such demand as to necessitate re-publishing in
the 1970's. Some have estimated that over 100 million
copies were sold by the time of his death.9 As he would
deliver his sermons, scribes in the congregation would take
down every word in shorthand. After the service, they would
go home, re-copy their manuscript in longhand, and send it
to the publishers, who would print up the galley-proofs to
be inspected by Spurgeon himself. By Thursday morning the
proofs would be returned, and by Friday the sermons would

be at the book-sellers or on their way around the world.

The widespread popularity of his sermons was evident
in the thankful letters he received from the remotest
corners of the globe. From sailors in New Brunswick to
sheepfarmers of New Zealand, from missionaries in Siberia
and miners of South Africa, letters from all over the world
and every walk of life gave testimony to the universal
appeal of Spurgeon's sermons.lo One enterprising convert
gave away, at his own expense, 250,000 copies. He sent
elegantly-bound volumes to all the crowned heads of Europe.

He also sent books containing twelve sermons each to every

 

9I have seen this figure in several places such as
the flyleaf of the recent republications of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969) and
on the memoriaIito Spurgeon in the Heritage Room, Spurgeon's
College, London.

10The section in Spurgeon's monthly magazine, The
Sword and the Trowel, devoted to printing samplings of these
letters, is literally filled with them.

 

 

 

Member of Parliament and to every student at Oxford and

Cambridge.11

Robert Louis Stevenson, in his work, Members of an

 

Islet, describes a Sabbath in the South Sea Islands as never
being without the “inevitable" Spurgeon's sermon.12
W. T. Stead, editor of the famous popular magazine,
the Pall Mall Gazette, described Spurgeon as the “most
popular English author" of the day.13 He recounted how
Spurgeon's works had been translated into nearly all the
languages of the world and how, for several weeks, full
reports of the Sunday morning sermon were cabled across
the Atlantic to a number of leading newspapers in New York,
Boston, Chicago and Cincinnati, which would then publish
it in their Monday morning issues. This enterprising
endeavor had to be discontinued, not because of its expense,
but because rival newspapers had tapped the wires and secured

the sermons for nothing.14

 

11G. H. Pike, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Preacher,
Author, and Philanthropist (New York: Funk-and Wagnalls
Co., 1892), p. 195.

12J. C. Carlile, C. H. Spurgeon, An Interpretative
Biography (London: The Religious Tract Society and the
Kingsgate Press, 1933), p. 235.

 

l3"Mr..Spurgeon as a Popular Author," Pall Mall
Gazette, September 10, 1883.

14C. H. Spurgeon, ed., The Sword and the Trowel,
A Record of Combat with Sin and Labour for the Lord,
1rNotes,“July, 1883, p. 394.

 

 

Besides his sermons, Spurgeon published scores of
volumes on various subjects, many of which sold hundreds of
thousands of copies. Their topics varied from homey parables
to pressing social and political issues of the day. His
commentary on the book of Psalms was widely accepted by
Biblical scholars as among the best in print. In addition,

he published a monthly periodical entitled The Sword and

 

the Trowel, which had a greater circulation than that of

 

any other denominational magazine.15 Thus, Spurgeon's
voice was not only heard by the thousands who thronged his
Tabernacle, but his views were read by myriads of others
all across the globe who waited eagerly for his publi-
cations to reach their corner of the world.

Spurgeon's contributions were not limited, however,
to the realm of theology or ecclesiastical affairs. A man
of this stature is almost bound to have had a large influence
in the area of social concerns as well. Spurgeon more than
exceeds this expectation and this, in part at least, is the
theme of this study. Spurgeon felt a deep concern for those
unfortunate members of English society who, as a result of
the traumatic changes brought about by industrialization,
had been caught in the squeeze of progress and now lived
in misery and desperation. But he did more than merely

lament their plight; he built a college to train their poor

 

15"Mr. Spurgeon's Sermons and their Sales," Pall
Mall Gazette, February 2, 1892.

 

for the ministry, free of charge; he established evening
schools for illiterate laborers and taught them the basics
of a liberal education while inspiring many to pursue a
collegiate degree; he created what he called a Colportage
Society to distribute good literature in the slums and
villages of the land; he built an orphanage to care for
the fatherless of the poor of all denominations; and he
built and supported alms houses for destitute widows who
had been abandoned as an unfortunate statistic of an
unconcerned society.

All this is not to say that Spurgeon advocated a
large scheme to alleviate the ills of society. He was too
much a child of his times to concern himself with the social
causes of poverty, illiteracy, and human suffering. His
efforts were primarily philanthropical and not reformist,
based on a humanitarian concern for the individual rather
than a desire to re-structure the system. Nevertheless,
his individualistic endeavors for those with whom he did
come in contact were monumental. These endeavors and many
‘more occupied a great deal of Spurgeon's time and concern,
but the telling of that tale is to come later.

Spurgeon was also vitally concerned with the
political issues that confronted his generation. He had
little time for those Christians who criticized him for
occupying himself with the cares of this world. He was

wholeheartedly convinced that God's people ought to make ‘

their influence felt for good in the all too grimy world
of politics. For this reason he was an active supporter of
the extension of the franchise, and continually urged his
followers to get out and vote. He was a leader of the
Liberation Society, the aim of which was to bring about

the separation of the Anglican Church from the State, and
felt disestablishment to be one of the most vital needs of
Britain. He was outspoken in his denunciation of war and
imperialism, and was a significant influence in the General
Elections of 1880 and 1886. He was a staunch Liberal and
was quoted as saying that he would rather vote for the

Devil than for a Tory.16

While he fervently supported Glad-
stone on most public issues, he disagreed with him over his
policy of Home Rule for Ireland. Thus, it is obvious that
not only were politics and social issues of central importance
to Spurgeon, but anyone who desires to understand the social
and political character of Victorian England would do well
to come to grips with this man who commanded such a wide
following and was so outspoken on so many iSsues.

When Spurgeon's body lay in state in 1892, a pro-
cession of some 60,000 people a day passed before the coffin
for two days in succession. On the day of the funeral, the

Tabernacle, which seated over 6,500 people, was filled four

times over for the funeral sermon. Outside, a crowd five

16From a leaflet identified only as "Mr. Spurgeon
and the Election," 1880.

10

miles long stretched from the church at the Elephant and
Castle to the cemetery in Norwood.17 Telegrams and letters
by the thousands poured in from all over the world as men
from all walks of life paid their respects to this man who
had done so much for so many. How difficult it would have
been for the unknowing observor at Spurgeon's ostentatious
funeral to guess that the man who inspired such respect came
from such humble origins.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born on June 19, 1834,
in the village of Kelvedon, Essex, the first son of John
and Eliza Spurgeon, who went on to have sixteen more children,
although few survived to maturity. Spurgeon's ancestry has
been traced back to the Dutch Calvinists who came to England
in the sixteenth century. His family was replete with
preachers, at least one of whom spent a number of months
in prison as a result of persecution during the Restoration
period.18

John Spurgeon worked as a coal merchant during the
week and supplemented his meager earnings by laboring as
a lay preacher at a small Independent (Congregational)

chapel on the weekends. His income must have been humble

indeed, for soon after his first son was born, arrangements

 

17Hayden, p. 16.

l8Autobiography, I, p. 8.

 

11

were made to have him taken to his grandparents' home in
Stambourne, Essex, where he spent his first six years.
Spurgeon recalled his early childhood in his grand-
parents' home with a sense of untarnished pleasure. His
grandfather was a minister at the local Independent chapel,
and Spurgeon's earliest memories were of meetings with the
congregation of believers, singing old Puritan hymns and
listening to long, ponderous sermons. Never in his remi-
niscing of this early training is there a note of regret
for what some might describe as a lack of natural childhood
frivolity. While other children were learning nursery
rhymes, Spurgeon was memorizing hundreds of old hymns; other
children learned to read fairy tales while he was pondering

the allegories of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a book

 

which he later re-read scores of times. His father recalls
that while the rest of his children quite naturally were
disposed to play games, he could never find young Charles
when he needed him because he was forever hiding in some
remote place, reading. The only game of make-believe which
he regularly enjoyed was when he would assemble the neighbor-
hood children in the barn and deliver the "sermon" as they
went through the mimes of playing church.

The Puritans were always central to Spurgeon's
upbringing. His family was steeped in Puritan heritage;

his father and grandfather were convinced of the superiority

12

of Puritan theology and passed it on to their congregations
weekly. Thus, Spurgeon's own intellectual predisposition
was greatly influenced by his family background. Through-
out his life, Spurgeon remained faithful to the theology
in which he was reared. He has been described by at least
one biographer as the "last of the Puritans" and as the
"heir of the Puritans."19
Spurgeon was a precocious student as a child in
school. His almost effortless superiority over his class-
mates put him at the head of his class with the exception
of one incident. For some strange reason, one winter the
young scholar plummeted in his studies and was soon sent
to the foot of the class. His befuddled teacher was at a
loss to explain this strange and sudden loss of mental con-
centration until he observed that the last row of the class-
room was nearest the stove. After the instructor reversed
the seating order, young Spurgeon soon regained his ac-
customed place at the head of the class.20
Spurgeon progressed rapidly through the school
system, such as it was in those days, until, at the age
of seventeen, he moved to Cambridge to become an usher, or

assistant master, at the school opened by a former teacher.

In return for his work in the school, the master tutored

19Ernest W. Bacon, Spurgeon: Heir of the Puritans

(London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1967).
20

 

Autobiography, I, p. 44.

 

13

Spurgeon. The master has recorded in his papers the remark
that he did not think Spurgeon needed to attend any of the
Dissenting colleges, since he had mastered most of the
subjects taught therein, and that he might readily have
passed through any of these colleges had not the pastorate

got in the way.21

This is a point on which Spurgeon was
sensitive, for he was often criticized in his early ministry
as being uneducated. While it is true that he never received
a formal university education, Spurgeon was far from un-
educated. As it was, his childhood education surpassed

that of the majority of English schoolchildren, and his
precociousness gave him an abiding curiosity which went

far beyond classroom inquiries. Throughout his life he kept
a schedule which included a preponderate amount of reading,
and although the majority of this was in the field of
theology, he maintained an interest in history, literature,
science, biography, and other subjects of a more general
character.

The fact that he did not attend college was a mere
quirk of fate, or a definite act of Providence, as he would
have termed it. His father had been very concerned that
his son receive the benefits of formal college training and
encouraged him to look into the possibility. Subsequently,

an interview was arranged with the president of Stepney

 

211bid., p. 45.

14

College, the precursor of Regent's Park College. Spurgeon
journeyed to London, made his way to the home of the presi-
dent, introduced himself to the maid and was led to the
parlor where he was told to expect the president any moment.
The maid, however, inexplicably forgot to inform her master
of his visitor and, while young Spurgeon waited for several
hours, the man left the house. By the time the mistake was
discovered, the day was spent and Spurgeon had to return to
Cambridge without his interview. He concluded from this
unfortunate episode that he ought to content himself with
such education as he had or could teach himself, and never
again tried to enter college.

It is difficult to discern what affect this lack of
formal education had on Spurgeon's career. One certainly
could not contend that he was uneducated, for the depth
and breadth of his private reading carried him far beyond
the range of a normal bachelor's degree. One might argue,
however, that the organization and systematization of one's
mind and thoughts which come from formal training might
have proved beneficial to Spurgeon in his later years. This,
plus the experience of coming into contact with new and
different ideas while yet in one's formative years, might
have broadened his thinking to encompass more than the
world-view of the Puritans. The major part of Spurgeon's
education and reading centered on the writings of the

Puritans, and while this gave him unity of thought as well

_15

as a confidence in attitude, he might have come to be more
understanding in his approach to other schools of thought
had he been favorably exposed to their teachings earlier in
life. A broader education might have served him well in
the controversies in which he was involved later on in his
career, if only to help him to avoid some of the more narrow
issues.

It is surprising to discover that, in spite of the
deeply religious nature of his upbringing, and regardless
of the sincere personal piety that was evident in his charac-
ter as a very young boy, Spurgeon was not converted until
he was fifteen years old. In his early teens he was deeply
concerned about his own shortcomings in the light of a
perfectly holy God, and for some months he lived with the
depressing conviction that his own sins were overwhelming.
Pray as he might, he could not free himself from the burden
of his own unworthiness. After great agony of soul, one
snowy morning in January, 1849, he wandered into a Primitive
Methodist chapel in Colchester, being waylaid from his
original destination by the inclement weather. There he
heard a simple sermon by a layman whose singular message
was taken from Isaiah 45:22--"Look unto me, and be ye
saved all the ends of the earth." As the lay preacher
looked over the tiny congregation, he pointed to the lad

and said,

16

Young man, you look miserable and you always will be
miserable--miserable in life and miserable in death--
if you don't obey my text; but if you obey now, this
moment, you will be saved.22
Simple as the instructions may sound to us today, these were
the words which prompted Spurgeon's conversion.

Much has been written on the psychology and the
morphology of religious conversion, but it is neither my
intent nor my inclination to offer a psychological interpre-
tation of Spurgeon's conversion. The fact remains that
Spurgeon himself continued for the rest of his life to
refer to this experience as the turning point in his life.
While heretofore he had evidenced a serious and studious
nature, after this event he displayed a dedicated zeal,
perhaps a fanatic passion by today's standards, which, in
part, at least, explains the success he later enjoyed. The
burden of his shortcomings, psychological or otherwise,
which had seemed so overwhelming before, was now lifted.

In his own words,
There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had
rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I
could have risen that instant, and sung with the most
enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ
and the simple faith which looks alone to Him.23

It was not long after this experience that he became

involved in teaching in ragged schools and Sunday schools,

distributing religious tracts and preaching sermons. On

 

221bid., p. 106.

23Ibid., p. 106.

17

May 3, 1850, he was baptized, having been convinced of the
need for adult immersion after a good deal of study and
consideration. Thus, he left the Independent denomination
wherein he had been brought up and became a Baptist, which
he remained for the rest of his life. That summer he moved
to Cambridge to work as a tutor and to continue his own
studies. While there he joined the Lay Preachers' Associ-
ation and his reputation as an earnest preacher soon spread
throughout the area. As a Sunday school teacher his class
soon grew from a handful of boys to scores of people,
including many adults.

In October of 1851 at the tender age of seventeen,
Spurgeon began preaching regularly in the village of Water—
beach, six miles from Cambridge. The congregation was too
small at the time to support their own minister, but the
young lad was more than happy for the opportunity to preach

24

and minister to the needs of a congregation. From the

very beginning he placed a special emphasis on what he called

"soul-winning,‘ making a special effort to evangelize the
unchurched of the area. This emphasis on evangelization
was a major characteristic of his whole career. His concern
for sound Calvinistic doctrine, his attempts to alleviate

the social and physical needs of people, his emphasis on

education, all of these were of secondary importance to his

 

24Ibid., p. 232.

18

concern for converting the unbeliever. He re-echoed this
sentiment in his publications later:

Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian

minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of

every believer.

Our grand object is not the revision of opinions,

but the re eneration of natures. We would bring men

to Christ. 5

In the course of a few months the congregation in

the thatched cottage at Waterbeach grew from a mere handful
to over four hundred, and this was while he was still
employed as a teacher in Cambridge. Quite naturally, his
reputation soon Spread, and he was asked to speak at a
number of special conventions and ceremonies. Those who
did not know him were often shocked at the audacity of
this boy aspiring to explain Sacred Writ and teach mature
believers how to conduct their lives. Criticism was gener-
ally silenced, however, once he began to preach. Even as
one reads his sermons today, the depth of doctrinal know-
ledge and the breadth of Biblical understanding is evident
in a way that amazes the reader when he conSiders that the
source was a seventeen-year-old boy. The only explanation
for this phenomenon seems to be the depth of his religious
education from his earliest years and the concentration on

theology and Biblical studies throughout his young life,

particularly in respect to the Puritan writers. Puritan

 

25C. H. Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner (Grand Rapids:
Associated Publishers and Authors, Inc., 1971), P. l.

 

19

theology in its most mature form permeates his sermons and
gives them the character and depth which is so surprising
from such a youthful preacher.

All too often one of the older pastors or deacons,
for one reason or another, would criticize the young man
publicly. In one instance when a septuagenarian minister
discovered how young his guest speaker was, he almost refused
to let him preach. His doubts were forcefully assuaged,
however, when the crowd which returned for the afternoon
service had doubled over that of the morning.

When Spurgeon addressed the Cambridge Sunday School
Union in 1853, some older preachers rebuked him for his
youth, stating that they wished the young boys would remain
at Jericho until their beards were grown before aspiring to
teach their elders. Spurgeon replied that those who remained
at Jericho were not young boys, but men whose beards had been
plucked out. He went on to say that an old minister who had
disgraced his calling by undue criticism resembled those
unfortunate men of Jericho more than a young one who was

trying to fulfill his ministry.26

As is obvious, Spurgeon
did not lack for confidence or pugnacity even in his younger
years.

One can scarcely blame Spurgeon for evincing a degree

of confidence, for his ministry was an almost unbroken

 

26W. Y. Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1920), p. 55.

 

20

success from the very beginning. As his reputation as a
preacher increased, and as his congregation at Waterbeach
continued to grow, he attracted the attention of other,
larger churches in the cities which were looking for a
pastor. The Baptist chapel at New Park Street in London
was just such a church. It was one of the oldest and most
historic churches in the denomination. It could trace its
origins back to the early part of the Reformation, and
several of its pastors had undergone persecution for their
faith. Other of its pastors had been influential in other
ways, through the writing of books and the compiling of
hymnals. In 1853, however, the church at New Park Street
was in a serious decline. It had been without a pastor
for several years and attendance had been severely reduced.
When young Spurgeon first received the invitation
to speak at New Park Street, he returned the letter sug-
gesting that some mistake had been made. The invitation
was again extended, however, with the assurance that he was
the man they wished to hear and, thus on December 18, 1853,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon made his way into London with much
apprehension and no inkling of the success which would crown
his subsequent ministry there. The scene which greeted him
that morning certainly gave no clue, for in an auditorium
which held over 1,200 peOple, there were no more than 120

members sparsely scattered around the sanctuary. That night,

21

however, the congregation had more than doubled as the
morning listeners spread the word that the message of this
young preacher was worth hearing. Still, when Spurgeon
made his way back to his little congregation in Waterbeach,
he was convinced that it would be some time before he would
be back in London to preach.

Such was not the case, however, for the deacons
and elders had been deeply impressed with the country lad
and soon asked him back again. In the spring of 1854 they
called him to be their pastor, and after some deliberation,
the nineteen-year-old Essex youngster accepted the call
and commenced his ministry, which was to last almost thirty-
eight years with the same congregation.

It is difficult to appear objective in briefly ‘
relating a general biography of C. H. Spurgeon, for, viewed
superficially, his life reads like one huge success after
another, at least until the last few years of it. The
result is something that sounds less like objective biography
and more like uncritical eulogy. And yet, the truth is that,
measured by most standards, Spurgeon's career in London at
New Park Street and later at the Metropolitan Tabernacle
was eminently successful in terms of numerical growth of
the congregation, social institutions established, and the
extent of his measurable influence in general. Some might

suggest that his efforts went for nought in the light of

22

the decline of organized religion in England which the
twentieth century has witnessed. One must hesitate, how-
ever, to include Spurgeon in the factors behind this decline
for, as an individual, he was responsible for adding over
fourteen thousand people to his own membership roll, and,
in his own denomination, at least, the decline in numbers
did not begin until fifteen years after his death.27
Perhaps the most substantial criticism that can be
leveled at Spurgeon was in his approach to social problems.
Much like the vast majority of his fellow Victorians,
Spurgeon approached such problems as poverty, sickness,
and drunkenness on an individualistic basis, preferring to
cure the malady on the basis of humanitarian philanthropy
rather than finding the cause and thwarting the problem
before it started. Spurgeon had little use for schemes
which proposed to change the system; he was convinced the
only thing that needed changing was the individual, and
in this respect his influence was limited. This criticism
will be discussed later in more detail as we consider his
social influence in greater depth.
Spurgeon's first years in London read like an
overly Optimistic prognosis of a Madison Avenue promotional

agency. Within a matter of months, the sanctuary of New

 

27W. Charles Johnson, Encounter in London: The
Story of the London Baptist Association, 1855-1965 (London:
Carey Kingsgate Press Ltd., 19657, p. 46.

 

 

23

Park Street Chapel was filled to overflowing. Spurgeon had
not been there a year when the congregation was forced to
enlarge the auditorium of the church. While the building

was being worked on, they decided to meet at Exeter Hall

in the Strand. Exeter Hall was the famous auditorium seating
over 4,500 people, where the famous "May meetings" of various

Christian societies were held.28

From the first the meetings
were filled to overflowing, and crowds had to be turned away.
Complaints were soon registered that the Strand was so
clogged with people on Sunday that one could hardly make

his way through on foot. As the news spread, the crowds
grew.

Public opposition to these "monster meetings" was
loud and voluminous. It is difficult to discern what moti-
vated the opposition which Spurgeon confronted early in his
career. One has to believe that jealousy played a signifi-
cant role, for it must have rankled the older, more experi-
enced divines that this twenty-year-old upstart from Essex
could immediately command such excitement. 'He was described
as an ignorant boy, catering to the base whims of the
masses, a disgrace to the sanctity of the pulpit. The-

Daily News noted,
We might have brought forward instances of his

utter ignorance of any theology except that current
among the sect to which he belongs; and of his

 

28Bacon, p. 50.

24

ludicrous misinterpretations of Scripture, occasioned
by his want of even a moderate acquaintance with
Oriental customs and forms of language. . . . A
congregation that listens constantly to the spiritual
dram-drinking that Mr. Spurgeon encourages will become
not only biggted, but greedy after stronger doses of
exc1tement.

Newspapers were replete with letters attacking
Spurgeon as a passing phenomenon at best, and a buffoon at
worst. One fellow Baptist pastor even went on record as
doubting his conversion! All this public concern, however,
only served to swell the congregations with curious inquirers
and, if for this reason alone, Spurgeon almost welcomed the
criticism. The complaints grew more and more vociferous
while the young preacher continued to preach and the throngs
wishing to hear him continued to swell.

No sooner was the new construction completed at New
Park Street than it was obvious that even the enlarged
sanctuary would never hold all those wanting to come. A
second series of meetings was scheduled for Exeter Hall
in 1856, but even this would not suffice. In the fall of
that year the members of New Park Street toOk the unprece-
dented step of renting the Surrey Music Hall for their
Sunday night services. Many pious divines and laymen were
shocked at this use of a secular auditorium for religious

purposes. Still others thought the step presumptuous, to

say the least, considering the hall seated over twelve

 

29Autobiography, I, p. 60. From The Daily News,
September 9, 1856.

 

 

25

thousand people. Criticism increased as the time for the
opening service drew near.

On October 19, 1856, the crowd outside the Surrey
Music Hall numbered in the thousands, while inside there
was not even standing room. Every vacant square foot was
taken up by the curious, the pious, and the critical. As
Spurgeon began to speak, someone-~it has never been deter-
mined just who--shouted, "Fire!" The cry was taken up as
panic spread across the great congregation. Crowds left
their seats and began to press toward the entrances, con-
cerned only with preserving their own lives. Women began
to leap from the balconies to the floor below. For a moment
order was partially restored, but the cry went out again
and this time there was no controlling what had now become
a mob. Spurgeon himself fainted and had to be carried out
of the building.

The final tally showed seven killed and scores
seriously injured.30 Spurgeon suffered what today might
be diagnosed as a nervous breakdown and was unable to preach
or study for over a month. The responsibilities which he
had undertaken were simply more than such a young man could
shoulder and, after the tragedy at Surrey Music Hall, his
health gave way. By November 23, however, he was suffi-

ciently recovered to resume once again his preaching

 

301bid., II, p. 205.

26

ministry. His congregation continued to meet at the Surrey
Music Hall, albeit they changed the services to Sunday
morning when the crowd would be less volatile and, hopefully,
less malicious.

The criticism that was launched against him in the
light of this tragedy once again only served to multiply
the interest in this young preacher. The crowds were even
bigger than before and continued to grow. It might safely
be said that there was not a place large enough in all of
England to contain the crowds that flocked to hear Spurgeon
in his early ministry. The services at the Surrey Music
Hall continued for over three years, where fifteen thousand
people regularly jammed themselves into the huge hall. On
the national day of mourning after the Indian Mutiny in 1857,
Spurgeon spoke to 23,654 at the Crystal Palace.31 This is
all the more remarkable when one considers that it took
place before any amplifying equipment was in use.

Meanwhile, the New Park Street congregation had
undertaken to erect a "tabernacle" that could accommodate
the vast throngs which came to hear their pastor. They
were in the process of constructing a building at the
Elephant and Castle on the south side of the Thames which

would seat nearly six thousand people. It was to be 146

feet long, 81 feet wide, and 62 feet high. The

 

31Bacon, p. 59.

27

architectural style was along classical Greek lines with
large columns along the front portico. The cost when they
finally finished construction in 1861 was over 33,000
pounds, a sizeable sum for those days, but the building
was completely paid for when the congregation occupied
it.32 This feat was accomplished by sacrificial giving on
the part of the members and, most importantly, by their
pastor, who toured the countryside giving speeches, lectures,
and sermons and who donated every fee to the building fund.
It was not uncommon for him to preach eight or ten times a
week during this period and to deliver several lectures as
well. The strain of this exhausting schedule, especially
when nearly every word was being transcribed for print,
must have been tremendous.

In spite of all the criticism leveled at him,
Spurgeon was still phenomenally successful, and the question
arises, why? Part of the answer lies in the very fact that
he was criticized so severely, for often the size of his
crowds seemed to be in direct proportion to the amount of
censure he received in the newspapers. Spurgeon himself
recognized this:,

Great numbers of the converts of those early days came
as the direct result of the slanders with which I was
so mercilessly assailed. My name was so often reviled

in the public press that it became the common talk of
the street, and many a man going by the door of our

32Richard B. Cook, The Wit and Wisdom of Charles H.
Spurgeon (London: Lenox Publishing Co., 1892), p. 96.

 

28
house of prayer has said, 'I'll go in and hear old
Spurgeon.‘
This alone, however, does not explain the measure

of Spurgeon's success over the years, for criticism can
carry the attention of the public only so long. Some have
tried to establish a direct connection between the content
of his message and the size of the throngs who pressed to
hear him. This is not just the pious dreaming of those who
see in Spurgeon the nineteenth-century link to the Puritans,

for The Times also concurred in this opinion. After com-

 

plaining about the lack of inspired preachers in the
Established Church, the author of an article assessing
the phenomenon of Spurgeon's success went on to say,

Physically speaking, there can be no reason why
the Church should not have, at any rate at least once
or twice in a generation, a natural orator in its
clerical ranks endowed with a voice as loud as
Mr. Spurgeon's. A loud voice is a decided gift . . .
give it to one who has thought and a purpose, and
see its effect. It collects a crowd to listen, but
that is only the first step. Another crowd comes
because there is a crowd to begin with, and a third
follows the second. . . . The addition of power which
is thus gained is immense; and, therefore, how is it
that the Church never has a monster preacher?

The reason is, that a loud voice requires its
proper material to exert itself upon. . . . Some
things are made to be shouted, and others to be
whispered. Nobody shouts out an axiom in mathe-
matics; nobody balances probabilities in thunder.
There must be a strong sentiment, some bold truth,
to make a man shout. In religion, there must be
something rather extravagant in the shape of doctrine.
The doctrine of sudden converstion or irresistable

 

33Autobiography, II, p. 120.

 

29

grace can be shouted: but if a man tried ever so hard
to shout in delivering a moderate and sensible discourse
on free-will, he would find himself talking quietly in
spite of himself. A loud voice then must have a 'loud'
doctrine to develop it.34

One may or may not agree with this evaluation.
Spurgeon was a Calvinist (though not an ultra-Calvinist) and
he was popular, but it would seem that to establish a causal
connection one would first have to explain the lack of suc-
cess among the scores of other Calvinists preaching in
England at the same time. As to the lack of "monster
preachers" in the Church of England, the author of The
Times article had only to wait a few years. As we have
already noted, Canon Liddon at St. Paul's commanded no
mean following and no one could accuse him of Calvinistic
tendencies.

Another factor that must be considered regarding
Spurgeon's success is the style of his preaching. Ever
since the eighteenth century, preaching in English churches
had taken on the guise of what might be called an almost
gothic formality. This stiff verbosity was not limited to
the Established Church, but was common in Nonconformist
churches as well, the only exception being those Primitive
Methodist Chapels pastored by generally uneducated laymen.

Quite naturally there was little in this manner to attract

the masses of common folk. Humor in the pulpit was considered

34Ibid., pp. 250-52. From an article in The Times
(London), April 13, 1857.

 

30

gauche and uncouth; illustrations were few and far between;
the language was almost an anglicized Latin containing little

that was familiar to any but the most educated.35

Perhaps
one of Spurgeon's greatest achievements was that he changed
the nature of preaching in Victorian churches. He accommo-
dated his language to what he called "good old Saxon" in
order that even the most ignorant might understand. He
sprinkled his sermons with a generous amount of illustrations
of a homey nature with which his congregation could readily
identify. And, most shocking of all to his mid-Victorian
colleagues, he regularly used humor in the pulpit. The
result was sermons with a vast popular appeal, easily under-
stood and readily listened to and read. Even today, as one
peruses the multiple volumes of his sermons, one is struck
by their freshness and their readability. His illustrations
especially serve this purpose.

This was no natural occurrence due to a bumpkin's
own lack of training; it was the deliberate effort of a
widely-read man to formulate his message in'a way that would

reach the masses.

I must confess that I would rather hear people laugh
than I would see them sleep in the house of God.

 

35G. H. Pike, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon (7 vols.; London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., N.D.),
III, p. 47.

36

 

Autobiography, III, p. 339.

 

31

I would desire so to preach that the servant maid can

understand, that the coachman can understand, that

the poor and illiterate may hear readily and gladly

receive the word.

We have most certainly departed from the usual mode

of preaching, but we do not feel bound to offer even

half a word of apology for so doing, since we believe

ourselves free to use any manner of speech which is

calculated to impress the truth upon our hearers.38

While the initial public clamor, the doctrines of

which he was convinced, and the extraordinary style in which
he delivered his sermons all played their part in contri-
buting to Spurgeon's popularity, there was one other element
which was the linch-pin to his enormous success. That factor
was his deep conviction that what he had to say was not only
true, but that it was the exclusive panacea so desperately
needed for the many ills of Victorian society. One of the
most common terms in the moral vocabulary of the Victorians

was the word "earnest, and, in many ways, C. H. Spurgeon

was the most earnest of them all. The reader of his sermons,
books, and articles cannot help but be struck by the fact
that Spurgeon believed what he was saying with all his soul.
He threw himself into the task at hand with the determination
to reach the most peOple in the best and fastest way with

the message he had to give them. This passion so drove the

man that it very likely led to a premature death, for,

 

37Charles Haddon Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit
(6 vols.; London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1857), III, p. 261.

38

 

Ibid., I, p. 1.

32

unlike his contemporaries who had such a marked tendency to
longevity, Spurgeon died at the relatively young age of
fifty-eight years.
Spurgeon himself, in lecturing to his students

admitted,

If I were asked--What in a Christian minister is the

most essential quality for securing success in winning

souls for Christ? I should reply, 'earnestness': as

a rule, real success is proportionate to the preacher's

earnestness.39
His wife concurred in this opinion. Regarding the key to
her husband's success she wrote, "He believed and trusted
in God absolutely, and his faith was honored in a God-like
fashion."4O

His contemporaries also saw this as his greatest

asset. The Pictoral World, February 6, 1892, stated, "Mr.

 

Spurgeon's most striking characteristic was in his extra-

ordinary earnestness." The Daily Telegraph, February 1,

 

1892, claimed that Spurgeon's success was due "first to his

courage and earnestness." And The Speaker, February 6,

 

1892, maintained that "the British public had arrived at
the conviction that he was absolutely sincere, simple,
unpretending and straightforward." Without this sincerity,
this absolute conviction as to the truth of his message,

Spurgeon might only have been another glib pulpiteer. It

 

39C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Grand
Rapids: Associated Publishers and Authors, 1971), p. 145.

40

 

Autobiography, I, p. 128.

 

33

was this conviction and his tenacity to maintain his fideli-
ty in the face of attacks from science, philosophy, and
higher criticism that made him an anchor of hope for the
middle classes, at least, as they witnessed the disruption
of time-honored dogmas during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle came to be the center
of Nonconformist Christendom in the 1870's and 1880's. Not
only was its congregation the largest in Great Britain, but
the Pastors' College, located nearby, became a sending
station for hundreds of pastors and missionaries whose
influence was felt the world over. As stated earlier, the
sermons delivered by its pastor were dispatched around the
world in unprecedented quantities. Because of its size,
the Tabernacle came to be used by Evangelicals for their
"May meetings." Liberation Society conventions, temperance
rallies, and meetings concerning political issues were held
in the sanctuary of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The base-
ment rooms housed the offices of the Colportage Society and
the Pastor's Book Fund; they were also used regularly for
the evening classes which Spurgeon had begun for the illiter-
ate poor. Committees for a variety of social endeavors
abounded. And always there were throngs at the doors,
eagerly waiting to hear this man who had become so widely-

known and appreciated.

34

It is difficult for the historian to analyze just
what made Spurgeon so popular as an orator without actually
having heard him speak. There certainly must have been
something captivating about the way he Spoke which might
have explained why the people thronged to hear him preach.
Different people were struck by different aspects of his
delivery: some were impressed by his sincerity, others by
the emotional resonance in his voice, and still others by

his humorous illustrations. One reporter in The Times

 

reacted in this manner:

Mr. Spurgeon laid his foundation in the Bible.
His utterances abound with Scriptural text, figure,
metaphor and allusion. Whatever he says sends his
hearers to the sacred record. But starting from this
basis, he has added to it a stock of reading such
as few men can show in their talk or in their writing.
He cannot be accused of not being a man of the world,
or of not knowing the ways of the world, for he reads
the Book and the book of nature too. His Style is
illustrated with almost pictorial brightness. What
remains? The very tail of the matter. He occasionally
drops a phrase to provoke a smile from the soft cheeks
of ladies and gentlemen, and to make them think for
the moment that they could say the thing better.41

As one reads over Spurgeon's sermons, it is his
clarity of language which first strikes the reader. Spurgeon
was deeply concerned lest any in his congregation be unable
to understand him. Secondly, one is impressed at the illus-
trations which Spurgeon used to make his sermons come alive.

These were not always fully developed anecdotes, more often

 

41The Times, June 19, 1884, as taken from W. Y.
Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon; A Biography, p. 176.

 

 

 

35

a simile or a metaphor, drawn from nature, history, or the
every-day experiences we all share in common. It is this
that makes the content palatable, even a century later.

As to the style of oratory, one can only relate
that Spurgeon was supposed to have possessed a voice that
could be heard by every individual of the twenty thousand
who heard him speak at the Crystal Palace.42 He was a
master at inflection and even his whispers were clearly
audible. Mr. Sheridan Knowles, an actor, playwright, and
teacher of elocution at Stepney College (now Regent's Park),
was astounded by Spurgeon's oratorical ability. He in-
structed his students to go and hear Spurgeon as soon as
possible.

He is only a boy, but he is the most wonderful preacher
in the world. He is absolutely perfect in oratory,
and, beside that, a master in the art of acting. He
has nothing to learn from me or any one else. He is
simply perfect. He knows everything. He can do any-
thing. I was once lessee of Drury Lane Theatre; were
I still in that position I would offer him a fortune
to play a season on the boards of that house. Why,
boys, he can do anything he pleases with his audience!
He can make them laugh and cry and laugh again in five
minutes.43

Just what kind of a man was Spurgeon? In briefly

delineating his career we have touched upon a few of his

characteristics, primarily his sincerity, but this falls

 

42G. Holden Pike, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Preacher,
Author, Philanthropist, p. VII.

43

 

 

Fullerton, p. 62.

36

far short of a complete description of the man. No charac-
terization of Spurgeon would be complete without an account
of the abounding industry by which he accomplished so much
in such a relatively Short time. His work load was stag-
gering: he would dictate to three secretaries in succession,
and, when he had exhausted them, he would turn to a new sub-
ject as though he were just beginning his work for the day.44
The number of sermons he gave, and the added burden of
knowing that every word was going to be published, weighed
heavily upon him. He realized the necessity for constant
reading on a broad spectrum of subjects in order that his
sermons might remain fresh and up-to-date. His personal
library numbered nearly ten thousand volumes. He would
collect illustrations by keeping a notebook with him at all
times, especially as he travelled. He saw "illustrations"
in the most commonplace occurrences of everyday life: Once
he commented to his students that a whole sermon of illus—
trations could be derived from a single candle, and, when
they challenged him on the issue, he proceeded to publish
a whole book on illustrations from candles.45
While his faith was the foundation, discipline was

the superstructure of Spurgeon's life; it was the means by

which he accomplished the phenomenal tasks he set out to

‘

45C. H. Spurgeon, Sermons in Candles: Being Two
Imectures Upon the Illustrations which may be Found in Common
(handles (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1891).

37

do. The Victorians have often been criticized for a certain
lack of creative genius, but what they may have lacked in
creativity, they more than made up for in tenacity. They
might well be characterized by the quiet, plodding Darwin,
tirelessly collecting his data from thousands of specimens
and patiently making notes, or by Charles Dickens, laboriously
turning out chapter after chapter of his popular novels in
the form of newspaper serials. In this same vein Spurgeon
also evidenced a tenacity of purpose, at least in his
healthier years. While he gave us nothing new by way of
theology, he worked untiringly and, through sheer effort

of will, made his impact on society. Perhaps, as one author

has indicated,46

it is indicative of this penchant for huge
tasks that the Victorians developed the locomotive while
their sons developed the bicycle.

This tenacity was evident in a letter which Spurgeon
wrote to his son Charles: "However diligent you may be in
the future, you can only do the work of 1875 in 1875, and if
you leave it undone now it will be undone to all eternity."47

Later he was quoted as saying,

Come let us live while we live! Let us serve God to
the utmost stretch of our manhood! Let us ask the

 

46W. J. Reader, Life in Victorian England (New York:
Capricorn Books, 1964), p. 156.

47Charles Spurgeon, ed., The Letters of Charles
Haddon Spurgeon_(London: Marshall Brothers, Lted., 1923),
p. 79.

 

 

 

38
Lord to brace our nerves to string our sinews, and
make us true crusaders.4é
It was this industry, this tireless approach to gargantuan
endeavors in spite of overwhelming pressure which took such
a toll on his life and, it can scarcely be denied, contri-
buted much to his early demise.

Spurgeon was a man of simple tastes and aspirations.
All his life he refused the title of "Reverend" as a matter
of principle. He contended that "reverend" and "sinner"
make a curious combination, and, certain that he was the
latter, he repudiated the former.49 He adamantly refused
to be ordained, and was reputed to have said he did not
see any sense in other ministers placing their empty hands
on his empty head. He never outgrew his taste for the
simple things in life; a warm fire and a good book, the
song of a nightingale, or the scent of the roses in his
garden.

His home life was dearly treasured for it was a
haven to which he could retreat after a day of pressing
responsibilities. While his wife seemingly did little to
prod him in his endeavors, she did provide a quiet home,

relatively free from care. Perhaps this was a far greater

 

48George C. Needham, The Life and Labours of Charles

 

Spurgeon (Cambridge, Mass.: University Press, 1882),
2.

 

\0

H.
p.

49Charles H. Spurgeon, ed., The Sword and the
Trowel, February, 1879, p. 59.

 

39

service. She bore him two sons, twins, who also entered the
ministry, although they were hardly as successful as their
father.

While none of his houses in London could be con-
sidered opulent or palatial, they were certainly substantial
in size and comfort. As concerned as he might have been for
the working classes, he showed no inclination to share in
the discomfitures of their inner-city life. Claiming a
need for fresh air, quiet, and solitude, he moved further
into the suburbs as the bustle of the metropolis continued
to Spread outward from the center.

In typically Victorian terms, Spurgeon eulogized
the blessings of a happy home:

Home is the grandest of all institutions. Talk about
parliament, give me a quiet little parlour. Boast
about voting and the reform bill if you like, but I
go in for weeding a little garden, and teaching the
children their hymns. Franchise may be a very fine
thing, but I should a good deal sooner get the free-
hold of my cottage, if I could find the money to buy
it. Magna Charta I don't know much about, but if it
means a quiet home for everybody, three cheers for
it.5

In the past it has been popular for writers to criti—
cize the Victorians for their hypocrisy. That which appeared
to be a blissful homelife on the surface has been exposed as
a severe, patriarchal tyranny in more than a few cases.

While not wishing to be out of vogue, I have, however,

found no trace of this sort of tyranny regarding Spurgeon's home

‘—

50l§££" 1868' "John Ploughman's Talk: Home,"
pp . 118-19 .

40

life. While he spent less time there than one might expect,
the hours he did pass at home were generally happy ones.

The only hypocrisy of which one might possibly accuse him
regards his outspoken condemnation of the living conditions
of the lower classes while Speaking from the confines of a
comfortable home. While others with similar social concerns
chose to live and work among the poor of London's Slums,
Spurgeon, for the most part, remained among the middle
classes of London's Surrey side. This is not to say, how-
ever that his concern for the social ills of society was

the least bit diminished merely because he did not personally
suffer the effects every day.

Spurgeon's generosity was almost legendary. While
he was potentially wealthy from the vast sale of his publi—
cations, he died in modest circumstances, having given away
a fortune to his various social institutions.51 At the
celebrations of two anniversaries of his ministry at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle, he was given over eleven thousand
pounds by his grateful congregation, but, upon receiving
this generous gift, he immediately turned it all over to
his needy social and educational agencies. For years he
supported the Pastors' College out of his own pocket, and
throughout his life he was a "soft touch" for a donation

for a worthy cause.

 

51Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists
(Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1950), p. 115.

 

41

A fortune could have been made had Spurgeon been
willing to leave his responsibilities for six months or so
and travel to the United States as a lecturer. Once he was
offered $25,000 if he would go to America to deliver twenty-
five lectures, but he refused the invitation:

We have declined the liberal prOposals solely because
our work is to preach the gospel and not to lecture.
We lecture now and then for some object which pressingly
needs help, but never for personal gain.52
While he received well over $100,000 a year to be used as
he saw fit, he left little more than $10,000 after his death.
Of all the charges that were levelled at him, it is signi—
ficant that no one ever accused him of selfishness or greed.

All this is not to say that Spurgeon was without
any character flaws. On the contrary, he had his share of
faults, not the least of which was his over-confidence, or,
if you will, his cockiness. Even the most sympathetic observer
cannot fail to notice Spurgeon's vanity periodically coming
to the surface in spite of his efforts to appear humble. A
great deal of his conceit can be understood as the natural
result of his stupendous success so early in life. He had
not been in the pastorate a year at New Park Street when he
began to call for an enlarged building. An old and prudent

deacon told him after the sermon that he did not want to

hear of that subject again. "What do you mean?" replied

 

52§word and the Trowel, 1873, p. 236.

 

42

the youth. "You will hear no more about it when it is done,
and, therefore, the sooner you set about doing it, the

better."53

While still only twenty-one years old he explained
to a critical Scottish audience that his eccentric mannerisms,
although unconventional, had been successful:
My motto is cedo nulli, I yield to none. I have not

counted any man's love; I ask no man to attend my
ministry; I preach what I like, and as I like.54

 

While this kind of attitude might easily have been the ruin
of many lesser men, for Spurgeon it came to serve as the
seldom-seen underside of his sincere and earnest assurance.
As he grew older and wiser, he learned to cover his conceit,
in public, at least, and re-channel this tendency into a
confidence in his message. While we need not excuse this
fault, one can readily understand that anyone who could
point to a life crowned with such praiseworthy accomplish-
ments might well be prone to a touch of vanity.

A description of C. H. Spurgeon would not be complete
without some discussion of his practical concern for the
here-and-now. Unlike many of his pious predecessors,
Spurgeon refused to render himself so heavenly-minded as

to make himself of no earthly good. His was no mystical

 

53Cook, p. 73.

54"A Sketch of the Life and a Candid Examination of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon," The Patriot, September 21, 1855.

 

43

Christianity, divorced from the necessities of this world;
rather, he continually sought to adapt the teachings of
Christ to everyday living. When asked to speak before an
assembly of bankers and investors, he boldly chose for his
text the passage in Matthew 6:33 which exhorts us to

"seek first the kingdon of God and his righteousness"
before concerning ourselves with material gain. Time and
again he encouraged his audience to involve themselves in
politics, civic affairs, and social endeavors, and make
the Kingdom of God an influential force in the Kingdom of
England.

Spurgeon had a zest for life; he enjoyed himself
and his work. Seldom does one find any obsession with the
next world; there was simply too much to be done in the
present one. He stood squarely against the Victorian
dourness which often characterized the religious of his
day. He refused to be "robbed of such a rich, bell-ringing,

festive word as that 'merry.uu55

He was a happy man who
immensely enjoyed what he was doing and sought to see others
happy as well. He often criticized those who insisted that
holiness meant gloominess:

Some take such a view of religion that it is to them

a sacred duty to be gloomy. They believe in the

holiness of discontent and the sanctity of repining.
. . . One of the commandments of the saints of misery

 

SSSword and the Trowel, 1866, p. 99.

 

44

is, 'Draw down the blinds on Sunday.‘ Another is,
'Never smile during a Sermon: it is wicked.‘ A third
precept is 'Never rest yourself, and be sure that you
never let anybody else rest for an instant. Why Should
anybody be allowed a moment's quiet in a world so full
of Sin? Go through the world and impress people that
it is an awful thing to live.‘ I have known some very
good peOple spoiled for the practical usefulness, and
spoiled as to being like the Lord Jesus Christ, by
their deeply laid conviction that it was wicked to be
glad.56
It was Spurgeon's joie dg vivre and his earthy practicality
that transformed a gifted orator into a successful philan-
thropist and a popular preacher. His message was not to be
limited to the sterile atmosphere of the Victorian sabbath,
but was to apply to the problems of every-day living and,
moreover, was to make glad those who accepted it.

In endeavoring to understand Spurgeon as a man, one
must come to grips with his theology, for it was from his
religious convictions that Spurgeon derived all of his
subsequent attitudes. Divorced from his theological per-
suasions, Spurgeon might well appear to be hypocritical, or
at least contradictory, but once one understands his doctrinal
frame of reference, he becomes far more understandable.

In general, it might well be said that Spurgeon's
theology was similar to that of the Protestant Reformers of

the sixteenth century, especially John Calvin. Spurgeon was

raised in the Calvinist tradition as interpreted by the

 

56Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 32, 1886,

 

p. 268.

45

English Puritans, and he claimed to be both a Calvinist and
a Puritan, often using the terms interchangeably.
The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine
preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I
must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience
and to my God. I cannot Sha e the truth. . . . John
Knox's gospel is my gospe1.5
Foundational to his theology was an unshakeable
belief in an infinite, personal God. Spurgeon's God was
no mere philosophical abstraction, but "a God that hears
and sees and comes into the arena of my daily life, and

helps me because He loves me. . . ."58

Indeed, Spurgeon
saw the sovereign hand of God in every event, every fact
of his existence. To him, it was God who sank the Spanish
Armada, it was God who placed rulers in authority and
brought them down again, it was God who directed his life
and cared for his daily needs. And yet, Spurgeon still
insisted that man was a free moral agent, that he could,
and must, choose to do good and abhor evil. Illogical as
this conviction may seem (and the antinomy was not entirely
lost on Spurgeon himself), he still held to both dogmas
(free will and the sovereignty of God), with unflinching
faith. He was not at all averse to preaching on predesti-

nation on a Sunday morning and then addressing himself to

the subject of man's free will that very evening. That it

 

57Charles H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, I, p. 167.

 

58Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1889, p. 665.

 

46

seemed illogical was not the issue to Spurgeon. What he
cared for was whether or not the ideas were Biblical.

Spurgeon was infinitely more concerned that his
theology be Biblical than systematic, although he did not
see the two as necessarily mutually exclusive. The final
authority in every matter was the teaching of divine reve-
lation. The primary reason Spurgeon appreciated the Puritans
as he did was because he was convinced that they were
possessed of the same respect for Biblical authority as
he was. Nor was his reliance upon Holy Writ limited to
theological theorizing. Indeed, every facet of life was to
be subject to the edicts of Scripture. Thus, Spurgeonwas
motivated in his concern for social problems such as sick-
ness, poverty, and ignorance primarily because he was con-
vinced that the Bible taught that a true child of God ought
to Show such concern. Spurgeon's involvement in elections
and political affairs was based on the Biblical injunction
that believers ought to be "the salt of the earth," that
they have a moral responsibility to influence the affairs
of this world for good and thus, "let their light so shine
before men." It is imperative, then, to keep in mind that
Spurgeon was chiefly motivated by a deep concern that his
actions in every sphere of his life be in accord with what
he believed the Bible to teach.

The problem with such a system is that, although

Inany have recognized the authority of Scripture, there have

47

been myriads of interpretations of that authority. For the
sake of clarification, Spurgeon generally interpreted the
Bible in the same manner as John Calvin and his less extreme
followers. Like the Protestant Reformers, Spurgeon believed
Justification by Faith to be the central doctrine of Scrip-
ture. "The church which holds that doctrine is in the body
[of Christ]; the church which is tampering with that doctrine

"59 Thus, it is a bit more understandable

is not in the body.
how Spurgeon could one day plead for the tearing down of
denominational walls which divided the Church of Christ, and
the next day castigate Catholicism as the "Whore of Babylon."
The Simple explanation is that he did not believe the Roman
Catholic Church to be within the pale of Christianity
because they did not, in his judgment, hold to the central
doctrine of Justification by Faith alone. For the same
reason, Spurgeon refused to support Gladstone on Home Rule
for Ireland, simply because he feared that once Home Rule
was established, the Roman Catholic Church would begin to
oppress the Protestant brethren there. In this sense
Spurgeon was still living in the sixteenth century.

Like most of Calvin's adherents, Spurgeon also
believed that man was morally depraved. By this he did not

mean that man is universally and uniformly base in all his

actions and thoughts. Nor did he believe that all men are

‘_

591bid., 1866, p. 279.

48

as bad as they can possibly be. Indeed, unregenerate men
had painted beautiful pictures, formed laudable governments,
accomplished amazing technological advances, and lived
relatively moral lives in many instances. What Spurgeon
meant by human depravity was that, in terms of spiritual
righteousness before a holy and perfecthod, "man is utterly
fallen, powerless, guilty, defiled, lost, condemned. . . ."60
Man in his unredeemed state is hopelessly inadequate to
justify himself before a perfectly holy Creator, and, thus
he is in need of a divine Savior to pay the penalty for
sin--death--and to claim pardon for those who believe in
and obey Him. The term most theologians apply to this View
of soteriology is "substitutionary atonement." Christ died
in the stead of sinful men so that the elect of God who
believe in Christ might then be rescued from their fallen
state and stand justified before a righteous God. It was
'with this in mind that Spurgeon most often Spoke on the
subject of the Atonement and what Christ had done for man-
kind on Calvary.

That Spurgeon could believe in the possibility of
social and even moral progress is not necessarily in contra—
diction to his view of human depravity. As explained, his
conception of depravity had to do with man's relation to

God and, in that, one must plead the Atonement of Christ;

 

60New Park Street Pulpit, 1859, p. 210.

 

49

nothing else would suffice. But Spurgeon still maintained
that progress could be achieved in social and political
matters. Proper legislation could deter a good measure of_
crime; public education could offset widespread ignorance;
and the poor could be at least temporarily relieved by
humanitarian action. Whereas in terms of spiritual justi-
fication, man would remain just as hopeless as ever, in
terms of social progress, much could be accomplished and
Christians were duty-bound to be in the thick of the fray.
Spurgeon, then, saw man's relationship to God in terms of
what he called the "three R's" of Scripture: Ruin, Re-

61

demption, and Regeneration, but his relationship to his

fellow man included social responsibility and the possibility
of general improvement.

In Spurgeon's last year, after five years of theo-
logical controversy, he published a brief but Significant
resume of his doctrinal convictions which bears repeating.

We, the undersigned, banded together in Fraternal Union,
observing with growing pain and sorrow the loosening
hold of many upon the Truths of Revelation, are con-
strained to avow our firmest belief in the Verbal
Inspiration of Holy Scripture as originally given. To
us the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God,
but lg the Word of God. From beginning to end, we .
accept it, believe it, and continue to preach it. . . .

We hold and maintain the truths generally known as
'the doctrines of grace.‘ The Electing Love of God the
Father, the Propitiatory and Substitutionary Inspiration

 

61Charles H. Spurgeon, The Teachings of Nature
(London: Passmore and Alabaster, N.D.): p. 22.

 

50

of Christ's Righteousness, the Justification of the

sinner (once for all) by faith, his walk in newness

of life, and growth in grace by the active indwelling

of the Holy Ghost, and the Priestly Intercession of

our Lord Jesus, as also the helpless perdition of all

who reject the Savior . . . are in our judgment,

revealed and fundamental truths.62

This was essentially the same theological position

that Spurgeon had held when he entered the city of London
more than thirty years before as a young man of twenty.
Spurgeon viewed truth, whether moral or philosophical, in
absolute terms. Thus Truth, like Christ, "is the same,
yesterday, today, and forever." It was not simply a case
of pompous pride, but of moral and philosophical necessity
that Spurgeon's theology exhibited almost no change or
development throughout his ministry. He gloried in being
old-fashioned because, to him, this meant that he was
anchored to the age-old truths that had stood the test of
time, the truths of Paul, Augustine, Calvin, and Knox.
Spurgeon was more than content to travel with such dis-
tinguished theological company. Toward the end of his career
he viewed himself as increasingly in the wake of this theo-
logical persuasion and seemed to be frustrated as society
changed and the old theology of the Puritans became more
and more out of vogue.

Twice in his career Spurgeon was involved in major

controversies, and although they seem to be of minor

 

62The Sword and the Trowel, 1891, p. 446.

 

51

importance in relation to the positive contributions which
he made, no description of the man, however sketchy, would
be complete without some mention of these disputes. While
Spurgeon was not a controversialist (indeed, he generally
tried to avoid any wrangling), he did allow himself to
become embroiled in a few theological and ecclesiastical
problems in a way that left him open to criticism.

The first of these occurred early in his career,
in 1864. Spurgeon found himself disconcertingly divided
in his attitude toward the Established Church. On the one
hand, he loathed the very concept of a State Church and
was especially hostile to the ritualism of the high Church.
On the other hand, he recognized the fact that he held
many common sympathies with those Evangelicals of the
low Church and cooperated with them on many occasions. He
could never understand, however, why the Evangelicals did
not realize the error of their ecclesiastical colleagues
and come over, once and for all, to the side of Nonconformity.
Particularly odious to him was what he believed to be the
teaching in the Book of Common Prayer that salvation was a
result of the baptism of infants in the Church. As remote
as this may seem to us, Spurgeon's sermon and subsequent
comments criticizing what he called the doctrine of
"Baptismal Regeneration" stirred a controversy which saw

the publication of thousands of pamphlets and newspaper

52

articles. The original sermon sold more than 200,000 copies
and several hundred books and pamphlets were written for or
against it.63
In actuality, this debate tells us less about
Spurgeon than it does about the tenor of the times in which
he lived. The fact is, this was an uncharacteristic out-
burst on Spurgeon's part, for, on the whole, he was far
more concerned with healing the rifts in Protestantism than
widening them. While he had no use for what he called
"Puseyism," he had even less respect for that brand of
sectarianism which has plagued the Protestant movement
ever since the Reformation. His constant cry was, "God
grant the day when every wall of separation shall be beaten
down!"64
It is for this reason that the last and major contro-
versy of his life is so difficult to understand. In spite
of the fact that during the greater part of his ministry he
served as oil upon the waters of sectarian quarrels, in 1887
Spurgeon began an attack on those unnamed members of his own
Baptist Union who had been swayed by the arguments of higher
criticism and the claims of science, and who had modified

their beliefs to accommodate modern thought. The result of

this was a quarrel which lasted up to and beyond his death,

 

63"Mr. Spurgeon's Sermons and their Sales," Pall
Mall Gazette, February 2, 1892.

64

 

New Park Street Pulpit, 1858, p. 24.

 

53

and split the Baptist denomination. The memory of this
"Downgrade Controversy" has soured the minds of many con-
cerning Spurgeon. Some explain this uncharacteristic action
as the result of his years of Sickness and unbearable pres-
sure; others see it as his logical reaction against the
scientism of the day. Neither explanation in itself is
completely satisfactory, but the important thing to keep

in mind is that he is not to be judged as a controversialist.
The real importance of the man lies in the positive contri-
butions which he made to the society in which he lived. He
was the most popular preacher in England in an age when the
influence of her preachers was almost unparalleled; he was a
philanthropist of major significance when philanthropy was
the primary method of easing the ills of society; and he

was vitally concerned with education when education in
England was of vital, national concern. For these reasons,
coupled with the simple fact that the audience he commanded
week after week through his speaking and his publications
was perhaps the largest personal following Commanded by

any single citizen of his day, the career of this eminent

Victorian demands our serious attention.

CHAPTER II

SPURGEON'S POLITICAL INFLUENCE

It has been said of William E. Gladstone that he
believed "that the whole of human life is the service of
God,“ and that his entire political career was an effort
to apply Christian principles to the field of politics.1
Destructive though this policy may have been for the Liberal
Party in the long run, during his earlier terms of office,
at least, it served to ingratiate him with a good many Non-
conformists, not the least of which was Charles Haddon
Spurgeon.

Unlike a number of his clerical colleagues who con-
sidered the political arena too dirty and sanguine an affair
to soil the hands of the saintly, Spurgeon was vitally con-
cerned that the governance of England be conducted along
moral guidelines. He was firmly convinced that the political
and economic predominance which Britain enjoyed over the
rest of the world during his lifetime was due to God's
providential blessing in response to what Spurgeon con-

sidered England's commitment to Christian principles. In

 

1Philip Magnus, Gladstone, A Biography (New York:
E. P. Button and Co., Inc., 1954). p. XI.

 

54

55

his sermon at the Crystal Palace on the national fast day

concerning the Indian Mutiny, Spurgeon told his audience

that God was behind Britain's greatness, that God had dis-

covered the Guy Fawkes treachery, that God had conquered

Canada and defeated Napoleon.2 In Spurgeon's opinion, the

reason God took such an interest in the political affairs

of Britain was because she had become a Christian nation

during the Reformation.

This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so?

I take it, it is not so much because of our institu-
tions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here--the
spirit of true and hearty religion. There was a time,
remember, when England was no more free than any other
country. . . . Who won our liberties for us? Who have
loosed our chains? Under the hand of God, I say, the
men of religion--men like the great and glorious
Cromwell, who would have liberty of conscience or

die. . . . We owe our own liberty to men of religion,
to men of the stern Puritannical school. . . . And if
we are ever to maintain our liberty (as God grant we

may), it shall be kept in England by religious liberty--

by religion. The Bible is the Magna Charta of old
Britain.

While Spurgeon may have forgotten that the "grand

and glorious Cromwell" and many of his followers were little

concerned with the religious liberty of their Catholic foes,

the fact remains that he considered Britain to be a dis-

tinctively Christian commonwealth, and that, in order to

maintain her place as a leader in the world, she must remain

 

2New Park Street Pulpit, 111, 1857, p. 376.
3

 

Ibid., 1, 1855, p. 61.

56

true to Christian sanctions. Thus, it behooved every
Christian citizen to involve himself in the affairs of
national politics, eSpecially regarding those issues which
were of both a religious and a political nature.

Like many of his fellow citizens, Spurgeon was
convinced that Britain was a "chosen nation" in the same
sense that Israel had been the national recipient of
Jehovah's special blessings:

I believe we are a more highly favored nation than
even Israel of old. God hath done more for Britain,
or certainly as much, as he did for Abraham's race,
and even if we have not rebelled and revolted as
often as did Israel in the wilderness, yet our little
rebellions, if they were so, would be great because
of the greatness of God's goodness.4

Spurgeon loathed the spirit of those who claimed
that, because Christians were "citizens of heaven“ they
were to have nothing to do with the concerns of men below.
To him, "a more un-Christianlike sentiment, a more selfish

statement, never degraded spiritual minds."5

He pointed

out that even the Jews of the Old Testament period were to
seek the peace of those cities where they had been carried
away captive, and that, certainly, Christians should be no

less generous. The thought that politics lay beyond aegis

of Christian principles was indicative of the absurd

 

4Ibid., VI, 1860, p. 456.

5Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, XXV, 1879, pp. 390-

91.

57

assumption that the golden rule was not applicable to all
situations; one might sooner declare that no Christian
Should be a surgeon, or a telegraph clerk because these
occupations are not mentioned in Scripture.6
This is not to say that Spurgeon believed that a

Christian should become embroiled in the mongering of
political plums or the shady dealings of party politics.
The older he grew, the more realistic he became about the
scheming nature of political maneuverings, and he wanted
no part of this. Indeed, he eventually came to describe
Cromwell's political counterparts in the nineteenth century
as

The Right Honourable Member for the town of Corruption

(who) view with the equally Right Honourable repre-

sentative for the county of Bribery; the most noble

Conservative place-hunter will not be outdone by the

Liberal office-lover.7

Although he remained an advocate of the Liberal

Party all his life, Spurgeon warned against the Christian
involving himself with party politics. The Christian
should be prompted by religious principles, not the party
whip. He supported the Liberal Party in most cases because

he was convinced that it stood for those principles which

most closely represented Christian ethics. Spurgeon was

 

6The Sword and the Trowel, XV, p. 279.

 

7Ibid., 111, 1867, p. 158.

58

persuaded that Gladstone was altruistic in foreign affairs
while Disraeli was selfseeking; the Liberal Party stood for
religious and political liberty while the Conservatives
represented the Established Church and an aristocratic

elite. It was for this reason that he was reputed to have

said, "I'd rather vote for the Devil than a Tory!"8

Spurgeon, then, felt that politics, like every other
area of life, ought to be governed by Christianity. As he
explained to his congregation,

I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian
religion shall be the rule among all classes of men

in all transactions. I often hear it said, 'Do not
bring religion into politics.‘ This is precisely
where it ought to be brought, and set there in the
face of all men as on a candlestick. I would have the
Cabinet and Members of Parliament do the work of the
nation as before the Lord, and I would have the nation,
either in making war or peace, consider the matter by
the light of righteousness. We are to deal with other
nations about this or that upon the principles of the
New Testament.9

Spurgeon was so agitated by those who insisted that
the State has nothing to do with religion, that he took the
time to work out and publish a detailed, albeit somewhat
sketchy, political philosophy for the Christian in the form
of a series of logical queries. It is important enough to
be printed in its entirety here, for Spurgeon sought, once

and for all, to answer his heavenly-minded detractors.10

 

8See page 9 above.

9Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, XXVII, 1881, p. 225.

 

10The Sword and the Trowel, VI, 1870, pp. 330-31.

 

59

Are not all mankind under law to God, and where,
and when did the King of all the earth announce
that nations were to be free from his control, and
free from all recognition of his existence and
authority?

Ought not a nation in all questions which necessari-
ly involve religion, to decide for God, and ac-
cording to his word, rather than for infidelity;

and when a question is decided by numbers, is not
every citizen burdened with a share of responsi-
bility, and should he not give his vote on the
Lord's Side?

If the case of a government appointed for secular
rule be exactly parallel with that of a company

for the management of a railway, so that neither
may go beyond their Special business, are not both
government and the company still bound by the laws
of God; as, for instance, that which allots for one
day in seven for rest? And can either of them
break such laws without sin? If it be true, that
both are free from the allegiance to the law of

God, where is this affirmed or implied in Scripture?

If a government has nothing to do with religion,
by what right are public houses closed on Sundays
at certain hours? Why are theatres closed on the
Lord's day? Why are chaplains provided for the
army and navy? Why is religion taught in refor-
matories? Why is divine service held in gaols?
Why are public works closed on the Lord's day? Why
does not Parliament sit on Sundays? We venture to
challenge the believers in the non-religious
principle to endeavor to carry out the logical
inferences of their own assertion; most devoutly
hoping that they will never succeed.

If a government should cease to acknowledge God at
all, or in any sense, would it not at once become
religious in the very lowest and worst sense, and
be to all intents and purposes atheistic, and would
it not necessarily by disregarding the Sabbath, and
in other ways, become a persecuting government
towards the Christian faith, at least in the case
of its servants and employees? And would it not
thereby involve all its Christian subjects in a
share of its sin?

10.

60

AS the non-respect of God's word is as much a
religion as the respect of it, and as the avowed
believers in this religion are a small minority
of the nation, is it consistent with justice that
the governing power should be controlled by the
negative faith or nonfaith of the minority, in a
word, by their irreligion? If not, then in
questions which necessarily involve religion,
must not the government decide for respect to God
and his Word?

How can religion be eliminated from education,
unless it be eliminated from the teacher himself?
If books of history and science, and all reading
lessons be expurgated of every religious idea,

and the Bible be excluded, will not the work still
be incomplete till we raise teachers of a colour-
less character, or so utterly destitute of all
zeal, that they will never intrude their faith

in God, his providence, his Word, or his Son?

Supposing this last fact to be accomplished, what
results beneficial and desirable are likely to
follow from the teaching? What results which
Nonconformist Christians could look upon with
pleasure when on their knees in intercession
before God?

If it be said that Sabbath schools will make up

the deficiency, is it remembered that in large
towns the government schools will mainly gather
those who never have gone to such schools and never
will? Is it also remembered that many of the
lowest class of parents who now send their children
to the Sunday-schools as their only chance of
learning to read, will probably withdraw them

when they are forced to acquire that accomplish-
ment or at least can do so for nothing elsewhere.
Is it really believed by Christian men that mere
reading, writing, and arithmetic, without religious
instruction will elevate our street Arabs, and
train the waifs and strays of London to be honest
men and good citizens?

Is this the freedom which our fathers fought and
bled for, and this the liberty for which Nonconform-
ists have suffered and laboured--the liberty to

deny to those who ask for it, permission for their
children to read the Bible in the government
schools? If it be so, was the object worthy of

61

the effort? IS it not tantamount to gaining
authority to withhold from our degraded juvenile
population the fairest chance of moral elevation
which was ever placed within their reach?

11. As we have now with considerable clearness taught
the world that the State has no power within the
sphere of the Church, would it not be as well to
teach the further lesson, which is needed to balance
the first, namely--that God is King of kings and
Lord of lords? Is it not true that parliaments,
and kings, and nations, may say, 'Let us break his
bands asunder, and cast his cords from us,‘ such
language ill becomes Christian men.

While this polemic was couched in the controversy
surrounding the Education Bill of 1870, its implications are
much more far-reaching than that. Much of the argument was
based on premises that are subject to question, but the
central issue, to Spurgeon, at least, was the fact that God
is sovereign over politics, over business, over every phase
of life, and, once this was accepted, then it was the
responsibility of every Christian to see that godly princi-

ples were practiced.

Spprgeon and Elections

 

There can be little doubt that a man with a personal
following the size of Spurgeon's, who spoke out so clearly
on so many political issues, was destined to be a definite
political influence on London's south Side where he minis-
tered. Whereas he never became directly involved in the
gritty maneuverings of party politics, his views were widely

published and, indirectly at least, he influenced the outcome

62

of several elections, particularly the General Elections
of 1880 and 1886.

If Spurgeon had never personally endorsed a single
candidate or promoted a single issue, his influence on
political issues would still have been noteworthy by virtue
of his encouragement of those middle and lower-class voters
to exercise their voting privileges. There was never an
election of so little importance that Spurgeon did not
exhort his constituency to vote in it:

God has made us our own governors in these British
Isles, for, loyal as we are to our Queen, we practi-
cally are Caesars to ourselves. We are now called
upon to exercise one of the privileges and duties
which go with liberty, let no man be neglect in it.
Every God-fearing man should give his vote with as
much devotion as he prays.ll

Spurgeon, in the Liberal vein, was ever an advocate
of extending the franchise to responsible Englishmen. He
believed that the granting of voting rights to farm laborers
was inevitable as well as desirable. His tendency always
was to lean toward egalitarian sentiments. He was far more
willing to take a "leap in the dark" and allow the vote to
be extended to the masses than to leave the government in
the hands of what he considered to be a few, self—seeking

aristocrats. Unlike many of his contemporaries, the word

"democracy" held no terrors for him. As he explained in

 

llIbid., XVI, 1880, p. 191.

63

an interview with W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall

 

Gazette,

But 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. 2
While this may not seem too earth-shaking a state-
ment to us who have witnessed the ascendancy of the common
man in the present century, to those respectable Victorians
who still quaked at the thought of mass rebellions such as
the Continent had only recently endured, this was nothing
short of irresponsible Radicalism. Democracy, to many of
these people, was a frightful word which carried with it
thoughts of mass riots, revolution, and political chaos.
The masses were uneducated, emotional and volatile, subject
to every radical breeze that blew across the land. Most
Englishmen were convinced of the necessity of social order,

feeling that one ought to know and keep his place. As

Walter Bagehot observed in his book, The English Consti-

 

tution, the English were, indeed, a "deferential society."
It comes as no surprise, in the light of these

political inclinations, to discover that Spurgeon was a

 

12W. T. Stead, "Topics of the Day by Heroes of the
Hour," Pall Mall Gazette, June 19, 1884.

 

64

staunch Liberal. While he adamantly refused to become
involved in party politics, in practice he was a considerable
asset to Liberal Party fortunes in that he was an out-and-
out enemy of the Conservatives. Once, during a General
Election, he arrived uncustomarily late for a Speaking
engagement, explaining that he had stopped on his way to
vote.

"To vote!" exclaimed a pious critic; "but my dear
brother, I thought you were a citizen of the New Jerusalem!"

"So I am,"

replied Spurgeon, "but my 'old man' is
a citizen of this world."
"Ah! but you Should mortify your 'old man'."
"That is exactly what I did, for my 'old man' is
a Tory and I made him vote for a Liberal."13
Spurgeon was particularly influential in the General
Election of 1880, being especially upset by Disraeli's
rather aggressive foreign policy in Afghanistan, the Balkans,
and South Africa. In the previous election the borough of
Lambeth, which was never the Metropolitan Tabernacle, had
elected a Conservative representative; Spurgeon, therefore,
made it his personal responsibility to see that this trend
was reversed there and in the adjoining borough of South-

wark. In this endeavor, he not only spoke out against the

Conservatives in his sermons and his monthly magazine, but

 

13Charles H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, III, p. 342.

 

65‘

he went so far as to circulate leaflets among the constitu-
ents of both boroughs, stating the issues and pleading for
a Liberal victory. It will suffice to cite just one of
these leaflets to illustrate the extent and nature of
Spurgeon's involvement in the political elections of his
day.

Friends,

Your defeat, upon a late occasion, has furnished
a temporary cause of triumph to the Conservative
party, and it must be your unanimous resolve to wipe
out the stain by returning the two Liberal Candidates
who now seek your votes. This can be done, but not
without a vigorous effort, and the polling of many
who, on the last occasion, neglected their duty.

No Liberal should, on this occasion, imagine that
his help is unnecessary; each man Should act as if all
depended upon his vote. Our opponents are not to be
despised, and their supporters are in real earnest;
therefore, Liberals of Southwark, quit yourselves
like men, and bestir yourselves for the grand old
cause!

I have received from many trusty friends the best
commendations of your two Candidates, Messrs. COHEN
and THOROLD ROGERS, and I am glad that they have the
hearty confidence of the leaders of the Liberal opinion
in the Borough. Disunion no longer weakens you, and
I hope that apathy has been stung out of you; what
remains but to go in and win?

Great questions are involved in the struggle;
never were weightier issues before the nation. A
responsibility of the most serious kind is thrust
upon us all, and we must face it. Every man must
this day exercise his franchise without fail.

Are we to have another six years of Tory rule?
This is just now the question.

Are we to go on slaughtering and invading in order
to obtain a scientific frontier and feeble neighbors?
How many wars may we reckon upon between now and 1886?
What quantity of killings will be done in that time,
and how many of our weaker neighbors will have their
houses burned and their fields ravaged by this
Christian(?) nation? Let those who rejoice in war

66

vote for the Tories; but we hope they will not find a
majority in Southwark.

Are we, for years to come, to bully and bluster all
around the world, and frighten away trade and commerce?
If you dread the thought--poll for ROGERS and COHEN.
Shall all great questions of reform and progress be
utterly neglected for years? They will be, unless true
Liberals come to the front.

Shall the struggle for religious equality be pro-
tracted and embittered? It will be so if the New
Parliament is made of the same material as the old.

Shall our National Debt be increased? Our imperial
expenditure be swollen, and the very word 'retrenchment'
become a jest? It must be so, if the present Government
be kept in power.

You know the great principles which are at stake,
and you have now a fair field for fighting them out.
There need be no personalities, and there should be
none, for the Candidates on both sides are worthy of
their prominence. This is as it Should be, and it will
make the Southwark contest the more notable.

A Liberal success, for which you look with brightest
hope, will inspire all your comrades.

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!

Will you not alter this state of things? Have
you not had enough of it already? The remedy is in
your own hands.

Your Friend and neighbor,
C. H. Spurgeonl4

It is significant to note that, not only did the

Liberals under Gladstone win the election of 1880, but

Southwark returned the two Liberal representatives whom

Spurgeon endorsed. At least one political observer attri-

buted this reversal to the pastor of the Metropolitan

 

14From a leaflet dated March 19, 1880.

67

Tabernacle and called him "the greatest single influence in
South London in favour of Liberalism, upon whose every word,
thousands and thousands hang, as if it were the very bread
of life."15

At elections, School Board and Parliamentary, his

followers display an energy and discipline which leave

nothing to be desired. They are men of faith who do

not lose heart in times of adversity and reaction.

Their human sympathies as well as their spiritual

have been warmed by the flame which burns in the

bosom of the devout and fearless Great Heart of the

Metropolitan Tabernacle.16

One should keep in mind the fact that this opinion
was not that of a sympathetic Liberal, but one who expressed
concern at the influence of Spurgeon, whom he called one of
the "unfittest--a painful anachronism."
Spurgeon also played a significant role in the

General Election of 1886. On almost every issue he had
been a loyal supporter of Gladstone, but on the issue of
Home Rule for Ireland, he split decisively with the Liberal
leader. The question of Ireland was no less an enigma in
the nineteenth century than it is today. Bombing, violence,
and political assassination were the order of the day and
it seemed as though the ship of state would be wrecked on

the reef of Ulster. Gladstone proposed in 1886 to grant

Ireland a measure of Home Rule, with a Parliament of her

 

15"Eminent Radicals out of Parliament," Weekly
Dispatch, No. V, November 9, 1879.

l6Ibid.

68

own by which she could run those affairs which pertained to
Ireland alone. This was a severe shock to those many
Englishmen who looked to the British Isles as the center

of the great British Empire, and who considered Home Rule

to be a major chink in their imperialist armor. There were
many Nonconformists and English Churchmen as well who feared
for the well-being of those Protestants of the northern
countries, who would now feel the full extent of Catholic
resentment and discrimination. Spurgeon was among these

and therefore broke with Gladstone on this issue. While

he continued to trust the sincerity of the Prime Minister's
motives, he believed him to be sincerely--albeit undeniably--

mistaken. The Times related Spurgeon's position on the issue

 

in a special article in which he was quoted as saying,

We feel bound to express our great regret that the
great Liberal leader should have introduced his Irish
Bills. We cannot see what our Ulster brethren have
done thatfthey should be cast off. They are in great
dismay at the prospect of legislative separation from
England, and we do not wonder. They have been ever
our loyal friends, and ought not to be sacrificed.
Surely something can be done for Ireland less ruinous
than that which is proposed? The method of pacification
now put forward seems to us to be full of difficulties,
uncertainties, and unworkable proposals. It is well
meant: but even the best and greatest may err. Is
it not possible for those who desire the welfare of
Ireland and the unity of the Empire to devise a more
acceptable scheme? We cannot look forward with any
complacency to Ulster Loyalists abandoned and an
Established Irish Catholic Church; and yet these are
by no means the greatest evils which we forsee in the
near future Should the suggested policy ever become
fact.17

17"Mr. Spurgeon on Home Role," The Times (London),
June 3, 1886.

 

69

Once again Spurgeon became actively involved in the
General Election and, although he did not go so far as to
campaign for the Conservative Party, he did endorse those
candidates of the Liberal persuasion who opposed Gladstone's
Irish policy. More than one paper noted how great the weight
of his opinion was among the constituents of London's south
side. The Tories published those statements which seemed
to condemn the Liberal Party, while the Liberals circulated
Spurgeon's denunciations of the Conservative Party, not the
least of which was the sweeping assertion that, "The Tories
are not to be trusted."18

In all fairness, the issue must here be raised as
to exactly how influential Spurgeon (or, for that matter,
any other of the spokesmen of the so-called "Nonconformist
conscience"), was in these national elections. It is a
difficult task, to say the least, to determine why voters
of the last century responded in the way they did. About
all one can say is that, in a given election, a certain
percentage of a district voted for a certain candidate.
In the two General Elections just considered, it is a
demonstrable fact that the voters of Southwark voted as

Spurgeon encouraged them to vote. Several political

observers of the day noted this fact and attributed it

 

18"Monday's London Pollingsr" The Daily News,
July 3, 1886.

 

70

to Spurgeon's influence. Whether or not this last assertion
is a valid one is questionable. At least one historian has
questioned the assumption that the working-classes of London
were influenced by Nonconformist leaders. Henry Pelling, in
his book, Social Geography of British Elections, 1885-1910,
claims that the working classes were relatively unaffected
by the influence of Nonconformity. During the years 1885-
1910, Pelling asserts that Nonconformity was only measurably
influential in the lower-middle-class areas of London such
as Islington, Hackney, and parts of Lambeth and Peckham.
Even in these areas, Pelling notes, the vote was not con-
sistently Liberal. He concludes,

In general, therefore, we must conclude that if Non-

conformity exerted any distinctive force in those

constituencies where it was supposed to be relatively

strong, it was not enough to be statistically notice-

able. It is a reasonable assumption that the influence

of both churches and chapels upon voting behavior was

a very minor factor in London politics. 9

One must keep in mind, however, that, first of all,

the period which Pelling discusses lies, for the most part,
after Spurgeon's career. In the only election which Pelling
analyzes in which Spurgeon tried to exert an influence, the
working-class district of Southwark did vote as Spurgeon

encouraged them to vote. Secondly, between 1885 and 1910

the political issues were muddled by the Irish problem and

 

19Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British
Elections, 1885-1910 (New York: St. Martinrs Press, 1967),
pp. 55-56.

 

 

71

the Liberal Party itself was split. While on a national
scale Nonconformists were at odds concerning the issue of
Home Rule and, thus, some of their political power was lost
due to factionalism, it would be tenuous to conclude that,
on the local level, the influence of Nonconformity had
dissipated. Pelling's conclusion is valid only if one
identifies the interests of Nonconformity with those of

the Liberal Party. After 1885 this simply was not always
the case.

For good or ill, then, Spurgeon's influence was,
by no means limited to religious matters. He used his
position as the spiritual leader of thousands of common
people to affect the outcome of at least two important
elections. Convinced that the Christian ought to be con-
cerned that his government be run by those most likely to
follow ethical and religious guidelines, he devoted much
time and effort to seeing that certain candidates were
elected and that certain others were defeated.

Spurgeon's opposition to the ConserVatives was
almost chronic. To him they represented the wealthy few,
the defunct remains of a landed aristocracy who sought to
retain what Spurgeon thought to be their tyrannical hold
on the masses in the face of rising democratic tendencies.
He viewed the House of Lords as a tool of upper-class

political parasites to block constructive legislation.

72

When they delayed the passage of the Irish Disestablishment

Bill, Spurgeon commented,

The delay in doing justice to Ireland, occasioned
by the tyrannical action of the Lords, is precisely
what we expected and desired. The country will be led
to ask, how long these titled defenders of injustice
are to rule a free people, and forbid the nation to
fulfill its will. The bishops ought to be removed
from the Upper House forthwith; let them look after
their flocks, and they will have more than enough to
do. With one or two exceptions, they are always the
friends of everything oppressive.20

Thus, Spurgeon's influence in political elections was uni-
formly in support of extending the franchise and opposing

the interests of the wealthy and the powerful in favor of
those of the common man. As he saw it, this generally meant
the loyal support of the Liberal Party and implacable opposi-

tion to the Conservatives.

Qisestablishment

 

Throughout his life Spurgeon was an avid advocate
of the total separation of Church and State. He was over-
joyed in 1870 when the Irish Church was at last disestab-
lished, and continued to press toward the same result in
England as well. He never ceased to chafe under the con-
viction that, as a Nonconformist, he was relegated to the
role of a second-class citizen in the ecclesiastical world.
While there were very few tangible disadvantages to Non-

conformity by the second half of the nineteenth century,

 

20The Sword and the Trowel, XXV, 1889, p. 381.

73

the very fact that an Anglican minister could deign to
speak on behalf of the nation's churches was galling to
him. Those Anglican bishops sitting in the House of Lords
by virtue of their office alone, the idea that Parliament
could control matters of the Church, the notion that Non-
conformists should be content with "toleration;" all this
filled him with an indignant wrath which prompted him to
lash out, again and again, at the concept of an Established
Church.

As he told the members of the Liberation Society,
which was established to bring about the total separation
of Church and State, disestablishment was to him more than
merely an aim which he seriously desired to achieve, but
it was almost as fundamental as a doctrine of his faith.
It was of the utmost importance to him that disestablish-
ment be brought about.

We are told that we enjoy toleration; the very
word is an insult. What would the members of the
dominant sect think if we talked of tolerating them?
We shall never be satisfied until all religious com-
munities stand upon an equal footing before the law.

. . . An Established Church is a spiritual tyranny.
. . . That which our fathers died to overthrow we
are compelled to support. We cannot help being

indignant; we should be less than men if our blood
did not boil within us at such injustice.2

 

The history of the Established Church in England

is a complicated and often confusing one. Since the

 

21Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, XIX, 1873, pp. 50-

 

51.

74

eighteenth century, when toleration became the basic policy
of the government, the Church had hardly ever exercised all
of the powers which she held to the exclusion of the dis-
senting sects. The nineteenth century witnessed the gradual
chipping away of those exclusive privileges, although the
Church still ostensibly retained her privileged position.
In 1829 Catholics became politically liberated; in the
1850's Oxford and Cambridge removed certain religious tests,
finally opening the door fully for Nonconformists in 1871;
in 1868 compulsory Church-rates were abolished and in 1869
the Irish Church was disestablished. As the century wore
on, such measures as the Burial Laws Ammendment Act (1880)
and the Oaths Act (1888) removed many of the remaining
indignities which were so galling to Nonconformists.

In all these measures the Liberation Society played
a key role as an agitator for reform, and Spurgeon was a
key member within that society. Always one of the most
popular speakers at their rallies, Spurgeon raged against
the idea that Nonconformists should have to undergo Church
rites before being buried in Church graveyards. He decried
the fact that the Church Registrar had to be present at a
wedding in order for it to be legal or that Ecclesiastical
Courts should have the exclusive right to preside over
disputes concerning wills. The idea that NonconformistS‘

should be compelled to pay for the maintenance of sparsely

75

attended Anglican churches struck him as being outrageous.
As he told W. T. Stead in an interview,

It is a great and crying injustice to all those
who do not belong to it; a great obstacle in the way
of Christian unity, and an institution that seems to
me entirely indefensible. That the Church of the
aristocracy cannot support itself, while the Churches
of the poor are able to do so, is to me utterly
incredible.22

Spurgeon's implacable attitude did not soften as
concessions were granted. Each bill which reduced the
odiousness of the Establishment served only to spur him
on to insure that the Church was, once and for all, com-
pletely separated from the State. What the Church was
reluctantly conceding were those rights which are basic to
every citizen and anything less was tyranny to Spurgeon.
This indignant attitude was reflected over and over in his
sermons and writings.

We can never rest till Episcopacy is disestablished
and perfect religious equality is found everywhere.
Leave to bury our dead in the graveyards which belong
to every Englishman will be a liberty for which we will
not even say 'thank you,‘ for it is no more than our
right. As for the idea that this is the end of our
demands, it is preposterous. There must be no patronage
or oppression of any faith by the State, and all men
must stand equal before the law whatever their creed
may be; and until this is the case our demands will
not cease.23

Spurgeon could never quite understand why the Angli-

can Church, which he was convinced enjoyed the main support

 

22W. T. Stead, "Topics of the Day."

23The Sword and the Trowel, x11, 1876, pp. 285-86.

 

76

of the upper classes, should be struggling financially. He
believed that spontaneous generosity was far more successful
in meeting a church's financial needs than enforced tithe-
taking. And, yet, in all honesty, it must be noted that a
good number of Nonconformist chapels also went begging for
financial support. Spurgeon was forever trying to raise
funds for poor ministers and their families while, in almost
the same breath, he would proclaim the sufficiencies of what
he called "spontaneous giving." More than one Anglican
bishop pointed out the obvious inconsistency in this, and

it seems there was little Spurgeon could say in reply.

In the last few years of his life Spurgeon seemed
to do an about face in several matters, one of which was
his relationship to the Liberation Society. He had been
one of the most active and vociferous members of the Society
for decades, but, in April of 1891, he chose to resign from
its membership. This action was difficult for even his
contemporaries to explain. The reason stated by Spurgeon
was that the Society had become infiltrated by those whose
liberal theological convictions placed them in opposition
to the orthodoxy for which Spurgeon stood.

It is important to keep in mind that this action
came on the heels of Spurgeon's involvement in the "Downgrade
Controversy" in which he condemned his own Baptist denomina-
tion for its apostasy, and even went so far as to withdraw

his church from its membership. The storm which broke as a

77

result of this action almost overwhelmed Spurgeon. He
became totally preoccupied with defending himself and his
actions, and it seemed that the longer the dispute was

drawn out, the more far-reaching its implications became.
Events and discussions seemed to push him further and further
out on a limb and, in an effort to remain consistent, he
soon found himself isolated from many individuals and causes
with which he once had been on friendly and co-operative
terms. Thus, if he could break with the Baptist Union
because it included liberals, then, in order to remain
consistent, he had to withdraw from the Liberation Society
as well, for its members were far less conservative than

the Baptist Union. In his own words,

We wish success to those who advocate justice and
religious liberty, be they who they may; but the
important matter to us is the spiritual question,
which must be kept apart. . . . The spiritual and
political will not mix; in these days, at any rate.

. . . We will not by this question be brought into
apparent union with those from whom we differ in the
very core of our souls upon matters vital to Christ-
ianity.24

It seems strange, to say the least, that Spurgeon

could work hand-in-glove with members of the Liberation
Society for over thirty years and not notice these theo-
logical differences until late in his life. Heretofore he

had been willing to work with many of these same men with

whom, all of a sudden, he could now no longer c00perate.

 

24Ibid., XVII, 1891, p. 199.

78

It was as though, once he began to look for points on which
he disagreed with the mainstream of theological thought, a
chip appeared on his shoulder and the slightest deviation
from orthodox Calvinism would now serve to knock it off.
This defensive, almost paranoid attitude was so uncharac-
teristic of Spurgeon during the greater part of his career
that it is little wonder a good many of his sympathetic
contemporaries tended to explain his actions as the result
of years of agonizing pain from the gout which had plagued
him since his twenties. This pain, coupled with the tremen-
dous psychological and physical burden which was his to bear
as the leader and director of so many social and religious
institutions, served to cause some sort of mental or spirit-
ual breakdown which alone can explain such uncharacteristic
behavior.

Spurgeon was correct in discerning a growing trend
away from orthodox Christianity, but he had noted this
tendency for years and still managed to cooperate with all
types of people on those issues in which they held common
sympathies. It was only after the Downgrade Controversy
that he considered religious differences reason enough to
disassociate himself from those with whom he had heretofore
cooperated in nonreligious endeavors. While he claimed to
remain concerned with the problem of disestablishment, he
did very little on behalf of the cause once he resigned

from the Liberation Society.

79

Imperialism

 

While C. H. Spurgeon has been the subject of a great
number of monographs and biographies, one topic which has
been almost universally neglected in these studies has been
his views on war in general and imperialism in particular.
The last quarter of the nineteenth century has been aptly
called the "Age of Imperialism,"25 although this is not to
say that imperialism was not pursued in the early part of
the century as well.26 While the governments of Europe were
concerned with imperial affairs before 1875, it was not until
the Berlin Conference of 1884 that the "scramble" for empire
began in earnest. The result was the partition of Africa
and the Far East into "spheres of influence" by the major
western powers. While it is not the purpose of this study
to discuss the causes and effects of this phenomenon, it is
enough to note that imperialism was a major factor on the
political scene of the late nineteenth century, and that
Spurgeon was extremely outspoken on this issue as well as
on the other problems of his day. The perplexing question
remains as to why his biographers have universally refused

to comment on his opinions in this area.

 

25See Heinz Gollwitzer, Europe in the Age of Imperi-
alism, 1880-1914 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.,
1969).

 

 

26See Ronald Robinson, John Gallagher, and Alice
Denny, Africa and the Victorians, The Climax of Imperialism
(New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 19615.

 

80

One of the most significant facts of this period of
British history was the way in which those who favored a
foreign policy which was pledged to imperialism managed to
get the general backing of a society which, ostensibly at
least, was given to a morality which bordered on altruism,
or the love of one's fellow man. The convincing of so many
of these earnest Victorians that the "barbarian" natives
of Africa, Afghanistan, and the Orient were the thankful
recipients of Western "civilization" in the form of guns,
troops, and battleships, has to be one of the greatest
feats of political persuasion in modern history. And yet
the fact is undeniable that Liberalism was joined with the
unlikely bedfellow of Imperialism in the guise of the "white
man's burden." Gladstone, of all the unlikely people,
ordered the invasion of Egypt in order to protect natives
and Britons alike; indeed, the infamous Jameson Raid in
South Africa was planned to insure the rights of British
miners in the Transvaal. While it is not denied that imperi-
alism did offer some benefits to native societies,27 it
remains a fact that these benefits were, on the whole,
accidental, and that the primary motive behind this policy
was that of national interests or personal aggrandizement.

One person the imperialists failed to convince was

Charles Haddon Spurgeon. One of his most recurring

27Rupert Emerson, "Colonialism," Journal of Con-
temporary History, IV, No. l (1969), pp. 3-16.

 

 

81

complaints regarding governmental policy was its maltreatment
of native populations for the sake of Britain's own "national
interests." Particularly galling to Spurgeon was the Opium
Trade which was officially supported and defended by the
British government. That the government of a supposedly
Christian, civilized nation should aid and abet this iniqui-
tous traffic against the will of the Chinese themselves was
simply indefensible, and Spurgeon spared no words in de-
nouncing it.
The opium trade, by almost universal consent, is

one of the most iniquitous, most deadly, and most

accursed evils of the nineteenth century. If war is

slaying its thousands, the opium trade is slaying

its tens of thousands. The mournful tale of its

immoral and destructive effects is faithfully and

fearlessly told. . . . The responsibility for its

origin, its extension, and its enforcement, in spite

of remonstrances and prohibitions, is clearly shown

to sit with the British Government of India and

consequently with England and the British Crown.28
Spurgeon called this practice the "right to poison the
Chinese. We send out missionaries to the heathen Chinese,
while acting more heathenly than he does! Was ever incon-
sistency more glaring?"29

It is difficult to discern what Spurgeon's views

on the races were. It goes without saying that he believed

Western Europe had the cultural advantage of centuries of

Christian influence. Whether he added to this a sense of

 

28The Sword and the Trowel, XVI, 1880, p. 38.

291bid., x11, 1876, p. 433.

82

racial superiority as well is difficult to say. Certainly
he was not without his prejudices. There seems to be an
indication of racist sentiment in a sermon which he
delivered early in his career in which he portrayed a
"heathen" pleading for the Christians of Britain to share
the blessings of the Gospel with those uncivilized peoples
of the world.
What though our skin be of a colour less fair

than yours? . . . It is true, our kings and princes

are only fit to rank with your beggars. . . . We are

men--we are your brothers--younger brothers, it is

true--we have not had a double portion of the in-

heritance; brothers too whose fathers spent their past

in riotous living; but why should the children's teeth

be set on edge because the fathers have eaten sour

grapes? Why must the son of Ham for ever bear the

curse of Canaan?3O

While, to the modern mind, this statement fairly

reeks of the grossest racial undertones with its allusions
to the "curse of Ham" and its comparison of black princes
to white paupers, one must keep in mind the historical
setting. Slavery had only recently been abolished, anthro-
pology and sociology had yet to be practiced as social
sciences, and the cultural inferiority of black people
was axiomatic to the vast majority of Europeans. While
Spurgeon's attitude is not to be excused on this account,

it is noteworthy that he considered the black race as

brothers (albeit "younger brothers") and worthy recipients

30New Park Street Pulpit, IV, 1858, p. 197.

 

83

of the blessings of the Gospel. While he seems to have
held to the primitive doctrine of the Hamitic curse (that
Ham, the son of Noah and supposed ancestor of the Black
races, was condemned to serve his Caucasian brothers)31
he does plead that it be no more regarded.

Finally, it must be noted that Spurgeon's attitude
seemed to modify as he grew older and more knowledgeable.
While he continued to believe in the cultural as well as
spiritual blessings of the Gospel and Christianity, he
spoke no more of inherent superiority. In fact, by the end
of his career, he denounced this form of racism.

Next, notice, that we ought never to be moved by

the supposed superiority of a race. I have heard it
said that it would be far better to try and convert

the superior races than to consider the more degraded.

. . . Let us feel that the degraded Africans, the dwarfs
of the woods, the cannibals of New Guinea, and all

such, are to be sought quite as much as more advanced
races. They are men; that is enough.32

Spurgeon's opposition to racism was most evident
in his adamant stand against the slavery that was practiced
in the United States. Although his popularity suffered
greatly in the southern states, he continued to condemn
the institution in no uncertain terms. We will take up

this subject in greater detail in subsequent chapters, but

let it suffice here to note that Spurgeon's opposition to

31The Bible, Genesis 9.

 

32
p. 252.

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, XXXV, 1889,

 

84

slavery and other forms of racism was known by all who
knew him or read his works.

Spurgeon remained an implacable Opponent to political
imperialism all his life. In speaking to over 20,000 people
at the Crystal Palace on the National Day of Mourning after
the Indian Mutiny, he had the audacity to question Britain's
role in India, the chief jewel in the imperial crown. He
claimed that if the Indian nation as a whole had revolted,
he would not have preached a crusade against them, "lest
haply we should have been smiting patriots who were but

delivering an oppressed country."33

This conviction,
shocking though it may have been to the average Englishman,
was only consistent with his Liberal political convictions
that each nation had the right to be free from foreign
domination. Any nation, no matter how small or culturally
undeveloped, according to Spurgeon, has the undeniable
right to govern itself as it sees fit, free from foreign
interference and domination.

What ever great powers have interfered with smaller
inoffensive nationalities, for the sake of increasing
their territory, or their influence, they are verily
guilty; . . . Wherein our civilized races have oppresed

and degraded aboriginal tribes, the sin cries out
before high HeaVenn’4

 

33N§w Park Street Pulpit, III, 1857, p. 382.

 

34C. H. Spurgeon, Only a Prayer Meeting (London:
Passmore and Alabaster, 1886), p. 55.

 

85

This highly anti-imperialistic conviction was delivered as
late in his career as 1886, when imperialism, Liberal or
otherwise, was approaching its zenith. The scramble for
Africa was on and the competition for real estate in the
Orient was at a fever pitch. In this, Spurgeon stood
solidly in opposition to politically motivated imperialism,
which was concerned with nothing but national aggrandize-
ment at the expense of the native peoples.

He even went so far as to criticize Gladstone in
his policy concerning Egypt. Spurgeon was as upset as
anyone upon hearing of the fall of Khartoum and the death
of General Gordon in 1885. But while most of his country-
men were screaming for the head of the Mahdi (and Gladstone's
as well), Spurgeon saw the problem as stemming from Britain's
imperial involvement in the internal affairs of another
country. In an argument which sounds strikingly modern,
he asked,

What have we to do in the Soudan? Being there,
what is to be done? Might not a withdrawal from it
involve a sea of bloodshed greater than that which
seems imminent if we remain? Who knows what is best
in so perplexing a case? The evil lay in our first
interference, and the sooner we quit the place the
better if honourable engagements permit. Peace is
our duty.35

All this is not to say that he was opposed to the

more civilized nations of Europe bringing order, civili-

zation, and especially Christianity to the uncultured peOples

 

35The Sword and the Trowel, XXI, 1885, p. 147.

 

86

of Africa and Asia. He believed that England had a divinely
appointed mission to bring the blessings of the Gospel to
those races which remained bound by the afflictions of what
he considered to be ignorance and paganism. He firmly
believed that the Gospel alone could suffice to "civilize

the barbarian;' the Gospel could do far more than economics,

philosophy, or even education in raising the standard of
living in the underdeveloped countries of the world:

Preaching the gospel will effectually civilize,
while introducing the arts of civilization will
sometimes fail. Preaching the gospel will lift up
the barbarian, while attemgts to do it by philosophy
will be found ineffectual. 6

While we believe the gospel is ordained most of
all to bless man for the hereafter, yet the secularist
himself, if he were wise, must take some interest in
the progress of the gOSpel, for it is a blessing to
men even in this life. The great civilizer is the
cross. Nothing else can make the barbarian into a
civilized man, but the cross. . . . It is the power
of Gad, not only to salvation, but to civilization
too.

For Spurgeon, particularly in his younger years, the
blessings of civilization which accompanies the preaching
of Christianity were almost blotted out by the misrule of
imperial governments. The inconsistency of British mission-
aries trying to convert Chinese natives to the religion of
England while the British government forced the sale of

opium upon these unwilling people was as glaring and

 

36New Park Street Pulpit, VI, 1860, p. 485.

37:191-51'! IV, 1858, pp. 195-96.

 

87

offensive to Spurgeon in his day as it is to us in ours.
He believed it to be supremely hypocritical that those who
preached the Gospel of peace and love in India should be
countermanded by an imperial regime that sought to keep
"order" by militarism. Spurgeon concluded that Christian
missionary endeavors the world over would have been far
better off if the governments and armies of the home
countries had never interfered at all. He asserted that,

There would have been greater probability of the

Gospel spreading in India if it had been let alone,
than there has ever been since the domination of
Great Britain (in India). . . . I had rather go to
preach to the greatest savages that live, than I
would3ao to preach in the place that is under British
rule.

While the Victorians have often been castigated for
their hypocrisy (perhaps unduly so), here was one Victorian
who, though naively confident in the superiority of his
culture, was not blinded to the sins committed by his own
government in the name of civilization or even Christianity.
He saw through the excuses and lame justifications offered
by the Foreign Office for the annexation of people and land
and the misrule of these races; and he denounced his govern-
ment for exploiting others in the name of good, while the
real motivation lay in that nebulous enigma called "national

interests." While Spurgeon's altruism could have been dis-

astrous as a national policy, it was he, and men like him,

 

381bid., III, 1857, pp. 334-35.

88

who moderated the imperialism of the late nineteenth century.
Without these conscientious men who persistently raised the
cry of alarm, the Age of Imperialism might well have been
far more difficult for native peOples than it actually was.

One area in which Spurgeon was most outspoken in
his denunciations had to do with Disraeli's foreign policy.
Time and again he blasted Disraeli for acting in the
interests of the nation in general and the Conservative
Party in particular to the disadvantage of those smaller
nations who were too weak to resist the concentrated might
of Britain.

Disraeli was never one to let humanitarian princi-
ples obscure the political picture. As one looks back over
his colorful career, one is struck by the fact that his
primary motivation seems to have been his concern for
personal fame and prosperity. As Prime Minister, fortunately,
his own advancement and success was coincidental in his
thinking to that of the nation. His career was governed
by an almost irrepressible ambition for fame and power
which, at times, bordered dangerously on irresponsibility.
This is not to say that he was not responsible for construc-
tive policies. Indeed, his administration included some of
the most progressive social legislation of the century, but
one must keep in mind that this was not so much motivated

by a concern for the plight of the masses as it was an

89

attempt to save the Conservative Party by linking it to the
interests of the working classes who were of growing politi-
cal importance. Political expediency, then, was Disraeli's
interest; he simply could not understand these humanitarian
do-gooders who complained that he was acting solely in the
national interest. Indeed, what else was there to be con-
sidered?

For Gladstone and a great many other Englishmen,
along whom Spurgeon was most vociferous, there was much
more to be considered. They believed that there were
higher principles to be reckoned with, such as justice and
the right of nations to be free to determine their own
actions. To them, the Machievellian tenet that the end
justifies the means, that might makes right, was totally
averse to their conviction that higher, moral principles
must govern us all. Thus, when Disraeli managed to bully
Russia into giving up her claims in the Balkans in 1878,
ominous rumblings were heard from Gladstone and his fol-
lowers. When Dizzy announced the acquisition of Cyprus
there were more complaints. And when war broke out in
Afghanistan and South Africa against the local natives
there, in order to protect British interests in India and
Capetown respectively, Gladstone launched his thunderous
.campaign in Midlothian, Scotland, speaking against such

high-handed actions like a self-appointed Angel of Judgment.

9O

Spurgeon echoed Gladstone's denunciations in his
sermons, speeches, and publications. He was appalled that
England would "bully Russia, invade Afghanistan, pour out
our wrath upon the Zulus, and stand sword in hand over

against Burmah."39

At no time in the nineteenth century
was the righteous indignation of the Victorians more
thoroughly aroused than during this campaign and the subse-
quent General Election. The historian of this period
becomes inundated with the pious thunderings which came
from those rather haughty Englishmen who claimed to be
motivated by righteous principles. While many of these
citizens were sincere, or at least believed they were,
it is difficult for us to take them seriously, especially
in the light of the fact that only two scant years later
they gave Gladstone their blessing when he bombed Alexandria
and invaded Egypt on the basis of these same humanitarian
principles. Nevertheless, Disraeli was defeated in the
election of 1880 because he failed to realize the signifi-
cance of the Nonconformist conscience. Spurgeon complained
to his readers that Disraeli had sacrificed a policy of
righteousness and peace for one of "self and pride."
'British interests' are regarded as solid matters
of consideration, while humanity and justice are

treated as mere sentimental superfluities. . . . Time
was when high principle ruled British hearts, and all

 

39The Sword and the Trowel, XV, 1879, p. 338.

 

91

parties in the State paid homage to liberty, to justice,
and even to humanity; but now we are another peOple,
ruled by other lords. Can there be too much speaking
against this? Can Christians be too excited and too
eager to save their country from the evil which is now
dominant upon it? We think not.40

It is interesting to note that Spurgeon was not only
concerned with the injustices being delivered upon foreign
peoples, but he also believed a foreign policy of war and
imperialism to be unconducive to a healthy economy. He
linked the present unemployment and other domestic ills
to the fact that businessmen were afraid to make investments
or expand becauSe of the national insecurities which an
imperialist foreign policy brought with it.. Thus, as a
classic Liberal, he re-echoed the old policies of "peace,
retrenchment, and reform" as the key to prosperity and
righteousness.

It may be readily observed that Spurgeon did not
possess the secret to national success for Britain, nor
were his principles of foreign policy practical for any
society this side of the Millenium. It must be noted,
however, that the influence of Spurgeon and those like him
was a significant factor in the politics of the second half
of the nineteenth century. As politicians such as Disraeli,
Sir Charles Dilke, and Charles Parnell found out to their

chagrin, the Nonconformist conscience was not to be taken

lightly.

4°Ibid., XVI, 1880, p. 41.

92

Spurgeon and War

 

There was one other area of the political spectrum
in which Spurgeon's Nonconformist conscience drove him to
interesting conclusions. Regarding the spectre of inter-
national war, he was consistent and adamant in his opposi-
tion. In this conviction he neither modified his attitude
nor softened his language, for he never failed to be
appalled at the shocking spectacle of nations resorting
to arms and seeking to destroy one another.

Spurgeon's attitude on this subject is all the more
interesting in the light of the fact that conservative
Christianity has seldom been implacably opposed to war and
has tended to rally to the support of the reigning regime
when war has broken out. Perhaps Spurgeon's attitude would
have been different if Britain had been involved in a major
conflict during his career, but such was not the case. While
the first several years of his ministry coincided with the
concluding phases of the Crimean War, that fiasco failed
to win the patriotic support of many Englishmen, especially
after it was dragged out for such a prolonged period. The ~
fact remains that Spurgeon did oppose war and, while he was
not a pacifist in principle, in practical situations he
never failed to condemn the outbreak of hostilities. There
was not a single instance in which he supported violence

or warfare.

93

This is not to say that he was a passive person or
that he preferred a cowering attitude in personal or
national affairs. Indeed, one might aptly describe him as
being aggressive in personality. He recognized this trait
in himself and, while not altogether pleased with it, he
saw cowardice as an even greater flaw. Nor did Spurgeon
believe that the sanctity of human life was all-important.
He refused to be persuaded by the arguments of those who
asked for his support in their efforts to abolish capital
punishment. He believed the safety of the general populace
to be more valuable than the life of an individual in this
case. Nevertheless, Spurgeon could never find a cause great
enough, in his own lifetime, at least, to justify the out-
break of warfare. In his sermons and his publications one
is struck by the frequency of his comments regarding his
aversion to war and it is perplexing, to say the least, that
none of his many biographers has commented on this aspect
of his thought. Spurgeon himself believed it worthy of
continual repetition.

Regarding the Crimean War, Spurgeon expressed outrage
at the rejoicing which occurred at the news of the storming
of Sevastopol. His sympathies lay with those who perished
and suffered in the process for, "the death of an enemy is
to me a cause of regret as well as the death of a friend.

Are not all my brethren?"41

 

41New Park Street Pulpit, I, 1855, p. 293.

 

94

When war broke out in 1870 between France and
Prussia, Spurgeon denounced the bellicose attitudes of
Napoleon III and Wilhelm I. In an open letter to both
which he published in The Sword and the Trowel he asked

them,

Whatever do you see in fighting that you should
be so fierce for it? One would think you were a couple
of gamecocks, and did not know any better. . . Do you
fancy that your drums and fifes, and feathers and
fineries, and pomp, make your wholesale murder one
whit the less abominable in the sight of God? Do not
deceive yourselves, you are no better than the cut-
throats whom your laws condemn; better, why you are
worse, for your murders are so many.

Even General Gordon, the Bible-carrying general who
was such a hero to the pious Victorians, came under
Spurgeon's censure for trying to mix Christianity and
warfare. While Gordon did remind him of Cromwell, Spurgeon
still disliked "the combination of soldier and Christian
which leads to the shooting or hanging of men in cold blood."
Spurgeon went on to say,

It is almost treason to whisper that the hero's

spirit is at certain junctures more firm than gracious;
but it is so. . . . War is a horrible business, look

at it how you may; and nonetheless so because an
earnest believer finds himself able to figure in it.

43
Not only did he believe that the Gospel and war did
not mix, but he was convinced that the former would eventu-

ally mean the extinction of the latter. "Only let the gospel

 

42The Sword and the Trowel, VI, 1870, pp. 352-53.

431bid., xx, 1884, p. 508.

95

be preached," he told his congregation, "and there shall be

"44

an end of war. He was convinced that warfare stood for

everything that Christianity opposed. Once the Gospel was
embraced by the nations of the world, he was convinced that
war would cease to exist. What is more, Spurgeon, reflecting
the optimism of his times, was convinced that that day was
coming in the forseeable future. In one of his most force-
ful statements on the subject he eXplained to his congre-
gation,

And do we not believe that when the gospel is fully
preached, and has its day, wars must cease, to the end
of the earth! . . . I have a fond belief that the day
is coming, when Nelson, on the top of his monument,
shall be upset, and Mr. Whitfield set there, or the
apostle Paul. I believe that Napier, who stands in
the square there, will lose his station. We shall say
about these men, "They were very respectable men in
the days of our forefathers, who did not know better
than to kill one another; but we do not care for them
now!" Up goes John Wesley where stood Napier!"45

Spurgeon's abhorrence of war is most clearly shown
through the descriptive terms which he gives to it. He

described war as "a great crime--murder on a huge scale--

"46

and little less than hell let loose among men. Again

he referred to war as "an unutterable evil, a curse to hu-

manity, a pestilence to nations, and frequently an atrocity."47

 

4SIbid., IV, 1858, pp. 204-5.

46The Sword and the Trowel, VI, 1870, p. 433.

4711616., p. 107.

96

In conclusion, it is again best to let Spurgeon
explain his convictions in his own words as they can hardly

be improved upon. In a lengthy editorial from The Sword

 

and the Trowel, April, 1878, Spurgeon explained in detail
just why the spectre of war was so appalling to him.

At intervals the world goes mad, and mad in the
very same direction in which it had confessed its
former insanity, and resolved never to rage again.
England, at set seasons, runs wild with the war lunacy,
foams at the mouth, bellows out, 'Rule Britannia,‘
shows her teeth, and in general shows herself like
a mad creature: then her doctors bleed her, and put
her through a course of depletion until she comes to
her senses, settles her down to cotton-spinning and
shop-keeping, and wonders what could have ailed her.
A very few months ago it would have been difficult
to discover an apologist for the Crimean War, and
yet in this year of grace 1878 we find ourselves
surrounded by a furious crowd whose intemperate
language renders it almost a miracle that peace yet
continues. If they do not desire war, they are mere
bullies; but if they do desire it, they certainly
go the right way to bring it about.

The mistakes of former days should minister to the
wisdom of the present generation, for history is a
nation's education; it is, therefore, to the last
degree unfortunate when the people relapse into their
acknowledged errors, and repeat the blunders of their
sires. If our country has been fairly depicted by
the advocates of war, its condition is disappointing
to the believer in progress, and alarming to the
patriot who gazes into the future. We are still
pugnacious, still believers in brute force, still
ready to shed blood, still able to contemplate ravaged
lands and murdered thousands without horror, still
eager to test our ability to kill our fellowmen. We
are persuaded that a large portion of our fellow
citizens are clear of this charge, but the noisier,
if not more numerous party, clamour for a warlike
policy as loudly as if it involved no slaughter, and
were rather a boon to mankind than an unmitigated
curse. A mysterious argument, founded upon the
protection of certain mythical "British interests"
is set up as an excuse, but the fact is that the

97

national bull-dog wants to fix his teeth into some-
body's leg. . . .

What is the cause of these periodical outbreaks
of passion? Why does a peaceful nation bluster and
threaten for a few months, and even commence fighting
when in a short time it sighs for peace? The immediate
causes may differ, but the abiding reason is the same--
man is fallen, and belongs to a race of which infallible
revelation declares 'their feet are swift to shed
blood; destruction and misery are in their ways, and
the way of peace have they not known.‘ . . . Civilized
man is the same creature as the savage; he is washed
and clothed, but intrinsically he is the same being.
As beneath the Russian's skin you find the Tartar, so
the Englishman is the savage Briton, or plundering
Saxon, wearing broadcloth from the wool of sheep, but
with a wild, fierce heart within his breast. . . .
Doubtless some good runs side by side with this charac-
teristic of our countryman, and we are far from wishing
to deprecate bravery and valour, but at the same time
this is one of the difficulties which the peace advocate
must not fail to recognize. . . . Observe the bold dash
of the Irish, the stern valour of the Scotch, the
fierce fire of the Welsh, and the dogged resolution
of the English, and you see before you stormy elements
ready at any time to brew a tempest.

What then is to be done? . . . We would persuade
all lovers of peace to labour perseveringly to spread
the spirit of love and gentleness, which is indeed the
spirit of Christ . . . the truth as to war must be
more and more insisted upon: the loss of time, labour,
treasure and life must be shown, and the satanic crimes
to which it leads must be laid bare. It is the sum of
all villainies, and ought to be stripped of its
flaunting colours, and to have its bloody horrors
revealed. . . . War brings out the demon in man, wakes
up the hellish demon within his fallen nature. . . .
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.48

 

48l2iQ-p XIV, 1878, pp. 145-49.

98

Spurgeon's attitude concerning war was not particué
larly uncharacteristic of the nineteenth century. Europe
was blessed with a long period of relative peace between
Napoleon Bonaparte and Wilhelm II, and, while it would be
an.oversimplification to claim that the sole cause of this
phenomenon was the peace-loving tendencies of the Victorians,
all too often students of history have viewed the causes of
the first WOrld War as strictly a matter of faulty diplomacy.
Another factor which may well bear our consideration was the
increasing decline in the number of those influential
persons who, like Spurgeon, considered war to be the most
barbaric and devastating of national maladies. Perhaps
then we might better explain why the "Age of Reform" was
followed so closely by the "Age of Violence."49

In this chapter on Spurgeon and his influence in
politics one concluding emphasis must be made. Nowhere in
all of Spurgeon's sermons or publications does he ever
indicate that political ends take precedence over spiritual
ends. While it is true that he was vitally concerned about
political affairs and considered it his Christian duty to
make his mark in that area of his life, the end was always

the enlargement of the Kingdom of God. Never did political

49The Oxford History of England entitles its volume
on the nineteenth century The Age of Reform, while the New
Cambridge Modern History entitles its volume on the twentieth
century The Age of Violence.

 

 

99

considerations become an end in themselves. He believed
imperialism to be undesirable primarily because it actually
hindered the spread of Christianity; the established Church
was despised mainly because he believed the union of Church
and State was never intended by God and, in fact, stunted
the growth of the Church. He felt war was unconscionable
for a Christian, and that the best way to check its malig-
nant growth was to spread the Gospel of peace:
All soul-saving work is a blow at the war spirit.
Make a man a Christian, and he becomes a lover of his
race; instruct him, and he becomes ashamed of blows
and battles; sanctify him, and he sweetens into an
embodiment of love.5
He was convinced that it was imperative for Christian citi-
zens to make their vote count, but he was just as persuaded
that the pulpit should never serve as a rostrum for politics.
Ministers do well to give their votes and to
express their opinions for the guidance of the people,
but in proportion as the preaching becomes political
and the pastor sinks the spiritual in the temporal,
strength is lost, and not gained.51
Spurgeon was careful to keep that rare balance
between the spiritual and the temporal. While always willing
and ready to speak out on the political issues of his day
"for the guidance of the people," he never let political

concerns alone become his end. Politics were important to

him, but only because he believed every area of life should

 

50The Sword and the Trowel, XIV, 1878, p. 149.

511bid., XII, 1876, p. 305.

100

be used for the ultimate glory of God and, in that sense,
the political sphere was always subservient to the spirit-

ual.

CHAPTER III
SPURGEON AND EDUCATION

Public Education

The story is told by one of Spurgeon's biographers1
how a prominent judge and a group of lawyers happened to be
discussing the merits and faults of C. H. Spurgeon. As the
discussion continued, there arose a great difference of
opinion regarding his intellectual qualities and, in order
to resolve their differences, the judge, who was a personal
friend of Spurgeon's, invited them all to dine with the great
preacher so they could decide for themselves. Secretly the
young lawyers drew up a series of questions on obscure topics
in an effort to embarrass their colleague and to demonstrate
Spurgeon's lack of education. Spurgeon, however, although
totally unaware of the game that was being played at his
expense, so handled himself as to gain the respect of all
concerned. He not only exhibited a broad awareness of the
various subjects dealt to him, but he answered the questions
far beyond the expectations of the young attorneys.

Few of the men who really knew Spurgeon ever doubted

his intellectual ability. His personal library held almost

 

1G. H. Pike, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Preacher,
_Author, and Philanthropist, (New York:' Funk and Wagnalls
CBfipany,’l892), pp. 106-107.
101

 

102

ten thousand volumes and, although his major interest lay
in the realm of theology and ecclesiastical subjects, he
was sincerely interested in broader, more popular subjects
as well. In the book review section of his monthly maga-
zine, The Sword and the Trowel, one might regularly find
comments on Dickens, Darwin, and other notable writers of
the day. He was naturally curious and a voracious reader,
who, like his contemporary in the political world,
Mr. Gladstone, never travelled anywhere without a book to
read. This constant concern for his personal intellectual
development is reflected in the fact that Spurgeon's
sermons and writings alike display a keen awareness of
the issues of the day.

Spurgeon's interest in education was never merely
a personal matter. Much in the mode of nineteenth-century
thought, he was convinced, at least until the last few
years of his life, that society was progressing, and that
education played a key role in that progression. One of
the major concerns of his entire career was for education,
his desire that the whole of society receive the benefits
of a well-rounded education, which, for Spurgeon included
intellectual and moral instruction. Thus, he was vitally
interested in the Education Act of 1870 and was influential
in the battle for public education. His involvement in ‘

education motivated him to establish the Pastors' College

103

to provide for the education of Nonconformist ministers who
otherwise might never have received any formal training;

he founded an Evening School in the basement of his church
in an effort to combat illiteracy among the working classes
of London; and he created what he called the Colportage
Society, a book-distributing agency which sought to provide
the rural and urban poor with wholesome literature. For
much of the time these institutions were supported from

his own pocket and the financial responsibility of their
success or failure lay directly upon Spurgeon's shoulders
alone.

That Spurgeon was convinced that education was
imperative for the well-being of a nation almost goes with-
out saying. Education was the key factor in the intellectual
and moral development of a people, in Spurgeon's opinion.
Without a concern for the instruction of the young, a nation
would wither and die. Spurgeon voiced this conviction and

illustrated it in his book, Feathers for Arrows:

 

By order of Government the roads in Prussia are lined
on each side with fruit trees. Riding once, early in
September, from Berlin to Halle, an American traveller
noticed that some of the trees had a wisp of straw
attached to them. He enquired of the coachman what
it meant. He replied that those trees bore choice
fruits, and the straw was a notice to the public not
to take fruit from those trees without special per-
mission. 'I fear,‘ said the traveller, 'that in my
country such a notice would be but an invitation to
roguish boys to attack those very trees.‘ 'Haben Sie
keine Schules?‘ (Have you no schools?) was his

104
significant rejoinder. Rest assured, dear reader, tha
next to godliness, education is the mainstay of order.

As with every other aspect of his life, Spurgeon
sought to make his educational endeavors uniquely Christian.
His own philosophy of education was expressly Christ-centered.
In politics, in philanthrOpy, and in education, Spurgeon
was governed and motivated by Christian principles. ‘Thus,
it is not at all surprising to hear Spurgeon say, "Ever
since I have known Christ, I have put Him in the center as
my sun. Each science revolves around it as a planet, with
the minor sciences as satellites to their planets."3
Spurgeon's interest in public education in England was
not merely coincidental, but prompted by his desire to see
the system improved both academically and religiously.

It is more than difficult, to say the least, for
the twentieth-century student to grasp the unsophisticated
character of the English educational system scarcely one
hundred years ago. In this day and age of accrediting
associations and administrative bureaucracy, it seems
incredible that a country so advanced as Great Britain
had no system of national education whatever until 1870.

And yet the fact remains that while other countries in the

 

2C. H. Spurgeon, Feathers for Arrows; or Illus—
trations for Preachers and Teachers TLondon: Passmore and
Alabaster, 1884), p. 209.

 

 

3Geoffrey Shaw, "Navigating Educational Storms,"
Christian Teacher, Vol. 9, No. 2 (March/April, 1972), p. 14.

 

105

western world had developed such systems, education in
Britain remained, by and large, the privilege of the middle
and upper classes well into the nineteenth century.

The ignorance of the working classes of Victorian
England is phenomenal by any standards. Henry Mayhew
conducted one of the world's first scientific studies of
an urban area in the 1850's in his important work, London
Labour and the London Poor. In it he estimated that among
the working classes of London, less than ten per cent were
literate.4 His poignant conversations with mudlarks,
street cleaners, rag pickers, and prostitutes reveal a
level of education which seems almost barbaric. It was
common to find youths of both sexes who not only did not
know who or what the Queen was, but an alarming number who
had never even heard of God. Scores could not tell him
where (or what, for that matter) England was. It is not
surprising that with no system of public education for
these street urchins, their level of existence was degrading
as a whole. Mayhew, for one, was convinced that a lack 0f
just such a system was a prime factor in the crassness of
their existence.

The cause of the vagrant's wandering through the
country--and indeed, through life--purposeless,'

 

4Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor,
A Cyclopedia of the Conditions and Earnings of those that
Will Work, those that Cannot Work, and those_that Will Not
Work (4 Vols; New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1968TT
II PP. 20-21.

 

106

and ggprincipled, in the literal and strict meaning of
the term, lies mainly in the defective state of our
educational institutions; for the vagrants, as a 5
class, it should be remembered, are not educated.

Education in England, like almost all of her insti-
tutions, evolved slowly through the centuries, changing less
in response to rational planning than to overwhelming neces-
sity. Originally the only schools in existence were
operated by the Church for the preparation of priests. By
the fifteenth century a few select "public" schools had
been established for the education of the sons of the
nobility. Eton, and later, Harrow and Rugby, are examples
of such schools. American readers must remember that
British public schools were actually very private and
exclusive, including only those few who could qualify
financially. The only reason they were called "public"
was that they were not restricted to the training of priests,
but included secular training as well.

With the rise of the middle class during the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a growing concern
for the education of the sons of merchants and artisans. The
Reformation also served to increase interest in the education
of those Dissenters who wished for something more (or less)

than what established schools could offer. Thereby, the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a rise in

 

51bid., p. 370.

107

village grammar schools run by the local pastor or perhaps

by a resident scholar. Although crude by today's standards
in method and facilities, this system served to produce the
likes of Shakespeare, Bunyan, Wesley, and a host of others.
Education, however, was still generally unavailable to the

lower classes. '

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution the
plight of the working masses plummeted in reference to
education. Conditions were such that children were forced
to work endless hours almost from infancy, so that even if
a child were academically able, an education was practically
out of the question. Early in the nineteenth century the
Nonconformists established what became known as Sunday
Schools in an effort to curb illiteracy as well as irreli-
gion, but these feeble efforts hardly sufficed to provide
the answer to England's educational problems. In 1833
Parliament granted the Church of England twenty thousand
pounds for the education of the poor, but most of it was
squandered in an effort to teach children Church dogma by
rote.6 In 1839 the Radical politician, J. A. Roebuck,
proposed to the House of Commons that the education of the
poor become a matter for governmental concern and, perhaps
in response to this suggestion, the Commons established a

Committee of the Privy Council to control funds spent on

 

6Henry Townsend, The Claims of the Free Churches
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 1949).

 

108

public education. The bishops, however, in the House of
Lords scuttled this plan for fear that the Church would
lose control of education in the country.7
During the 1840's Parliament produced several sig-
nificant bills concerning public education in general and
the plight of children in industry in particular. In 1843
the House of Commons discussed a Factory and Education Bill,
which proposed to abolish child labor under eight years of
age. Children from eight to thirteen were to work only
six and one-half hours a day and go to school three hours.
Those over thirteen were not to work more than twelve
hours. However, religious differences served to defeat
this bill as the Tories wanted to turn all the schools
over to the Anglicans. Nonconformists were naturally
incensed at this and sent a petition stating their dis-
pleasure, which allegedly contained nearly four million
signatures.8 What resulted from all this was the Factory
Act of 1844 which created half days for children, but this
benefited public education little as the children were still
too tired and dirty to go to school.
The issue of public education in Britain has been
complicated by religious factors. Throughout the nineteenth
century, what was done regarding education was carried out

under the auspices of the various denominations. Prior to

 

71bid.

8Ibid.

109

1870, education was generally considered to be the responsi-
bility of the churches. Thus the various denominations
created schools of their own to try to stem the tide of
ignorance. Quite naturally they included religious instruc-
tion along with the "three R's."

During the 1860's, however, a number of Churchmen
and Nonconformists alike became aware of the pressing need
for some system of public education sponsored by the State.
Among the leaders in this movement was Dr. R. W. Dale of
Birmingham, who headed the National Education League.9 The
result of this agitation was the Education Act of 1870,
which, with all its shortcomings, was nonetheless a water-
shed in British education. According to this measure,
education was now required for all British children under
thirteen. Education still was not free, there were fees
for those who could afford them. The real problem in the
issue was the question of what was to be done with the
existing schools. Parliament decided that existing Church
of England schools were to be subsidized by public funds
and were to serve the public of the area in which they were
located. Naturally, Anglican doctrine would continue to be
taught. Nonconformists would be allowed to withdraw their

children if they wished, upon written request. Where

 

9Sir Llewellyn Woodward, The Age of Reform, 1815-
1870 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 483.

 

110

Church schools did not exist, School Boards were to be
publicly elected to provide for non-sectarian public edu-
cation.

The outcry that was forthcoming from Nonconformity
was indeed great. The Liberal Party was split over the
issue. The debates were long and heated for the issues
were complicated and confusing, as is often the case when
religious considerations are involved. Almost all agreed
on the need for a system of public education, but few agreed
on how it should be carried out. What abOut existing Non-
conformist schools? Should they receive State subsidy as
well? Should hhy_religious schools receive public support?
Should religion be part of the curriculum in the schools?
If so, what type of religion? Anglican? Presbyterian?
Baptist?

The squabble that resulted from all this was a
noisy one in which many leading dignitaries were outspoken.
It is not surprising, then, to find Spurgeon in the thick
of the fray. The issue of public education was a unique
one for Spurgeon in that it was one of the few pressing
problems which seemed to have him genuinely puzzled. He
was convinced that public schools were necessary if Britain
were to retain her position as a power in the modern world.
He was also convinced that religious instruction of some ‘

sort was imperative if the country were to maintain its

111

moral principles. Beyond that, however, he was unsure just
what the course of action should be. He explained to his
readers, "We have not spoken upon the Education Bill,
because we see no course prOposed 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."10

That Spurgeon supported the principle of public
education is indisputable. He believed, ideally, that
religion was an essential part of instruction, and there-
fore felt that the churches should be the agency for public
instruction. He was honest enough and pragmatic enough,
however, to realize that the churches had failed in their
efforts to educate the populace. The need for a State-
supported system of education, then, was undeniable. As

he told the readers of The Sword and the Trowel,

 

Are we to regard Sabbath-schools as the climax of all
Christian effort for the young? . . . The laudable
efforts of our tens of thousands of Sunday-school
teachers are a mere installment of the debt which

is due from the church of Christ to the little ones
around us. . . . Taking it at its best, and rating

it at its highest supposable value, we are Radical
enough to assert that it is not all that the children
of this age require, nay, nor one half of what might
be, and must be done for them if England is to become
a Christian country. Education of a secular sort has
been too long withheld by the bickering of rival
sects; the nation is now in such a humor that it will

 

10C. H. Spurgeon, ed., "Memoranda," The Sword and
hhe Trowel (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1870), p. 189.

 

 

112

have no more of such unenlightened bigotry, but will
insist upon it, that every child shall be taught to
read and write. Since the Sectarian system has in
England most evidently failed to reach the needs of
millions, a purely secular system will be established,
and will be thrust upon us whether we will or no.
There will be a great outcry about the divorcing of
religion from education, but we shall not join in it,
partly because it is useless to cry over spilt milk--
the thing must be, and there is no preventing it; and
yet more, because we see our way to a great real gain
out of a small apparent loss. . . . The present
teachings of our week-day schools is as we believe as
nearly as possible a sham, and a most mischievous
sham too, since it satisfies the Christian conscience,
and lulls to sleep energies which need to be aroused
to the performance of a much-neglected Christian
duty.ll

Spurgeon was at first convinced that the public
schools ought to be totally non-sectarian, and that meant
that religion ought to be absent from the curriculum. How-
ever, over the next several years he reversed this opinion.
He joined in the “outcry about the divorcing of religion
from education" in spite of himself. In June, 1870, Spurgeon
presided over a public rally held in Exeter Hall to discuss
the Education Bill. The body overwhelmingly adopted his
proposal that Bible reading be allowed in public schools
by the children of those parents who requested it.12 In
this he disagreed with Dr. Dale and the National Education

League which called for completely secular public education.

He was convinced that the government schools should not

 

11C. H. Spurgeon, ed., "Can Nothing More be Done for

the Young?" The Sword and the Trowel, April, 1868, pp. 147-49.

 

12"Memoranda,' July, 1870, p. 332.

113

teach "creeds, or catechisms, or denominational teachings;
but there must be liberty for children to read the Word of
God."13 This would be a privilege of those who requested
it, not the norm from which objectors might be excused.
"Our cry is undenominational education, but the Bible read
in the school by all children whose parents wish them to
read it; and these we trust will be the great majority of
the nation."14
Such was not to be the case, however. Education
did not become undenominational, for the government sup-
ported the Anglican schools. And in the government schools,
religious instruction became the general practice and not
just the privilege of those who requested it. Thus, a much-
needed system of public education was established, but
along with it, England received the seeds to deep-lying
problems which bore fruit in 1902 and served, in part at
least, to bring down the government. Forster‘s act of
1870, while it did not cause the ruin of the Liberal Party,
certainly served to strain the alliance between Gladstone
and Nonconformity which was to break apart eventually on the

shoals of the Irish problem.

The Evening School

 

Spurgeon was never unaware of the necessity of a

good education for preparing one to carry out his

 

l3"Memoranda,“ June, 1870, p. 285.

l4Ibid.

114

responsibilities in life. He was aware of the shortcomings

in his own formal training and continually endeavored to

overcome this handicap. As he explained it to his friends,
I had no college education. I do not say this by way

of boasting, far from it. I would have learned more

if I had had the opportunity, but, that not being the 15
case, I made the very best of the Opportunities I had.

It was his deeply held concern for education that
prompted Spurgeon to establish an Evening School in 1862.
This was primarily intended to provide for the education
of those adults who were either illiterate or lacking in
some phase of their basic education and could afford neither
the time nor the money to attend a regular day school. In
this, he was the forerunner of later government sponsored
schools with the same purpose. Spurgeon was nearly fifty
years ahead of his times in this respect. When, in the
early part of the twentieth century, the government began
to organize evening schools for the working classes, it
was able to gain from the experience of Spurgeon's school
along with those of several others who also saw the need
to offer basic education to those ambitious enough to avail
themselves of the opportunity.

Nor did Spurgeon limit these classes to reading

and writing. The curriculum also included a Bible class,

15W. Y. Fullerton, gharles Haddon Spurgeon, A
Biography (Chicago: Moody Press,71920), p. 21.

 

115

advanced English, elementary and advanced Greek and Latin,
a course in French, and lectures on science.16
The classes ran from one hundred fifty to two
hundred in attendance and necessitated the use of the base-
ment in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, as well as the building
which housed the Pastors' College close by. The connection
with the Pastors' College was a close one, for many of
those workers and artisans who graduated from the Evening
School went on to enroll in the College to study for the
ministry. And always, there were no fee charges which might
eliminate some struggling laborer trying to support a family.
Thus, hundreds were advanced from the ranks of unskilled
labor, if indeed they had been employed at all, and were
gratuitously granted an education which prepared them for

various phases of the ministry as well as other clerical

positions.

The Pastors' College

 

Of all the endeavors which Spurgeon attempted,
whether social, political, or spiritual, the one with which
he was most involved was his own college for pastors.

Spurgeon often referred to his college as his "first-born

 

16C. H. Spurgeon, Outline of the Lord's Work by
the Pastors' College and Its Kindred Organizations at the
Metropolitan Tabernacle (London: Passmore and Alabaster,
1867), pp. 36-37.

 

 

 

116

and best beloved."l7

He admitted that "this is my life's
work, to which I believe God has called me and therefore
(I must do it. To preach the Gospel myself, and to train
others to do it, is my life's object and aim."18

Spurgeon was convinced of the necessity of edu-
cation, not only for the masses of England's population,
but for those who would lead and guide the faithful as
well. Without an educated clergy, Nonconformity would
degenerate into a despicable case of the blind leading
the blind. As we have already pointed out, Spurgeon was
well aware of the shortcomings in his own formal education
and he was convinced that, in order to be most successful,
an education was almost imperative. Thus, Pastors' College
evolved to educate talented men who felt called into the
ministry, but were too poor or uneducated to acquire an
education in one of the established universities.

It was in 1855 (Spurgeon had scarcely been in
London two years and was merely twenty-two years old) that
the circumstances occurred which led to the establishment
of the Pastors' College. One T. W. Medhurst, a recent and
zealous convert, had been preaching in the open air in

Southwark, Tower Hill, and at Billingsgate Market. Two

of his converts were taken into membership at New Park

 

17W. Y. Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, p. 189.

 

lBIbid.

117

Street Church, and thus Spurgeon came to hear of this

young, rough-hewn preacher. Spurgeon called Medhurst into
his office and suggested that he begin to prepare for the
pastorate by studying under his personal guidance. Medhurst
gladly agreed, and arrangements were made for him to reside
with a local pastor where Spurgeon would visit him once a
week for several hours of private instruction. After six
months Medhurst received an invitation to pastor the congre-
gation at Kingston-on-Thames and, on Spurgeon's advice, he
accepted the call on a temporary basis until he had finished
two years of study. Spurgeon also made arrangements for

the church to defray the costs of his education (i.e. books,
room and board, and what paper and materials needed to be
purchased). When the first quarter had expired, Spurgeon
surprised Medhurst with the money he had secretly negotiated
on Medhurst's behalf, but Medhurst refused it. Spurgeon
then concluded "that as he had given the money to the Lord

for two years he must take a second student."19

Thus, the
Pastors' College came about and within two years there were
over forty students.

Spurgeon was convinced that Nonconformity could no

longer limp along with poorly-trained pastors, feebly

 

19G. H. Pike, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon (6 Vols; London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., N.D.),
Vol. II, p. 230.

 

118

attempting to minister to the needs of an increasingly edu-
cated constituency. As he explained to his own students,
There is a great educational advance among all classes,
and there will yet be much more of it. The time is
past when ungrammatical speech will suffice for a
preacher. . . . Want of education will hinder useful-
ness more than it once did; for when the speaker wishes
his audience to remember the gospel, they on the other
hand will remember his ungrammatical expressions, and
will repeat them as themes for jests.20
It was with this concern in mind that he began to provide
for the education of poor, but promising, young men in his
congregation. It is interesting to note that, for the first
several years, it was known as the Pastor's College, with
the apostrophe indicating that it was Spurgeon's special,
pet concern. It was only after several years that the
college grew to such a size as to warrant the hiring of
other men to carry out a task which had grown too big for
one man. Thus, it became known as a college for the
training of pastors and the apostrophe followed the "s"
rather than preceded it.

From the first, the Pastors' College was designed
to train the poor in order that they might minister to the
poor. Tuition, in Spurgeon's day at least, remained
entirely free. Spurgeon's desire was to attract the young

man who felt a desperate desire to preach but was too poor

to attend a university. Those who were to some extent

 

20C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Grand
Rapids: Associated Publishers and Authors, 1971), pp. 23-24.

 

119

illiterate were sent to the Evening School and prepared
for eventual matriculation into the college itself. There
they would receive a practical education which was intended
to prepare them for the ministry, particularly among the
middle and lower classes of society.

‘ Spurgeon himself went into great detail to explain
the specific nature of his college to his readers in The

Sword and the Trowel:21

 

1. Its object is not to make scholars, but preachers
of the gospel. Literary attainments are not
undervalued, nor discouraged, but opportunities
and means are furnished for their acquirement.
Instead, however, of being regarded as the chief
object of ambition, they are pursued as means to
an infinitely higher end. They are not considered
even to be indispensable. The great end as a rule
may be better secured with them; but in some
instances without them. . . . The present age
we consider to be one that demands earnest and
faithful preachers of the gospel, irrespective
of their literary titles and qualifications.

2. The instruction and maintenance of the students
while in the College, with very few exceptions, is
gratuitously supplied. Lodgings are provided in
families approved for that purpose.

Spurgeon felt the last point to be of particular importance
for he was fearful lest his College become a cloister or

a retreat from the "real world" in which his students would
have to labor. Thus, he insisted that they live in the
homes of working-class people of the area and keep in touch

with the everyday problems of life from which one might

become isolated if he were cloistered in an institution.

 

21The Sword and the Trowel, 1866, pp. 135-138.

 

120

3. The selection of candidates for admission is
principally determined by evidences of eminent piety,
of adaptation for public teaching, of great zeal for
the salvation of souls, and of instances of actual
usefulness.

In other words, the candidate had to demonstrate that he
had been "called" into the ministry and, generally he must
have been working in this capacity for at least a year or
two. Thus, the kind of student Spurgeon received was one
who was certain about what he wanted to do with his life
and convinced of his need for an education in order to carry
out that purpose in a more effective way. This type of
screening process is still carried on today at what has
come to be called Spurgeon's College. While this policy
has made for a small enrollment by modern standards, it
also allows for a mature and relatively dedicated student

body as well.

4. The course of study, as a general rule, is limited
to two years. In some cases, where favorable
openings for usefulness occur, and suitable
qualifications are possessed, this term is short-
ened; in others, in which studious habits pre-
dominate, it is prolonged. The recess from study
during each year is less than at other colleges, so
that the difference in the period of training is
not so great as it appears. The method of instruc-
tion too accomplishes more within a given time.
There are advantages in a much longer course of
study, but it has also its disadvantages; and the
latter tend so powerfully to cool the first ardour
for ministerial usefulness and to substitute human
learning for Christianity, that they often outweigh
the former.

5. The course of studies is greatly diversified. . . .
There is scarcely any department of theology, of
literature, or of science, that is not more or less

121

brought under notice. Should it be thought that
the acquirements upon all these subjects must of
necessity, on this account, be very elementary, we
hesitate not to say that facts prove it to be
otherwise. A larger amount of information may

be taken within a given time, with less fatigue,
and with an agreeable variety than without it.

It best harmonizes with the laws of the human
mind, which in their first operation tend to
generalization rather than abstraction. Let minds
be trained for great things at college rather than
accomplish them.

6. Calvinistic theology is dogmatically taught. We
mean not dogmatic in the offensive sense of the
term; but as the undoubted teaching of the Word
of God. . . . We hold to the Calvinism of the Bible.
Extreme views on either side are repudiated by us.
The cross is the centre of our system. . . . We
prefer the Puritan to modern divinity. . . . We
believe one of the secrets of the success that
has hitherto attended the students from this
College to be the doctrines they teach, and the
manner in which they enunciate them, as though
they believe what they say and wished others to
believe them too.

Regarding dogmatism in the Pastors' College, Spurgeon
rejected the method of education which raised issues, ex-
plained both sides, and left it an open question for the
students to decide. He noted that this was the case in
many institutions during the eighteenth century and the
result, so far as Spurgeon was concerned at least, was that
"Dissent became enervated with a faint-hearted liberalism,
and we had a generation of Socinians, under whom Noncon-

formity almost expired."22 Spurgeon was convinced that, in

 

22C. H. Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, Addresses
to Ministers and Students (London: Banner of Truth Trust,
1960). pp. 95-96.

 

 

122

almost every case, the answer was to be found, and if he
did not know it already, it was generally only a matter

of checking out the Puritan writers such as John Owen or
William Ames to find the issue dealt with and the answer

was forthcoming.

7. The manner of tuition is not formal and dicta-
torial, but familiar and fraternal. The dry syl‘
labus, technical phraseology, laborious writing
from dictation, and the necessity of consulting
numerous authors upon each subject in hand are
avoided. Lectures are delivered in a popular and
illustrative, rather than in a scholastic form.
Encouragement is given to free inquiry; and
discussion within reasonable bounds is permitted.

8. Extemporaneous speaking is encouraged and required.
Great efforts are made and opportunities are fur-
nished for improvement of this faculty. . . . The
reading of sermons is denounced . . . we do not
want sermons to be books, nor books to be sermons.

9. The Students have access to a large and a well-
selected library of both ancient and modern books;
and are frequently directed to those which best
supply the information they require.

10. The connection of the Student with the College
after they have left it, and with each other is
preserved, as far as circumstances will allow.

11. A devotional spirit is carefully cherished, and
many opportunities are afforded for its exercise.
The engagements of each day are commenced and
concluded with prayer. A prayer-meeting is held
one afternoon in the week. . . . To the element
of devotion we are much indebted for the internal
prosperity of the College.

12. The relation of the school to a large and active
Church, by which it is principally sustained,
and which takes a lively interest in its welfare,
is one special means of its prosperity. The
intercourse of the Students with the Members of
the Church contributes much to their social and
spiritual welfare.

123

13. To the superintendence of the Pastor, who is the
President of the College, with whom it originated
and upon whose responsibility it is sustained,

‘ the prosperity of the College, so far as human
instrumentality is concerned, is mainly to be
attributed. Much as he has been honoured in other
respects, he looks upon this as his greatest
work. . . . His counsels and continuous stimulus
to activity and zeal both to the Students and
Tutors. He is the personal and familiar friend
of each one.

The purpose, then, of the Pastors' College was to
train lower-class men, who were already involved in the
ministry in one way or another, "men of the people, feeling,
sympathizing, fraternizing with the masses of working-men,
men who can speak the common language, the plain, blunt
Saxon of the crowd."23 Spurgeon proposed to hone down the
rough edges of these eager, but untrained zealots, and then
to send them on their way, back to the middle and lower
classes of society from which they came.

It was one of Spurgeon's chief concerns to reach
the working classes of England who, he was convinced, were
generally irreligious, unchurched, and uneducated. As he
told his readers, "Our college is thrice happy in producing
brethren who reach the masses. . . . They speak from simple
language, hence the common people hear them gladly."24

Thus, as Spurgeon so often eXplained, it was never the

purpose of the College to produce scholars or gentlemen,

‘

23Autobiography, III, p. 129.

 

24The Sword and the Trowel, May, 1876, p. 203.

 

124

but to train preachers, hard workers who would be in touch
with the masses of society and whose greatest impact would
be among the working classes. In a very real sense, this
could be construed as Spurgeon's efforts to reform society.
He was convinced that the world would be reformed, not by
changing the system, but by changing the individuals who
comprised that system. Thus, individualistic evangelism‘
was the means whereby one might reform society as a whole.
Spurgeon was not alone in this enterprise. Among the many
philanthropists and reformers in this Age of Reform, Lord
Ashley, later the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was in the
vanguard. It was his conviction that

Nothing was adapted to meet the wants of the people

but the Gospel message brought home to their hearts,

and he knew of none who had done better service in

this evangelistic work than the pupils trained in

Mr. Spurgeon's College. They had a singular faculty

for addressing the population, and going to the very

heart of the people.2

It must here be noted that, although the general

tenor of instruction at the College was practical in nature,
the course of study required there was far broader than one
may suspect. While the areas of study centered around the
Scriptures, doctrine, and Church history, they also included

philosophy and ethics, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry,

zoology, geology and botany, language study in Greek, Latin,

 

25George C. Needham, The Life and Labours of Charles

 

H. Spurgeoh_(Cambridger Mass.: University Press, 1882),

pp. 156-57.

125

and Hebrew, studies in English literature, poetry, and

26 Thus,

composition, and practical oratory or speech.
while the education one might receive was primarily de-
signed to make one a successful preacher, it would also
serve to introduce many a worker's son to the arts and
sciences as well.

The question that, sooner or later, comes to one's
mind is how much all this cost and who paid the bills? As
to the latter question, for the first decade or so Spurgeon
himself paid the bills at his own expense. Through the
sale of his sermons and periodic fund-raising dinners,
Spurgeon managed to defray the costs of educating over
forty students a year. After he publicly and adamantly
denounced the existing system of slavery in the United
States, however, he found that the sale of his sermons
there plummeted. He was thereby forced to make the finan-
cial need known to his followers through his magazine, The

Sword and the Trowel.27 Spurgeon, nevertheless, remained

 

the sole person responsible for the financial welfare of
the college, and the burden increased as the school pros-
pered and grew in numbers and assets. The cost of
maintaining the school grew to average about £8000 a year
(in nineteenth-century terms, about $40,000), while the

number of students grew to more than one hundred.28

 

26The Sword and The Trowel, May 1887, pp. 205-211.

 

27Needham, p. 152.

28"Our Colleges," The Baptist, February 25: 1881-

 

126

At first they were housed in the Sunday school rooms
of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, but in 1873 they moved into
their own building near the Tabernacle. By 1879 they were
able to extend the average time of study to three years
instead of two. In time they were able to add qualified
instructors to the staff and gradually upgrade the quality
of education they offered. While maintaining the pragmatic,
Bible-centered emphasis, Spurgeon realized that "the gospel
and the Holy Spirit are with us long before human culture,
but, when we have these, the more a man knows the better."29

It is difficult to measure the effect of an insti-
tution such as the Pastors' College upon the society in which
it existed. There were a number of contemporary evaluations
which, although they lack the perspective of history, are
interesting and noteworthy in that they inform us what
sections of society in Spurgeon's own day felt about the

impact of his college. One such comment was expressed in

an editorial in The Daily Telegraph_in 1879. The editor

 

recounted the condition of respectful indolence of Church
and Chapel alike before Spurgeon arrived upon the scene.
In his opinion, both parson and preacher had been content
with the status quo up until this time.

If the Establishment was lifeless, Nonconformity was

dull . . . while vicar slumbered, the Dissenter slept.
Suddenly a change sprang up. Numbers of young men,

 

29"Preface," The Sword and the Trowel, 1879, p. III-

 

127

inspired by the teaching of MR. SPURGEON, went out into
the villages and hamlets, preaching a crusade against
indifference. Eyed contemptuously by the dignitaries
of the Church and coldly by the leaders of Dissent,
they were yet warmly received by the pessimists to
whom they appealed. . . .

The consequence was that 'local preachers' multiplied

all over the country, invading every district, and

fearlessly advocating the doctrines they professed,

until today there is scarcely a parish in England

which has not its conventicle or a village that can-

not show a band of earnest and conscientious Noncon-

formists with their little chapel and their favorite

preacher.3O

The editor went on to warn the Established Church

that Spurgeon and his followers offered a real and concerted
threat to their interests for, while there seemed to him to
be a gradual decline among the Anglican Churches, Spurgeon's
following increased each year, especially in the country

villages of the outlying areas.

Another contemporary source, the New York Examiner,

 

considered the appeal to the lower classes which the College
evidenced. This American observer stated,

Where do the students of the College come from?
Generally, as I have said, from the Tabernacle church.
. . . The great mass who attend the Tabernacle, what-
ever may be true of the exceptions, will be found in
the humbler of these sections of the middle class.
From this grade of the English people immense numbers
of young men flock to the preaching of Mr. Spurgeon.

These lower-middle-class preachers were generally

sent out to preach to their own level of society, or even

 

30"Editorial," The Daily Telegraphr May 9' 1879'

 

31The Sword and the Trowel, August, 1869. A quote
which was taken from a recent issue of the New York Examiner.

 

 

128

lower. It was Spurgeon's desire, as it was with John
Wesley a hundred years earlier, to be influential among
the common people, and he passed this concern on to the
students at the Pastors' College.

The perspective of history has served only to
magnify the impact of the college. A recent writer has
noted that "by the time Spurgeon died nearly nine hundred
men had been trained for the ministry. . . . They had been
instrumental in erecting scores of Baptist Churches (and
renovating many others) in and around London especially."32
Nor was this influence limited to southern England.
Graduates dispersed around the world to South Africa,

America, Morocco, and especially Australia and New Zealand.

The "Letters" department of The Sword and the Trowel showed

 

the effect of these zealous preachers. From virtually the
world over, letters poured in giving testimony to the
impact which the graduates of the Pastors' College were
making.

While statistics can often do more to cloud an
issue than to clear it up, in this case they may serve to
enlighten us. Spurgeon tried to keep a close eye on his
graduates and on the effect they were having in their

ministry. In order to do so, he asked them to send in

 

32Eric W. Hayden, A Centennial Histohy of Spurgeon's

 

TabernacTe (London: Clifford Frost Ltd., 1962), p. 18.

 

129

statistics of their ministries every year. Most complied
and, thus, we have a relatively accurate account of how

many pe0ple they ministered to and of the fluctuations in
membership over the years.33

As one can see, there seems to have been a high-
water mark in 1886 and a sharp falling off in the following
year. This was due to the Downgrade Controversy, in the
course of which Spurgeon removed himself and as many of
his followers as he could persuade from the Baptist Union.
Not all, however, agreed with him and so the drop in
numbers is due more to inner schism than to any loss of
zeal or effectiveness. In fact, although the total number
of members within the fellowship dropped by nearly nine
thousand, those who remained within the fold saw an
increase of over four thousand for the year 1887.

The influence of an institution is a difficult
thing to diagram or chart on a statistical table. While
the total number of people added to the rolls of the
churches within the fellowship between 1865 and 1892 was
157,412, this amount seems puny indeed in the light of
the more than thirty-five million who inhabited the British
Isles in 1891. In terms of percentage, that was less than
one-half of one per cent of the population of the United

Kingdom.

33The Sword and the Trowel, June, 1892.

 

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131

And yet, it is this writer's judgment that these
statistics leave the major part of the story untold. While
it would be foolish to claim, as some of Wesley's enthusi-
asts have done for him, that Spurgeon and his followers
averted a revolution by the conversion of the populace, their
influence was, indeed, far more widespread than one-half of
one per cent of the population. That statistic indicates
only those who actively joined the membership of one of
the churches within the Pastors' College fellowship. But
their influence, as the editor of The DaiTy Telegraph noted,
went far beyond their own membership. While the reputation
of the Pastors' College was never built upon the intellec-
tual giants it graduated or on the number of prime ministers
it has educated, the real influence it had was among the
lower classes of the urban masses and the country villages.
David Gracey, an instructor in the College, noted this fact
in an article written soon after Spurgeon's death.

The Pastors' College was founded pre-eminently in the
interests of 'the masses.‘ 'The Classes' had been
long and abundantly cared for by other Colleges in
the country. With instinctive wisdom, Mr. Spurgeon
perceived that the time of the masses had come, and
would come with ever-increasing fulness, and the
Pastors' College was his practical contribution for
spreading the divine leaven among them.34

What increase there was in the membership of the

various churches of England during this period, might well

34Ibid., p. 278.

132

be attributed, in part, at least, to the impact of Spurgeon
and his followers, and the "threat" which they posed to the
Established Church. English Christendom now began to realize
the importance of reaching the mass of the working people.
This was a vital concern of Spurgeon's from the very begin-
ning of his ministry, and much of his success can be attri-
buted to his lower-class appeal. Although the Established
Church and Nonconformity alike rebuked him for his "base
and degrading manner" which was, in actuality, merely a
familiarity or commonness in his approach to his congre-
gation, they too soon followed suit when they realized the
success which Spurgeon and the graduates of his college
enjoyed.

Although English Christendom failed, on the whole,
in its efforts to gain the loyalty of the working classes,
that little which was accomplished in this sphere was due
to men like Spurgeon and the working—class students of his
College who desired to see the masses educated, their
social condition improved, but, most of all, to see them

converted by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Colportage Society

 

In 1861 W. E. Gladstone, then the Chancellor of
the Exchequer of Palmerston's government, managed at last
to remove what he called the "tax on knowledge." By

lumping his entire budget proposal into one bill, he

133

forced the House of Lords to accept or reject the whole.
They wisely chose to accept it, and included within Glad-
stone's budget prOposal was the repeal of a tax on paper
which had served to make books and newspapers too expensive
for the lower classes. With the repeal of this tax there
was an increase of cheap literature on the market, designed
to appeal to the masses.

In the light of this fact, Spurgeon, prompted once
again by his concern for the education of the working
classes, established another great and costly institution,
the Colportage Society. In August, 1866, Spurgeon published

an editorial in The Sword and the Trowel entitled "The Holy
35

 

War of the Present Hour." It was this article which
spawned both the Colportage Society and Spurgeon's orphanage
at Stockwell. Spurgeon was aware that, because of the lifted
tax on paper, bad literature as well as good was in abun-
dance. He was convinced that the country was being "flooded
with printed paper of every kind, from what is enlightening
and elevating to the merest trash, and it behooves us to do

"36

our part in controlling the reading of the people. Not

only literary trash, but doctrinal error had to be combated,
and what better way than to mount a Tractarian Movement

among the masses?

35"The Holy War of the Present Hour," The Sword and
the Trowel, August, 1866.

 

 

36uC01portage in England--A Plea for Funds," The
Sword and the Trowel, May, 1879.

 

134

Spurgeon envisioned a society of "colporteurs" who
would sell good literature at reduced prices. The word
"colporteur" is French in origin and implies one who carries
or peddles his wares by hanging them about his neck. Spurgeon
hired six men to labor in the working-class districts of
urban and rural England, carrying their books with them in
backpacks, and seeking to sell their wares to families which
might not otherwise be able to afford them.

But a colporteur's duties went far beyond those of
a mere book peddler. He was to visit the sick and invalids,
counsel those who needed advice, preach sermons in chapels
that could not afford a preacher, and, in general, minister
to the needs, both physical and Spiritual, of those with
whom he came in contact. To them he was a preacher, mis-
sionary, psychologist, welfare administrator, educator and
much more, all rolled into one.

The official object of the Colportage Association

was the "increased circulation of religious and healthy

 

Titerature among all classes, in order to cOunteract the

 

evil of the vicious publications which abound, and lead to
immorality, crime, and neglect of religion."37 The Colpor-
teurs were to work on a fixed salary, travel from house to

house with their books and magazines, and perform other

37"The Official Object of the Colportage Association,’
The Sword and the Trowel, July, 1885, p. 386.

 

135

missionary services, such as visitation of the sick and
dying, and conduct meetings and open-air services as oppor-
tunities occurred.38
The administrative duties of the Association were
carried out primarily by Mrs. Spurgeon who, being an invalid
and unable to help her husband much beyond the confines of
her home, took it upon herself to keep the records straight
and send out the proper books to their appointed distri-
butors. It seems that, of all the institutions that Spurgeon
founded, the Colportage Association was one of the most

difficult for which to raise money. Hardly an issue of

The Sword and the Trowel would go by without a plea for

 

support.

The average yearly need for a Colporteur was between
£50 and £60. If the Association could raise £40 of yearly
support, however, they would send a new man into an area.
These Colporteurs were an interesting group of men. They
had to be, first of all, pious Christians, totally dedi-
cated to the kind of drudgery one would encOunter walking
from house to house in some rat—infested slum with his
books on his back. They were paid, not according to com-
mission, by a weekly salary which was fixed at 22 shillings
for single men and 24 shillings for those who were married.

The official publication regarding the qualifications of a

381bid.

136

Colporteur claimed that one not only had to be an able
speaker in order to conduct meetings, but

He will require considerable £393 in dealing with

various characters, and an undaunted spirit, to

persevere amid difficulty and opposition . . . good

physical strength is necessary to enable him to carry

a knapsack, with books sufficient for the day's sales,

over considerable distances.
The "sufficient strength" required for all the walking and
carrying one had to do might also have been used in self-
defense when tact failed to dissuade some of the more
choleric of those "various characters" one might encounter.

The work of a Colporteur was so varied that it is
difficult to describe the average laborer. Conditions and
circumstances would vary not only from worker to worker,
but depended also upon the type of locale in which he was
laboring. While performing similar tasks, the life of an
urban Colporteur would very likely be much different from
that of his colleague in the rural areas.
Every July the Colportage Association would hold

an annual conference in which statistics were taken,

comparisons were made, and the year was evaluated. In

the July issues of The Sword and the Trowel Spurgeon would

 

include a sampling of the letters he had received from
people who had been helped by the ministry of a Colporteur.

The letter here recited was chosen for its representative

 

39"Notes," The Sword and the Trowel, December, 1874:

 

p. 582.

137

qualities in order to depict the nature of the work of the
Colporteurs and the effect they often had upon the people
they worked with. In a letter signed simply, "A mother,"

the writer begins,

I think it will be a satisfaction to Mr. Spurgeon,
and those who are interested in the Colportage Society,
to hear a short account of what I saw of the good and
useful work being done in the cause of Christ by
Mr. Hodges (one of the Colporteurs) at Willow, a
village in the Isle of Wight. Here the first Baptist
church and Sunday-school were formed in the island
about one hundred and ten years ago. About forty
years have passed since my late father, the Rev. W.
Elliot, became the pastor and continued so for seven
years. During his pastorate the church was most pros-
perous, but after his removal to London it soon went
down, and many of the most useful and leading members
were lost to it either by death or removal. When I
visited the island six years ago, I went into the
chapel one Sunday morning just in time for the service.
There were but a few people, and there was no one to
lead the singing; at last an old woman with a feeble
voice commenced, but the songs were difficultly
sustained to the end. The Sunday-school had only
about fourteen scholars left, and the whole picture
was one of sadness; but what was my joy when about a
fortnight ago upon visiting the home of my childhood,
where I first heard the sound of the gospel, one
Sabbath morning, and taking my old place in the chapel
for worship, to see the whole aspect of things so
pleasingly changed, a full congregation of attentive
hearers, good vigorous singing . . . and there are
eighty scholars in the Sunday-school of which Mr. Hodges
is the admirable superintendent. He has a good Bible
class in active operation, he visits the people well,
and is much beloved and respected by them. . . . He
also holds services on the Sunday about two miles from
the village, in a very isolated spot. . . . Some friend
or friends have given a nice little donkey and cart, in
which he travels about, and takes his Bibles and
Testaments, and a good supply of religious literature,
and they say it is wonderful how many of each he
contrives to sell. The demand and thirst for them
all seems rather to increase than diminish, and I
think much of the revival in the church is to be

138
attributed to the indefatigable labours of Mr. Hodges,
whose heart is truly in his work.40

To be sure, not every Colporteur was as successful
as Mr. Hodges. Many either failed or gave up in despair.
What this letter does not indicate is some of the problems
which they were liable to encounter: town ruffians who
sought to make sport of pious booksellers, constant exposure
to inclement weather, and the exigencies which naturally
accrued to one trying to support himself and his family
on such a meager salary. And yet, the Association continued
to grow, and would have grown even more had people been more
willing to support it. The number of Colporteurs increased
from two in 1866 to ninety-five in 1891 when they sold over
eleven thousand pounds worth of literature and made almost
seven hundred thousand visits to families. The following
statistical chart manifests the growth of the Association.41

The type of literature which was distributed was
almost entirely religious in nature, with the majority of
the sales coming in Bibles and New Testaments. Spurgeon's
own writings, especially the humorous homilies of John
Ploughman, were naturally high on the list of sales. Other
items included religious almanacks, hymnals, and biographies.

While it is readily conceded that one would hardly prosper

 

4°Ibid., July, 1878, p. 352.

41"Annual Report of the Colportage Society," The
Sword and the Trowel, June, 1891, p. 362.

 

139

 

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140

trying to sell books of this exact type in this day and age,
it seems that the Victorians were eager for this kind of
literature. In 1890, for example, over 340,000 books were
sold by the Colportage Association, along with over 395,000
religious periodicals, and this to a largely working-class
clientele.42
The significance of all this, of the Colportage
Association, the Pastors' College, the Evening School, and
of his concern for a system of public education, is that
Spurgeon was vitally interested in both the religious and
secular education of all segments and ages of society. He
was concerned that pastors increase their knowledge by any
and all means possible. In promoting his wife's book fund,
which sought to supply poor ministers with important books,
he urged, "Let every preacher give diligent attention to
reading and meditation; let him become wise that he may
teach the people knowledge. Let him be much in the
library."43
Spurgeon was convinced that the prosperity of England
was in direct proportion to the health of educational con—
ditions within the kingdom. For this reason he sought to

encourage public education so that all classes might enjoy

the fruits of formal training; for this reason he sought

 

421bid., p. 370.

43"Mrs. Spurgeon's Book Fund," The Sword and the
Trowel, May, 1882, p. 218.

 

141

to raise support for the dissemination of good, and parti-
cularly religious, literature; and for this reason he
established an Evening School in order to train ambitious
men who could not otherwise have learned to read.
Education, in Spurgeon's opinion, was not only neces-

sary for the intellectual and moral health of the nation;
it was also vital for the propagation of the Gospel and
the conversion of individuals.

People must be taught. We must 'go and teach all

nations,‘ making disciples of them; and I know of

no way in which you can save men without teaching

on your part and discipleship on theirs.44

Education, then, for Spurgeon, was vital to the

nation, vital to the Kingdom of God, and essential for the
progress and well-being of the individual. If Spurgeon
had never established a single educational institution,
his concern for instruction would still have been obvious
by the regimen of his own life, for one could well claim
that nothing occupied his time more than his own personal
education as he read voraciously in his library, on the
trains between appointments, and before the fireside in
the evening at his home. His interest in the education of

others as well as his own self—instruction never stopped

until the day of his death.

44Needham, p. 182.

142

We ought not only to think of what we can do now for
God, but of what we may yet be able to do if we improve

ourselves. No man should ever dream that his education
is complete.

 

451bid., p. 179.

CHAPTER IV

SPURGEON AND PHILANTHROPY

Lower-Class London in the 1850's

 

The casual visitor to London in 1850 might have
found it difficult, indeed, to believe that he was visiting
the same city that had been so devastatingly described by

Dickens in his novel, QTiver Twist. Somehow the world of

 

Fagin and Bill Sikes bore little resemblance to the London
that tourists often saw and remembered. The bustle of
Picadilly, the historic tradition of Trafalgar Square, and
the gothic stateliness of the spires of Westminster and
Parliament have little in common with the ramshackle low-
lodging houses and the waterfront taverns of which Dickens
wrote.

And yet, the picture that Dickens portrays is not
entirely removed from reality. The world of the poor
houses, of professional thieves who had scarcely reached
puberty, and of young girls drawn into prostitution was a
very real and present aspect of city life in London in the
nineteenth century. Crime, poverty, disease, and over-
population were an integral part of everyday living for

thousands of Londoners in Spurgeon's day, for in the East

143

144

End and on the Surrey side, London's working classes
labored to keep body and soul together in the face of
tremendous obstacles which had become a natural fact of
life in this modern metropolis.

Fortunately for social historians of the period,
there is a very extensive description of lower-class
London in the nineteenth century, methodically detailed,
almost block by block, in one of the earliest endeavors
to conduct a sociological survey upon modern standards.
In 1850 Henry Mayhew began a study of the lower classes
of London society in which he carefully collected statistics
regarding the number, living standards, average income, and
other vital facts about what he labeled "London Labour and
the London Poor." Going beyond mere statistical data, he
laboriously recorded some of the most poignant interviews
one might ever find in a study of urban woe.

According to Mayhew, London in 1850 covered an
area of some 93 square miles which included 2,111,629
inhabitants.l While, according to the standards of the
nineteenth century, London was one of the most modern
major cities in the world, the scenes which Mayhew described
were indeed Dickensian in their luridness. He estimated
there were over 10,000 costermongers selling their various

wares on the streets of London. Of these, Mayhew concluded,

 

1London Labour and the London Poor, I, p. 159.

145

"They don't find a living, it's only another way of
starving."2 In politics, nearly all were Chartists; in
education, less than ten per cent were literate and most
showed an appalling ignorance of the most basic knowledge
except in business concerns. The costermongers on the
whole were morally faithful to their spouses with whom they
cohabitated without marriage simply because they could not
afford the ceremony. Religiously, however, less than three
per cent had even been inside a church,3 a fact that must
have shocked the average, "respectable" Victorian. While
these street-sellers worked from dawn to dark peddling
their wares, they seldom made enough money to enjoy a
balanced meal, for Mayhew noted that their normal diet
consisted primarily of tea and bread, or bread and grease
which passed for gravy.4
Some of Mayhew's interviews with these unfortunate

people border between the humorous and the pathetic. One
young lad, discussing religion with him related,

As for going to church, why, I can't afford it--

besides, to tell you the truth, I don't like it well

enough. . . . I never heard about Christianity. . . .

I have heerd a little about our Savior—-they seem to

say he were a goodish kind of a man; but if he says

as how a cove's to forgive a feller as hits you, I
should say he know'd nothing about it.5

 

2 4

Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 462.

3 5

Ibid., pp. 20—21. Ibid., pp. 40-41.

146

Another girl in the same line of work related how her father
once told her about the first man and woman who ever lived;
“it must have been more than a hundred years ago!" She went
on to explain,

They say in the Bible that the world was made in

six days. . . . I should have thought that England
alone would have took double that time.

If we cheats in the streets, I know we shan't go

to Heaven; but it's very hard upon us, for if we
don't cheat we couldn't live, profits is so bad.

Mayhew estimated that there were over 50,000 people
in London who made their living in the streets. He described
in great detail the squalor of the mud larks who waded up
to their waists in the slime of the Thames at low tide in
search for nails, bones, pieces of metal or, perhaps, an
old coin; these generally earned less than four pence a day.
He counted over two hundred sewer-searchers in 1850. These
peOple would roam through the sewers of London looking for
various objects that might be sold, but they seldom ever
earned more than £2 a week. New laws had recently been
passed to restrict their activities because many had drowned
or been attacked and killed by hordes of rats, and their
bodies were contaminating the sewer system.7 There were

other equally pitiful cases: dog-dung collectors who would

sell their day's collection to tanneries for curing leather;

 

61bidol p. 46.

7Ibid., p. 152.

147

bone-grubbers and rag-pickers, pathetic wretches who would
rummage through dung piles, back alleys, and garbage heaps
looking for bones, rags, and metal that might possibly be
sold. None of these earned much more than three shillings
a week and Mayhew tells how he had "often seen the bone-
grubbers eat the black and sodden crusts they had picked
up out of the gutter."8
These were certainly among the worst of London's

poor, but the story gets little better when one observes
the common laborers of the working-class districts. E.
Royston Pike cites a Parliamentary Study of 1863 in charac-
terizing the ignorance of the working classes of Bethnal
Green in which a match-box maker confessed that She,

Never was at school in her life. Never went to church

or chapel. Never heard of 'England' or 'London,‘ or

the 'sea' or 'ships.‘ Never heard of God. Does not

know what He does. Does not know whether it is better

to be good or bad.9

Next to domestic servants, manual laborers comprised

the largest single group within London's labor force, and,
of these laborers, the dockworkers formed a sizeable portion.
Nineteenth-century London was one of the busiest ports in

the world, and yet the laborers who were counted on to keep

British commerce moving were subject to the most primitive

 

8Ibid., p. 146.

9E. Royston Pike, Golden Times: Human Documents of
the Victorian Age (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), p. 119.

 

 

148

working conditions. The worst aspect of the situation was
the insecurity of the jobs, for underemployment placed all
the power in the hands of the employer. Men were hired as
jobs arose and fired as jobs were completed. Mayhew related,
The scenes witnessed at the London Dock were of so
painful a description--the struggle for one day's
work-~the scramble for twenty four hours' extra
subsistence and extra life were of so tragic a
character. . . . I have said that at one of the

docks alone I found that 1,823 stomachs would be
deprived of food by the mere chopping of the breeze.

10
Life, indeed, was difficult for many of the lower
classes of Victorian London. But things were even more
desperate for many of those who chose to pursue a life of
crime. Oliver was not all that untypical as the country
bumpkin, who became unwittingly drawn into London's under-
world. Mayhew noted that there were nearly three thousand
known thieves in London in 1860, and he estimated that
between twelve and fifteen thousand thieves were at large,
among which a number of pickpockets were known to be active
in the great crowds assembled at Spurgeon's new Tabernacle.ll
Crime in London as a whole seems to have been on the increase
in the first half of the nineteenth century as the number of
criminal internments increased on the average of 11.7 per

cent a year between 1805 and 1851.12

 

loLondon Labour and The London Poor, III, p. 307.

llIbid., IV, p. 276.

12Ibid., II, p. 320.

149

That Oliver could so easily be lured into criminal
activity by the wily Fagin and the engaging Artful Dodger
is not as incredulous as it might at first appear. While
Oliver's naivety is striking, Mayhew noted that it was not
uncommon for young children of London to be lured off the
streets and made captive for criminal purposes. White
slavery was a known phenomenon in Victorian London, in
which girls as young as ten years old would be captured
and turned into prostitutes. Girls from the Continent were
recruited with the promise of a job as a domestic servant
in London and were never seen again.

It would seem that prostitution was rife in Victorian
London, for the London Female Preventative and Reformatory
Institution calculated the number of prostitutes in London

13

alone to be around 80,000. Mayhew confirmed this figure

and noted how office girls and female factory operatives
would "quite commonly engage in secret, periodical escapades
as prostitutes."l4 When times got hard and money was scarce,
these female Victorian workers seemed to eXpress little
compunction in engaging in the world's oldest profession

in order to make ends meet.

Mayhew believed the low-lodging houses to be the

chief cause of crime among London's youth. Orphans and

l31bid., IV, p. XXXVIII.

l4Ibid.. pp. 255-57.

150

beggars, forced to seek the cheapest rooms during the night,
were thrown into these "dens of the worst crimes and
degradations." It was common for fifteen to twenty people
of both sexes to be crammed into a single room. There the
younger ones learned from their more eXperienced roommates
how to survive by crime. Mayhew polled an average low-
lodging house one evening to reveal the nature of these
breeding grounds for London's crime. It was a normal
evening in which sixty people inhabited the place. Of
these, thirty were confessed pickpockets, ten were beggars,
and ten to fifteen were dockworkers. The room offered no
means for washing, no toilet, and no ventilation. Sixty—
five per cent of the crowd were under thirty years of age
and eighty—five per cent were under forty. The sixty
lodgers had been imprisoned, at one time or another, 140

15 Thus, it is little wonder that crime was a serious

times.
problem among the lower classes of Victorian London, es-
pecially for those who had no home to return to at the end
of the day.

That crime was essentially a lower-class phenomenon
is hardly debatable. According to Mayhew, one in twenty-
eight laborers got arrested for larceny compared to only

one in 266 for the whole of London's population; one laborer

out of twenty-two was charged with drunkenness in 1848,

 

15Ibid., III, pp. 315-18.

151

while only one out of 113 of the total population was so
charged. Mayhew did not believe the chief cause to be
pauperism, for while one out of 159 of London's populace
were paupers, only one out of 140 paupers became involved
in crime or drunkenness.l6 Unemployment, underemployment,
and generally hard times were a fact of everyday life for
the lower classes of mid-Victorian London, and Mayhew was
convinced that crime was more related to this type of
destitution than actual pauperism.

At all events, life in Spurgeon's London was not
necessarily characterized by the Barretts of Wimpole Street.
For scores of thousands, life was a bitter struggle for
survival amidst the back-street woes of a great commercial
metropolis. These pitiful workers, upon whose backs the
strength of Britain's world empire rested, were considered
by many to be merely the unfortunate statistics in a laissez-
£21£§ society. The poor were relieved only if they were
utterly destitute, and then the cure was almost worse than
the disease, for conditions in the poor houses were made
such that they should compare unfavorably with those out-
side. The general attitude of the Victorian middle class
in such matters was characterized by the popular books of

Samuel Smiles, Self-HeTp (1850), Character (1871), and

 

 

Thrift (1875), in which it was argued that a man could,

 

l6Ibid., p. 234.

152

and should, by his own efforts, provide for himself and
his family. Poverty was seen as the result of laziness
or lack of frugality.l7
If the eighteenth century was the Age of Aristo-
cracy, and the twentieth century was to witness the ascend-
ancy of the common man, the nineteenth century was an era
in which the middle class came to predominate. Middle-class
values such as hard work, thrift, the home, and duty were,
ostensibly at least, accepted as the prime virtues of

Victorian society. In economics, these ideals were trans-

lated into a policy of laissez-faire individualism in which

 

the economic freedom of each member of society was deemed
to be more important than the general welfare of society
as a whole. If anything were to be done for the more
unfortunate people of the community, it would have to be
carried out by individuals as their conscience might direct.
Individualistic philanthropy, not sweeping social reform,
was the general method of counter-acting social problems
during most of the Victorian era.

In religion the predominance of the middle classes
had a curious effect. While, on the whole, it might be
said that religion and religious values were on the rise

during the greater portion of the nineteenth century, it

 

l7Kathleen Heasman, Evangelicals in Action, An
Appraisal of their Social Work in the Victorian Era (London:
Geoffrey Bleo, 1962), p. 6.

 

 

153

must be noted that little of this religious influence filtered
down to the lower classes. Religion became incrusted in the
warp and woof of the middle and upper classes. Christianity
was increasingly simply a matter of respectability; and

while church attendance was on the rise, one finds that

churches which were once located in the heart of the cities

were now relocating in the more fashionable suburbs.

Christendom seemed to have erected for itself its own
ghetto for the propertied classes, while concern for the
working masses was limited to philanthropic societies that
could be supported from the comfortable confines of suburbia.
W. C. Preston, in a popular pamphlet entitled The
hTtter Cry of Outcast London, voiced his outrage in most
insistent tones with the middle-class religious establish-
ment for its unconcern for the lower Classes of London.

Whilst we have been building our churches and
solacing ourselves with our religion and dreaming
that the millenium was coming, the poor have been
growing poorer, and the wretched more miserable, and
the immoral more corrupt. The gulf has been daily
widening which separates the lowest classes of the
community from our churches and chapels, and from all
decency and civilisation. It is easy to bring an
array of facts which seem to point to the Opposite
conclusion-~to speak of the noble army of men and
women who penetrate the vilest haunts, carrying with
them the blessings of the Gospel; of the encouraging
reports published by Missions, Reformatories, Refuges,
Temperance Societies; of Theatre services, midnight
meetings and special missions. But what does it all
amount to? We are simply living in a fool's paradise
if we suppose that all our agencies combined are
doing a thousandth part of what needs to be done, or
a hundredth part of what could be done by the Church

154

of Christ. We must face the facts, and these compel
the conviction that thisyterrible flood of sin and
misery is gaining on us?18

 

 

Mayhew, likewise, was convinced of the need for more

involvement by the religious in the problems of the poor.
He saw the working-class districts of London as the crucible
for the battle between crime and Christianity, the "great
arena of conflict between the powers of darkness and the
ministry of heaven."19 He saw little sense in the mis—
sionary zeal to convert natives of foreign lands,

when we have so many people sunk in the lowest depths

of barbarism round about our very homes . . . with

30,000 individuals in merely one of our cities,

utterly creedless, mindless, and principleless, surely

it would look more like earnestness on our parts if

we created Bishops of the New-Cut and sent 'right

reverend fathers' to watch over the 'cure of souls'

in the Broadway and the Brill.20

There are few who would argue with the assertion

that, of the little that was being done on behalf of the
poor by religious groups, most was being carried out by
those who called themselves Evangelicals. These Protestants
were primarily Nonconformists or low Churchmen who were
given over to theological conversionism (the belief that

a conscious religious conversion is necessary for salvation)

and usually held the View that the Scriptures were infallible,

 

l8Ibid., pp. 48-49, from W. C. Preston, The Bitter
Cry of Outcast London, An Enquiry into the Condition of the
ject Poor p. 1.

 

 

 

19London Labour and the London Poor, IV, p. XV.

 

201bid., I, p. 101.

155

if not inerrant. G. M. Trevelyan noted that for the poor
and destitute of Victorian sOciety, "no one but the Non-
conformist minister was their friend."21 Lord Shaftesbury,
the greatest philanthropist of the Victorian era, and a
Churchman himself, maintained in 1884 that "most of the
philanthropic movements of the century have sprung from

22

the Evangelicals." It was the Evangelicals who,

in their massive amount of philanthropy, emphasized
old needs, pointed to new ones and dealt, according
to their lights, with an enormous amount of destitution,
distress and degradation among the poorer groups in

the century. They set the precedent for many Of the
techniques which are followed today.

Dissenters played a prominent part in all of the
major social issues of the Victorian era--public education,
the Anti-Corn Law League, the Ten Hours Bill, and Chartism.
The Liberal Party drew a good deal of its support from the
Nonconformists of England and many of the policies of
nineteenth-century Liberalism.were greatly influenced by
Nonconformity. Lord John Russell was known to have said,

"I know the Dissenters. They carried the Reform Bill."24

The Evangelicals established missions in the

poorest districts of the City in an effort to reach the

 

21G. M. Trevelyan, English Social Histogy, A Survey
of Six Centuries: Chaucer to Queen Victoria (London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1942), pp. 476-77.

22Evangelicals in Action, pp. 294-95, from E.
Hodder, Life of Lord Shaftesbupy, II, p. 3.

23

 

 

 

 

Ibid.

24The Claims of the Free Churches, p. 155.

 

156

masses there. So great was their number that Charles Booth,

author of the many-volumed study of Life and Labour in

 

London, noted that mission houses were "more numerous than
schools or churches, and only less numerous than the public

houses."25

Not only were there mission houses, but orphan-
ages, alms houses for the elderly poor, ragged schools for
the education of poor children, and the ever-prevalent
plethora of committees and societies for everything from
the British and Foreign Seamans' and Soldiers' Friend
Society to the Hibernian Society for Promoting Schools
in Ireland.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon played a vital role in the
philanthropical endeavors of the nineteenth century. In
an age of social concern, philanthropy, and gradual reform,
Spurgeon was in the vanguard, not only in verbal support
of social activities, but also in his personal involvement.
From the first he was concerned to reach the poor, the
masses of society, the lower classes. His background was
that of a country boy from Essex; his first church was a
little country church attended by humble folk; and when
he arrived in London in 1854, he purposed that he would
endeavor to reach the humbler classes of the city. He
walked among the slums of the back streets of London; he

acquainted himself with the misery and woe of those

 

25Evangelicals in Action, p. 30.

 

157

destitute members of society; and he structured and worded
his sermons and writings to appeal to the masses. Henry
Mayhew had been convinced that one of the main reasons the
poor did not frequent the churches and chapels of London
was that, having heard nothing but "doctrinal lectures or
feverish mental effusions, they cannot see the application

"26 He advised

of these to everyday trade and practice.
those who would reach this section of society to "mold

your language to their ideas, get hold of their common
phrases . . . use yourself language which their unpolished
minds will appreciate."27 Spurgeon adopted this style of
preaching and instructed his students to do so as well.

He taught them to mix and mingle with the common classes,
learn their language, and sprinkle their sermons with lively
illustrations that would make the lessons of the Gospel

come alive to them.

Spurgeon was denounced by his colleagues in his
early ministry for "vulgarizing" the pulpit with his
homeSpun illustrations and his frequent use of humor, but
the success of his ministry soon served to quiet his pious

critics. More than one observer attributed his success to

his lower-class appeal.

 

26hendon Labour and the London Poor, I, p. 315.

 

27Ibid., p. 316.

158

But where are the artisan classes--that keen-eyed,
strong-minded race, who crowd the floor at political
meetings or cheap concerts, fill the minor theatres,
and struggle into the shilling gallery at the Lyceum
or Princess's? So very scanty is their attendance upon
the most noted preachers, that it is their adhesion to

Mr. Spurgeon which has made that gentleman a prodigy
and a phenomenon.

But Spurgeon was not content to reach those few who
happened to wander into the church where he was preaching,
nor was he satisfied with mere talk, no matter how inter-
ested the crowds were. He was convinced of the need tO go
to the peOple themselves, to reach them where they lived,

to become actively involved in their plight, to act as well

as talk.

It is no use waiting until one universal Charity
Organization scheme shall be carried out; we might
as well tarry till an organized providence drops
quartern loaves and pats of butter at every house—
holder's door. Schemes and plans are all very well,
but he who waits till a scheme has put a chicken
into his pot will go without a pullet for a life-
time. . . . We cannot be content to be pampered while
our brethren pine in want. Down with the barriers
and let the rich and poor meet together, for the
Lord is the Maker of them all.29

Spurgeon denounced the tendency of churches to with-
draw from the industrial centers of the cities and to
retreat into the complacency of the suburbs. It was with
that purpose in mind that he chose the cite for his Taber-

nacle near the Elephant and Castle, across the street from

 

28The Life and Work Of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, II,
p. 248, from The Evening Star, October, 1856.

29The Sword and the Trowel, XVI, pp. 17-18.

159

a busy tavern and in the heart of the working-class district
of the south side of London. It was among these common
people that he felt his true calling and it was with the
humbler classes that his main sympathies lay throughout

his life.

Spurgeon's Social Philosophy

 

As in every other aspect of human existence, so also
in the area of man's social needs did Spurgeon actively try
to apply Christian principles. There was no aspect of life
which lay outside the aegis of Christian involvement, no
area of human endeavor which was below the dignity of
Spurgeon, for he was convinced that religion, if it were
genuine, needed to be applied to every aspect of this life
on an everyday basis. "Religion must be intended for this
life; the duties of it cannot be practised, unless they are
practised here."3O Spurgeon's Christianity was no ethereal,
other-worldly or impractical religion, but a down-to-earth,
day-to-day application of the teachings of Jesus Christ as
he saw them. The Christianity that spoke only to a man's
spiritual needs was a religion divorced from its practical
aspect, and thence, devoid of one of its essential elements.
An eminently practical man, Spurgeon explained to his

readers that "those excessively heavenly people who cannot

 

30The New Park Street Pulpit, IV, p. 254.

 

160

condescend to such worldly work, ought not to eat their

dinners for that is a very fleshly operation."31
Spurgeon was convinced that Jesus intended social

as well as spiritual concern when he implored us to love
our neighbors ee ourselves. After all, he argued, how many
of even the saintliest believers neglect their own physical
needs in preference to their spiritual aspirations? Just
as one cares for his own body as well as his soul, so
Spurgeon was persuaded that Christians ought to care for
the physical as well as the spiritual needs of those around
them.

The Christian man should always be the helper of every—

thing which promotes the health and welfare of the

people. Christ was not only the bread from Heaven,

but the Giver of the bread of life to the poor and

needy. He fed thousands of the fainting with the

loaves and fishes. If all other hands be fast closed,

the hand of the Christian man should be always open

to relieve human necessity. Being a man, the believer

is brother to all men--rich and poor, sick and healthy--

and he should seek their good in every possible way,

aiming still at the highest good--namely, the saving

of their souls.

Thus, it is not at all surprising to find that

Spurgeon was not only involved in the political contro-

versies of his day and in the battle for the education of

England's working masses, but he was also vitally interested

 

31The Sword and the Trowel, IV, March, 1868, p. 100.

32C. H. Spurgeon, A Good Start, A Book for Young

Men and Women (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1898),

pp. 21-22.

 

161

in the social needs of his countrymen. It was this concern
that prompted him to begin an orphanage, first for boys,
and later for girls as well, which was second only to the
Pastors' College on his list of priorities. His desire
for the alleviation of social ills also led him to raise
money for hospitals, charities, poor funds, and alms houses,
to campaign openly for the abolition of slavery in America,
and the control, if not the prohibition, of alcoholism in
Britain. Spurgeon was convinced that anything less was to
fall short of the desires of Christ for His Church for,
"There are no poor in heaven whom we can comfort and visit.
. . . Religion must have been intended in the very first
place for this world."33
Almost without exception, when Spurgeon commented
on his conception of the nature of society, he revealed
an organic View of society. Society to him was like an
organism in which, when one part suffered, the rest of
the body suffered also. NO "class" (a word which he hated
to use) could be deprived of its expectations without the
other classes feeling the impact. As he told the readers

of The Christian Commonwealth,

 

The true welfare of a country is not that of a class,
but of the whole body corporate. The rich cannot
prosper without the poor, nor the poor apart from
the rich. The workman suffers if the master is

 

33New Park Street Pulpit, III, 1858, p. 254.

 

162

impoverished, the employer is a loser if the artisan

declines. Socially we are one body, and a sickly

member is an injury to the whole. . . . To benefit

the community we must seek the good of every indi-

vidual man, woman, and child; and for a nation to do

well, each individual must work righteousness.34

All this is not to say that Spurgeon detected no
differences in the various strata of society, nor could one
maintain that he sought to obliterate the classes. Indeed,
he not only recognized that there were various classes in
Victorian society, but, in his later career at least, he
advocated just such a societal structure and seemed to
stand against any over-ambitious attempts at upsetting
this system. As a young preacher he was far more appreci-
ative of the need to break down the system of classes in
England. He denounced her for having "a caste system
almost as strong as in Hindustan," and longed for the day
"when these shall be broken down, when the impulse of the
one blood shall be felt, and when as one family, each shall
love the other, and feel that one class depends upon the
other!"35
But one should notice that he only advocated the

breaking down of the barriers between the classes, not the

classes themselves. In a fuller statement on his views of

society he explained in more detail how the classes ought

 

34C. H. Spurgeon, "TO the Readers of the "Common-
wealth,'" The Christian Commonwealth, October 20, 1881.

35

 

New Park Street Pulpit, III, 1857, p. 305.

 

163

to feel a kinship between one another, but that each rank
ought to know and keep its divinely-appointed place:

Everyone of you (Englishmen) seek to cultivate a
generous spirit towards his neighbor. Let not the
rich Oppress the poor; let not the poor envy the rich,
let us all pull together, heart and soul, as being
brothers of one race; . . . My dear friends, let us
not think that our national prosperity must always
endure through the intrinsic excellence of our consti-
tution. No, our confidence must be in our God, and,
under God, in ourselves; in our honesty, in our
integrity; in our generous sympathy with one another;
in the keeping of each rank in its own place; in the
nonintrusion of any man into another man's rights:
in respect to property and respect to labour, in
respect to learning and respect to manhood . . . in
REFORM, but not in revolution; in Radicalism, so
far as to destroy everything that is radically wrong;
and in Coggervatism so far as to conserve every particle
of right.

Thus, Spurgeon believed the class system to be an
eternal part of English society, but this was to be no
excuse for class antagonism. There was no reason for the
upper classes to feel superior to the so-called lower
classes. "The world calls them inferiors. In what way
are they inferior? They are thine equals, really, though
not so in station."37

Spurgeon showed a colossal naivete regarding the
nature of man if he truly expected the poor not to envy
the rich or the have-nots to ignore or look kindly upon

those who had so much more. Yet, this was his simple

(indeed, simplistic) approach to the problem of class

 

36C. H. Spurgeon, Poland (London: Passmore and

Alabaster, 1864), p. 23.

37New Park Street Pulpit, III, 1857, p. 302.

 

164

conflict, as though it were enough to admonish the rich to
love their less fortunate brethren, and to implore the
poor not to deign to rise above their given stations.

It was with this naive conviction in mind that he
confessed in an interview with W. T. Stead that he had no
fear of Socialism. He had supreme confidence in what he

termed "the instinct of the masses" to recognize the

38

extremism which underlay Socialism. In his homespun

advice which was couched in the proverbial reflections

and observations of "John Ploughman,‘ Spurgeon laid down

his unsophisticated formula for England's class struggle:

As for lazy fellows who will eat till they sweat and
work till they freeze, I don't mind what short commons
they get, but a real hard-working man ought to be

able to get for a day's work enough to keep himself
and his family from hunger. If this cannot be done,
something is wrong somewhere, as the man said when

he sat down on a setting of eggs. I am not going to
blame the farmers, or the landlords, or the Parliament
men, or anybody; but the land is good and yields
plenty for man and beast, and neither horse nor man
should be starved.

If only the working classes would put in an honest
day's work, and if only their employers would be willing
to pay them satisfactorily for their labors, then there

would be no animosity between the classes and all, one must

 

38W. T. Stead, "Topics of the Day by Heroes of the
Hour," Pall Mall Gazette, Vol. XXXIX, No. 6015 (1884): p. 11.

39C. H. Spurgeon, John Ploughman's Pictures, or
More of His Plain Talk for Plain PeOple (Phila.: J. B.
Lippencott and Co., 1881), p. 52.

 

 

165

suppose, would be bliss. Spurgeon almost sounds like a
medieval scholastic with his talk of an honest wage and a
just price. Unfortunately, industrial society had become
too complex to deal with her ills as one would at a family
council, and men had becOme tOO aware of class discrepan-
cies to be cOntent with a gentle admonition to keep their
place.

Spurgeon was not content to limit himself to gentle
admonitions regarding the social ills of the times. He
was actively involved in meeting the needs of those less
fortunate members of Victorian society. As in the other
areas of his life, his words were not left unsupported by
deeds. His approach to Britain's social problems, however,
manifested little originality, for, like his contemporaries
in nineteenth-century England, Spurgeon was content to meet
these needs on an individualistic basis. This was charac-
teristic of the Victorians in general and the Evangelicals
in particular. To them, each individual was of infinite
worth; their concern was centered upon the individual and
his family, and rare was the philanthropist who stopped
to consider whether there were any basic principles under-
lying the conditions which they were trying to ease.40

Spurgeon placed little value on grand schemes

which proposed to end poverty, sickness, and despair by

40Evangelicals in Action, p. 20.

 

166

restructuring the social system. In typical Victorian
style, he was convinced that the problems of society lay
with the individuals of that society. "Hard work is the

grand secret of success. . . . Every man must build up

«41

his own fortune nowadays. If one could somehow motivate

the individual to work hard and honestly, society would
naturally take care of itself. Spurgeon explained this
well-worn theory to his congregation early in his ministry:

Others turn round and find fault with the whole
of society; they say that the whole organization of
Society is wrong; they tell us that everything which
melts men into commonwealths is all so bad that they
cannot be good while things are as they are. They
must have a revolution. . . . Ah! sirs you are putting
the saddle on the wrong horse, you are laying the burden
on the wrong back; the blame is in your hearts, nowhere
else. If your hearts were renewed you would be better;
but until that is done, if society were remodelled to
perfection . . . you would be none the better. . . .
But yet men will always be having it, that if things
were different they would be different too; whereas,
the difference must be made in themselves.42

Late in his career Spurgeon realized that his method
of social amelioration was becoming increasingly out of
vogue. Men like John Clifford in his own Baptist denomi-
nation and Hugh Price Hughes of the Methodists were calling
for changes within the structure of society itself in an

effort to ease some of the worst social ills. While

 

41C. H. Spurgeon, John Ploughman's Talk, or Plain
Advice for Plain People (New York: Sheldon and Co., N.D.),
p. 131.

 

 

42New Park Street Pulpit, III, 1857, p. 285.

 

167

Spurgeon was not implacably opposed to these schemes, he
saw them as being of secondary importance. To him the
only effective method was for an individual, prompted by
genuine charity, to meet the needs of other individuals.
Active involvement on a one-to-one basis was the only true
means whereby society's ills could be cured.

This is the age of proxy. People are not

charitable, but they beg a guinea from somebody to

be charitable with. It is said that charity nowadays
means that A finds B to be in distress, and, there-
fore, asks C to help him. Let us not in this fashion
shirk our work. Go and do your own work, each man
bearing his own burden, and not trying to pile a double
load on other men's shoulders.

Spurgeon put this theory in practice in his own
life. He personally began and sustained one Of the major
orphanages in England; he visited the sick, the poor, and
the elderly in London's working-class districts, seeing
to the alleviation of their needs as best he could; and
he gave away literally thousands of pounds sterling in his
life for worthy causes. Indeed, he was known as being a
"soft touch" for anyone with a real need, and, though
hundreds of thousands of pounds passed through his hands,
he left his own family with relatively little fortune at

all when he died. By that time his generosity was almost

legendary.

 

43C. H. Spurgeon, herbed Arrows from the Quiver
QTTC. H. Spurgeon (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1896),
p. 24.

 

 

168

One should not make the mistake, however, of judging
Spurgeon as a hopeless reactionary. Nor was he opposed to
any social Schemes which sought to get at the causes of
some of England's social ills. When General William Booth,
head of the Salvation Army, came out with a vast and complex
scheme by which English society, or at least the lower
classes, would be almost totally reorganized in an effort
to counter—act the ills of industrialism, Spurgeon came
out publicly in favor of the scheme and urged Christendom
to "carry out these plans with such modifications as they

see fit."44

Here was a plan which called for the mass
transportation of millions of men to colonies overseas,

land reform at home, and other changes of such sweeping
character as would astonish even those of us in the twentieth
century, and Spurgeon not only took it seriously, but public-
ly supported it.

Thus, we can see that Spurgeon was not averse to
sweeping social changes, but the fact remains that Spurgeon
felt individual conversion to be a more basic means of
"revolutionizing" society. He was convinced that "no
social plans will make our earth a paradise while sin still

curses it, and Satan is abroad."45 The basic problem of

society lay with the individuals that comprised it and the

44The Sword and the Trowel, XXVII, 1891, p. 34.

 

45Ibid., XXVIII, 1892, p. 87.

169

basic problem of each person is, in a word, sin. England's
social ills, then, had a spiritual basis, in Spurgeon's
mind, and, thus, all other measures were merely stop-gap,
dealing with the symptoms without proposing the cure. Indi-
vidual conversion was the only true answer to the nation's
social problems. If laziness was the basic factor behind
poverty, then lazy men needed their natures changed by

the power of the Gospel.

We hear a great deal just now about reforming men
and giving them a better dwelling. Good! Give them
more wages and good houses by all means. But you can-
not reform them in that way. Some men, if you put
them in comfortable dwellings and took them away from
all temptation to drink, would get to drink somehow
and turn their homes into pigstyes. Only faith and
a new heart will work any real good.

To Spurgeon, then, society's needs were not to be
met by grand social plans, although he was not adamantly
averse to these, but these problems were to be met by the
charitable acts of individuals. He expected that Chris-
tians would lead the way and "do their duty" to the poor
and outcast by supplying their most immediate physical
wants, and then endeavoring to get at the more basic cause
by meeting their spiritual needs with the life-changing
message of the Gospel. In this Spurgeon must be seen as
a Christian philanthropist and not as a social reformer, and

it is in this respect that he must be judged.

 

46The Daily News, November 12, 1883.

170

The Metropolitan Tabernacle
and Social Action

 

Perhaps one of the greatest testimonials to
Spurgeon's concern for social problems was the involvement
of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in a variety of endeavors
of this sort. From the very beginning Spurgeon's conception
of the purpose of his huge church was that it whould reach
the lower classes, the poor of London's urban masses.
Thus, it was located on one of the main thoroughfares in
the heart of the working-class section of London's south
side.

How can the poor have the gospel preached to them,
if they cannot come and listen to it? . . . If the poor
are to have the gospel preached to them, then we must
take it where they can hear it.

As to the sociological character of Spurgeon's
church, it is difficult to estimate just what percentage
were of the lower classes. We have the observations of a
number of visitors who came to see for themselves, but it
is somewhat unreliable to accept the cursory evaluation of
casual visitors as being conclusive evidence for one side
or the other. One thing is sure, though, that Spurgeon
was aware of the poor in his congregation, especially in

the first half of his career. As late as 1883 he reported

to the readers of his magazine,

 

47C. H. Spurgeon, The Autobiography of Charles H.
Spurgeon (4 vols.; American Baptist Publications Society,
1899), II, p. 311.

 

171

The number of the poor of the church is very
great, and quite out of proportion to the usual
condition of churches; hence the poor fund needs
strengthening. . . . It is our joy and honor to be
a church in which the working-class and the poor 48
abound; but this fact tries our finances sternly.

Other observers, on the whole, seemed to concur

with this evaluation. Although the active membership

seemed to get its leadership from the artisans and the
middle classes, the Metropolitan Tabernacle did have a
sizeable number of poor members. As one of the more

typical observers commented,

While waiting for the preacher, you glance at your
neighbors. In the pews are many who are thoughtful,

Christian people; there are scholarly and clerical men--

some of distinguished appearance--scattered throughout
the crowd, yet the first feeling of a well-bred New
Englander is a certain disgust. These blear-eyed

men, these loudly-dressed, coarse-faced women, these
poverty-stricken, unwashed street denizens thronging
around you--some in your very pew. . . . Spurgeon

has his Master's credentials. 'The common peOple

hear him gladly. The poor have the Gospel preached

to them.’49

The conclusion that Spurgeon's congregation was
comprised of a majority, or even a strong minority, of the
type Henry Mayhew described in his study of London's poor,
however, is an erroneous one. Particularly in the later
stages of his career, Spurgeon was aware that his congre-

gation was becoming increasingly middle class. As he grew

 

48The Sword and the Trowel, XIX, 1883, p. 148.

 

49Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Preacher, Author,
Philanthropiee, p. 319. The author quotes from the report
of a Rev. J. C. Fernald.

 

172

more famous, he became a regular tourist attraction for
London's visitors, and it was as imperative that the tourists
of Victorian London visit Spurgeon's Tabernacle as to see
the Tower or visit Westminster Abbey. His increasing popu-
larity with the middle classes seemed to detract from his
lower-class appeal. A number of observers in the 1880's
recorded this fact as they visited the church, and Spurgeon
himself seemed to become increasingly aware of the changing
character of his congregation. He looked around at the
masses who lived and worked near the Elephant and Castle
and longed to be able to reach them with the forcefulness
of his younger years. In a sense, he was a captive of his
own popularity with the middle classes.

This trend was born out by Spurgeon's periodic
request, every three months or so, that the regular members
of his congregation voluntarily stay home on a Sunday
night. The welcome would then go out to strangers and
those who might otherwise, for one reason or another, not
come to worship. The majority of these were from the
working classes and the services were invariably filled
to capacity. On other occasions Spurgeon would annually
speak to a congregation of costermongers or street-sellers,
and at other times his audience would be comprised of
butchers. Thus, he continued to strive to reach the poor
of London's society to the point of asking his increasingly

middle-class congregation to stay home.

173

One of the chief interests of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle, and of Spurgeon in particular, was its alms-
houses. In the days before Social Security and welfare
programs, the churches of England often took it upon them-
selves to care for their sick and elderly. Thus the alms-
houses of the nineteenth century were the predecessors of
our present homes for the aged. All too often, however,
these institutions went begging for it seems that then, as
now, society had a tendency to forget about those whose
years of productivity have ceased and who, later in life,
must be cared for without being able to offer much in return.
At all events, we seem to have the tendency to shuffle them
out of sight in homes or hospitals, and, hopefully, out of
mind as well. Such was not the case with Spurgeon. The
almshouses of the Metropolitan Tabernacle were a special
concern to him. They were originally built in 1803, when
the congregation was located at New Park Street, so when
they moVed to Surrey in 1862, there was a need for new and
larger almshouses. Upon the sale of the old church and
with the added donations of sympathetic friends, new alms-
houses were built close by the Tabernacle. In order to
accommodate the increased number of members, the new buildings
now included seventeen houses for the aged, a school for
four hundred children, and a headmaster's house.

Spurgeon, however, was still convinced that the

church's responsibilities were going unattended. In 1879

174

the congregation conducted a memorial service to commemorate
Spurgeon's twenty-five years in the ministry and he was
given the sizeable gift of £6,233. This "love offering"

had been intended for Spurgeon's own use, but he immediately
donated the entire amount to his institutions, the chief
part going to the almshouses.50 For years he had paid many
of the bills out of his own pocket and insisted that the
inmates be allotted five shillings a week for spending
money. (The British government as of 1962 only allowed

six shillings six pence for the same purpose.) Thus,
Spurgeon provided for the almshouses himself by using the
gifts which his congregation had intended for his private
use.

The social involvement of the Metropolitan Taber-
nacle was not limited to its own almshouses, however,
noteworthy as that was. Its members were directly involved
in a variety of other causes ranging from mission houses
in the slums of the East End to the inevitable committees
for various unfortunates. When Spurgeon compiled a history
of his church, he delineated these endeavors and their
impact on Victorian society. The list is indicative of the
way in which middle-class Victorians set about to solve

their social problems, and, thus, bears repeating:51

 

50Eric W. Hayden, A Centennial History of Spurgeon's

 

Tabernacle (London: Clifford Frost, Ltd., 1962), pp. 20—21.

 

51C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle: Its
History and Worh_(London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1876),
pp. 117-19.

 

 

175

The Tabernacle Building Fund: Over £5000 were kept
in a loan fund in order to provide interest-free capital
for chapels which were in debt or desired to expand. This
served as a nineteenth-century credit union for Noncon-
formist congregations.

MEP- Spurgeon's Book Fund: The pastor's wife

 

organized this committee and collected thousands of pounds
which were used to buy worthy books which in turn were
donated to poor ministers of all denominations to supply
their own libraries.

Mr. Oncken's German Mission: Through this organi-

 

zation the congregation fully supported two workers in
Germany.

Mr. Orsman's Mission in Golden Lane, City: This
mission, located in one of the worst slums of east London,
was one Of the largest and most enterprising works among

the poor in all of London.

Richmond Street Mission and Schools, Walworth: This

 

mission supplied Sunday and ragged schools for approximately

650 children. It was also involved in temperance and relief

works.

Green Walk Mission, Barmondsey: Again, schooling of

 

one sort or another was offered to about 350 children as well

as the general charitable works of a normal mission house.

James Grove, Peckham: This was a branch church

 

established by members of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in

176

a middle and lower-class district of the city. Schools for
the children of the poor were also established.

Egg Hampton's Blind Mission: This was a mission

 

established in 1872 to work with the poor blind. It pro-
vided as well for a Sunday School for blind children which
served about two hundred children.

Mrs. Thomas's Mothers' Mission: This was a mission

 

established to provide clothing, interest-free loans, and
other necessities for hard-pressed poor mothers. When

Spurgeon wrote about it there were about seventy women on
the books and the mission was expending about £70 a year.

The Tabernacle Sunday School: Before 1870 this had

 

included a "ragged" (daily) school as well. In the 1870's
it served over one thousand children and about 150 adults
with a library for children and teachers alike. Classes
were held in the basement Of the Tabernacle and the college
buildings close by.

The Baptist Country Mission: This was an attempt to

 

evangelize the country villages which were often too small
to support a church by themselves. Several churches were
begun by this mission, a number of which are still in
Operation today.

The Evangelists' Association: This was a society

 

of evangelists, working full time with the support of the

Association. These men were found "full at work in halls,

177

lodging houses, street corners, the Tabernacle steps," any-
where where they could gather a crowd to listen. While
their primary purpose was the proselytizing of the masses,
it must be remembered that, to Spurgeon and his followers,
this was the first step to alleviating the social needs of
people.

The Loan Track Society for the Tabernacle District:

 

This society was established in order to loan out tracts
and Spurgeon's sermons to the people in the immediate
environs of the Tabernacle. In addition, members of the
society would visit more than 2000 families every week.

The General Loan Tract Society: The self-appointed

 

responsibility of this society was to supply Spurgeon's
sermons to individuals in seventeen foreign countries.

The Rock Loan Tract Society: This society loaned

 

copies of Spurgeon's sermons to those who lived in isolated
country villages.

The Ordinance Poor Fund: Chiefly involved in dis—

 

tributing food and goods to the poor members of the Taber-
nacle, this society dispersed about £800 worth of property
yearly when Spurgeon wrote about it in the 1870's. Later,
however, it grew to handle approximately £4000 worth
annually.

The Ladies Benevolent Sociehy: This was a society
which was dedicated to making and supplying clothes for the

poor.

178

The Ladies Maternal Society: This was established
in order to aid pregnant women among the poor. They made
and distributed linen and clothing and aided these expectant
mothers in whatever way they could.

There sometimes might be a tendency for twentieth-
century skeptics to write off these endeavors as the trouble-
some meddling of pious do-gooders, and yet one must keep in
mind the enormous amount of good these concerned Victorians
did do. After all, there was no government bureaucracy by
which one's social conscience could (inefficiently) be
eased; if anything was to be done for the less fortunate
of society, it had to be carried out by conscientious indi-
viduals. It is a present-day paradox that the term "do—
gooder" has come to carry with it a bad connotation. To
those desperately poor of the nineteenth century, the efforts
of these "do-gooders" were indeed appreciated. If it had
not been for the concern of those earnest Victorians, the
sufferings which resulted from the worst effects of indus-

trialism would have been without relief.

The Stockwell Orphanage

 

The duty of each Christian to the mass of destitute
orphanhood is clear enough, and if pure minds are
stirred up by way of remembrance there will be no
lack in the larder, no want in the wardrobe, no
failing in the funds of our Orphan House.

 

52Northrop, The Life and Work of Charles H. Spurgeon,
pp. 163-64. This quote was taken from Spurgeon's Annual
Report on the Orphanage for the year 1877.

 

179

In August of 1866, Spurgeon penned an editorial for
The Sword and the Trowel entitled "The Holy War of the
Present Hour" in which he charged his readers with the
responsibility of reaching the masses of English society
in an effort to meet both their spiritual and physical
needs. Out of this editorial was born two of his worthiest
institutions: the Colportage Society and the Orphanage at
Stockbridge.

Within several weeks after this issue was published,
Spurgeon was surprised by a letter from a Mrs. Hillyard,
a widow who desired to donate £25,000 toward the establish-
ment of an orphanage for London children. Spurgeon was
hesitant at first and suggested that she give it to George
Mueller of Bristol where a sizeable orphanage was already
established. But Mrs. Hillyard insisted on giving the money
to Spurgeon, who reluctantly accepted the offer and related
the need for an orphanage in London to the readers of The

Sword and the Trowel.53

 

Within a year's time an orphanage was established
under the superintendence of the Rev. V. J. Charlesworth
with eight separate houses and a yearly budget of approxi-
mately £3000. In ten years it had grown to accommodate

over 230 boys. In 1880 a girls' orphanage was begun as

L

53Needham, The Life and Labours of Charles H.
Spurgeon, p. 207.

 

180

well, and by the year of Spurgeon's death (1892), 1,513
children had been brought up and instructed in the orphanage.54
The orphanage still exists today at Birchington, Kent, and
is now called Spurgeon's Homes. They relocated outside
London after the air raids of World War II had necessitated
the evacuation of all children from the city.55
While people were generally far more willing to

contribute to the costs of running a home for orphans than
for, say, the old people's almshouses, still the burden of
responsibility fell squarely upon Spurgeon's shoulders and
he would often pay what bills he could directly from his
own funds. Nevertheless, Spurgeon testified,

We have never been in debt yet, nor have we had a

mortgage upon any of our buildings, nor have we even

borrowed money for a time, but we have always been

able to pay as we have gone on.56

As one might expect, it was imperative that the

strictest economy be practiced at all times. While the
average cost per head of orphanages throughout England was
from $115 to $145 a year, the orphanage at Stockwell got

57

by on $72 per child annually. One might conclude that

the children were thereby denied adequate care, but such

 

54The Sword and the Trowel, XXVII, 1891, p. 486.

55Fullerton, Charles H. Spurgeon, A Biography,

 

p. 203.

56Needham, The Life and Labours of Charles H.
Spurgeon, p. 230.

57Ibid., p. 214.

 

181

was not the case. Indeed, a Parliamentary commission

returned glowing reports of the general success of Stockwell
orphanage:

The standard of Education is high, as one of the
avowed purposes of the institution is to get the boys
to take a good position in the world. There is a
general playhall and swimming bath, and it was stated
that nearly every boy was able to swim.

The standard of health is high. . . .

The institution has been ten years at work, and
the boys placed out in situations during that time
have, as a rule, turned out well.

In many respects, this excellent school affords
no ground of comparison with pauper institutions;
but the point to be specially noted is that the
family system, even in the modified form here adopted,
is stated to have been productive of undoubtedly
good effects.58

One of the unique features of the Stockwell Orphanage
was what has been referred to as the "family system."
Spurgeon insisted on establishing a non-institutional
atmosphere about the place. There were no uniforms and
no barracks. The boys lived as "families" in separate
houses with separate dorm parents or guardians. No more
than thirty boys occupied a single home; individuality
was encouraged and there were no regimented rules or
requirements. Spurgeon believed that children needed to
develop as individuals and fought hard to keep the orphanage

as unlike a reformatory as possible.

58The Sword and the Trowel, XIV, 1878, p. 512.
Spurgeon is here quoting from a report to the House of
Commons, July 15, 1878, entitled "Education of Children
(poor)."

 

182

Kittens will never make good cats unless they are
allowed to be kittens while kittenhood lasts. In
after life children who are kept under a cast-iron
rule break loose, and under the influence of a powerful
but natural reaction, frequently become the wildest
and most irreligious of men. . . . Our rule at the
Orphanage is firm; anything like sin is repressed with
a strong hand, and incorregibly vicious boys, who
sometimes get in among us, are weeded out when nothing
else will do, for our institution is not a reformatory
. . . but the boys engoy a large measure of freedom,
and fun, and frolic.5

It is noteworthy that admission was open to all
denominations and that, in fact, children whose parents
claimed membership in the Church of England comprised the
largest single group in the orphanage. Children were ad—
mitted between the ages of six and ten years and generally
were kept until sometime after their fifteenth birthday.
Upon graduation, the school tried to secure some type of
employment or apprenticeship for their students rather than
casting them out into the world without any means of
subsistence. On the average, only one out of every six

applicants was accepted. For unexplained reasons, un-

healthy, deformed, and imbecile children are not eligible.
Only children born in wedlock can be received."60
The education the children received at the orphanage

was among the best that Victorian society could offer.

Their curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic,

 

59Ibid., x, 1874, pp. 347-48.

6011510., XVII, 1881, p. 430.

183

grammar, history, geography, vocal music, Latin, science,
Bible, French, art, and music. The girls were taught
shorthand and the boys' education included military drill.61
With such a varied background, it is little wonder that
these children generally "turned out well" as the Members
of Parliament Observed.

While a majority of the children were from London
and the outlying areas, a growing number were received from
the countryside of England. The descriptions of "Typical

Cases Received" which were annually reported to the readers

of The Sword and the Trowel are pitiable indeed:

 

T. S. Evesham: One of five children under 13,

entirely unprovided for. Cause of father's death,

delirium tremens.

H. S. D. Romford: One of ten children, five under

16, mainly dependent on an older brother. Both

parents deceased. Father a solicitor's clerk.

D. L. Holborn: One of six children, totally

unprovided for, and dependent on the mother's

exertions. Father a cabman, killed by the horse

bolting into a hole in the road.62

Multiply these a thousand times over and you have

the Stockwell Orphanage. It is little wonder why one of
Spurgeon's special joys was to visit the institution where

he was royally welcomed as a great favorite of the children.

Thus, he often confessed that the joy he received by these

 

61Northrop, The Life and Works of Charles H. Spurgeon,

 

p. 154.

62The Sword and the Trowel, XXVII, 1891, p. 485.

 

184

visits was thanks enough for the effort that went into the

establishment and maintenance of such a work.

Prohibition and Slavehy

 

Two issues which had political repercussions as well
as great social significance were the problems of slavery
and alcoholism and its proposed solutions. The former was
of far less significance to the British people of Spurgeon's
day, being primarily an American enigma, while the latter
was considered by many to be one of Britain's chief social
ills. Spurgeon was outspoken on both issues.

Although the issue of slavery (along with Federalism,
states' rights, and a host of other complications) proved to
be the reef upon which the American ship of state was nearly
lost, in Britain the issue had long since been settled.

Under the leadership of William Wilberforce and his Evan-
gelical following, the slave-trade was prohibited in 1807

for British subjects or ships flying the Union Jack, and
finally, in 1833, slavery itself was abolished in the British
empire. It must be remembered, however, that while textiles
were an integral part of her national economy, there was no
single, important industry in Britain that was based upon

the institution of slavery as was the case in the southern
part of the United States. Thus, while Evangelical humani-

tarianism played an important role in the abolitionist cause

185

in Britain, there were few compelling reasons why slavery
should have taken root in Britain itself.

Such, of course, was not the case in America. The
economy of the South was based upon the cotton industry
and the cotton industry was believed to be essentially
linked with the system of slavery. It is interesting to
note how the religious establishment reacted to the problem.
In the northern states it was not uncommon for churches to
become involved with the abolitionist movement, while in
the South preachers developed detailed studies of the "curse
of Ham" and the inherent inhumanity of the Negro race as
taught by the Bible. The northern divines would point to
the first half of Acts 17:26 and note that God had "made
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face
of the earth," and conclude that the slavery of their black
brothers should therefore be abolished. Their fellow
clerics from the South would respond by quoting the rest
of the verse, "and (god) hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitatiOn," and warned
that any liberation of these bindings would surely result
in inter-marriage and eventual pollution of the white race.

Spurgeon was faced with a difficult decision in
the 1850's for a good deal of his popularity was in the
southern United States. Indeed, from the proceeds of the

sale of his sermons in America, he had managed to support

186

the Pastors' College. He was aware that any public de-
nunciation of slavery would dry up this important source

of revenue. Nevertheless, Spurgeon publicly scolded those
who would defend what he called the iniquitous institution
of slavery, especially those who claimed to base their
arguments upon Scripture. He was convinced, rightly or
otherwise, that, without the support of the Church, slavery
would wither and die.

It is the Church of Christ that keeps his brethren
under bondage; if it were not for that Church, the
system of slavery would go back to hell from which
it sprung . . . if there were not found Christian
ministers (?) who can apologise for slavery from the
pulpit, and church members who sell the children of
nobler beings than themselves--if it were not for
this, Africa would be free. . . Men have tried hard
to make the Bible support the sum of all villianies,
but slavery, the thing which defiles the Great
Republic, such slavery is quite unknown to the Word
of God, and by the laws of the Jews it was impossible
that it ever could exist.63

Needless to say, this kind of denunciation did

little to endear Spurgeon to the people of the American
South. In fact, upon the publication of his sentiments
regarding the issue, the sale of Spurgeon's sermons and

other publications fell off sharply in the southern United

States and he was forced to look elsewhere for support for

his college.64

 

63New Park Street Pulpit, VI, 1860, p. 155.

 

64Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, p. 110.

187

The issue of alcoholism and its debilitating effects
on the British working classes was a much more prominent
problem to Englishmen of the nineteenth century. While the
English have always been known to appreciate their ale, for
the lower classes, at least, it was a much more serious
matter. M. Dorothy George has asserted that the dramatic
rise in the life expectancy of Englishmen after 1750 was
due primarily to the passage of new and stricter laws

regarding the production of cheap corn whiskey.65

While
the problem was less severe in the Victorian era, there
were a number of reformers who wished to see alcohol prohi-
bited from the British Isles altogether. Such was the
desire of the Blue Ribbon Society and the Band of Hope
Association, to name only a few of the prohibitionist
organizations.

It must be understood that the problem lay deeper
than whether a man should be denied his daily pint of beer
at the local pub; drunkenness was a serious social problem
to Victorian society, and it was this problem which these
societies saw as their chief threat. Their concern was for
the worker who, out of boredom or despair, wasted what little

money he had on cheap liquor while his family went without

daily necessities of life. Henry Mayhew believed that

 

65M. Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth
Century (New York: Capricorn Books, 1965), p. 38.

 

188

alcohol played a central role in the misery of the dock-
workers of the river front and their families. During the
1850's the system had evolved whereby the publicans (tavern
keepers) also acted as the hiring agents of various dock-
loading firms. These firms desired the cheapest help they
could find and would ask the saloon keepers for names.
Thus, the publican had a great control over the dockworkers
and forced them to spend a great deal of their wages on
cheap beer in his saloon. Men who might want and need to
take their wages home would be forced to squander them on
liquor or lose their jobs.66

Nor was drunkenness a problem only for the dock-
workers. According to the criminal returns for London in
1848, one in every 110 citizens had been arrested for drunken-
ness, the vast majority being found among the laboring and
artisan classes.67

To many, drink was the prime factor behind Britain's
social ills and the only viable solution was total prohi-
bition. Evangelicals were again in the vanguard of this
movement and many a zealous temperance meeting was accompa-
nied by the singing of hymns and the inevitable sermon.

Spurgeon himself was never totally convinced of

the worthiness of total abstinence: he too enjoyed a pint

 

66hpndon Labour and the London Poor, III, p. 294.

 

67Ibid., p. 283.

189

of ale now and then Or a glass of wine in the evening.

This is not to say that he was not in sympathy with the
humanitarian motive which underlay the teetotalers'
endeavors. Indeed, he often loaned the various temperance
societies the use of his tabernacle auditorium for their
rallies. He was aware of the ill effects of drunkenness
and alcoholism and loathed it as the enervating disease
that it was for those who could not free themselves from
its grip, but he himself, and many other Englishmen as well,
could enjoy moderate amounts of liquor without becoming a
slave to it, and he hesitated to advocate total prohibition
for the whole of English society.

Spurgeon, however, eventually became a total ab-
stainer and donned the blue ribbon of the temperance move-
ment in 1887. He did so, not out of a conviction of the
inherent evils of demon rum, but in the hope that his
example would encourage alcoholics to do the same. "I
don't need it for myself,“ he explained, "but if it will
strengthen and encourage a single soul among the five thousand
that are here, I will put it on."68

Spurgeon could never do anything half way, however,
and once he joined the Temperance Movement he became one

of its most vocal advocates. He had already gone on record

 

68"Mr. Booth in London, A Daring Mission," The
Baptist, Aug. 26, 1887.

190

as being convinced that "next to the preaching of the
gospel, the most necessary thing to be done in England is

to induce our people to become total abstainers."69

When
he published the homey and popular collection of anecdotes
entitled John Ploughman's Pictures as the sequel to gehh_
Eloughman's Talks, he explained in the preface that the
chief purpose of the cook, which was directed to a lower-
class audience, was "to smite evil--and especially the
monster evil of drink."70 Thus, he became as strong an
advocate for temperance as he was a denouncer of slavery.
In evaluating the role that Spurgeon played in the
movement for social reform during the nineteenth century,
we must be careful to realize that he was a man of his
times. Victorian society placed a premium on philanthropy
as a means Of meeting her social ills; thus, Spurgeon's
efforts were characteristic of his day. He was actively
involved in a score of societies and institutions which
sought to meet the needs Of desperate individuals. His
church took on the same characteristics as its socially
involved pastor and was the center for a number of philan-
thropic activities. Nineteenth-century England was given

over to the conviction that society must be made better by

improving the individuals within that society, and in this

69The Sword and the Trowel, XVIII, 1882, p. 201.

70John Ploughman's Pictures, p. 3.

191

regard, Spurgeon mirrored the sentiments of his times. He
too was convinced that a better society was built brick by
brick, by improving individual members of the nation.
Spurgeon had little sympathy for those who saw the cure

in a new society system. Only in the case of General
Booth's proposal for a better England did Spurgeon openly
support an actual restructuring of society as opposed to
individual improvement.

In this regard Spurgeon's greatness lay in his
representative attitude. While his attitude toward social
problems corresponded to that of most middle-class Vic—
torians, however, his active involvement was all too rare
an exception to the rule. Spurgeon was an eminent Vic-
torian when it came to social action. He was a prime
example of nineteenth—century humanitarianism at its best.

Human nature being what it is, however, the Taissez-faire

 

society of nineteenth-century England was better charac-

terized by Mr. Gradgrind of Dickens' herd Times and Shuffle

 

and Screw of Disraeli's gyhiT, The Spurgeons and the
Shaftesburys were just too few and far between.

It is a temptation to speculate whether Spurgeon
would have come to see the need for a reordering of the
social structure of England if he had lived longer. Some
of his contemporaries, such as John Clifford and Hugh

Price Hughes, came to this conclusion, but they were leaning

192

in this direction years before Spurgeon died. In all
honesty, one is forced to admit that it is not likely that
Spurgeon's social views would have changed much at all with
the passing of time. He was not alone in these convictions,
however, for few others within the religious establishment
saw the need for social reform which dealt with the causes
of the problems and not simply temporary cures. Thus, when
it did come, when the common man finally did come to the
fore in the twentieth century, there was little sympathy
left toward the Christian establishment. If Spurgeon had
lived as long as many of his Victorian contemporaries, he
would have witnessed a decline of Christianity in Britain,
due in a great measure to the rejection of those very working-
class masses whose allegiance he had worked so hard to win.
What he had said to the General Assembly of the Free Church
of Scotland in 1866 turned out to be the bitter prophecy

of English Christendom for the twentieth century: "If you
do not win for Jesus what are called the lower ranks, your

work will fall to the ground."71

 

71§peeches at Home and Abroad by Charles H. Spurgeon,

 

p. 54.

CHAPTER V
SPURGEON AND HIS TIMES

Intellectual Trends in Late Victorian England

There was a strong paradoxical element in nineteenth-
century British thought which makes it difficult to charac-
terize. On the one hand, it was an age of dogmatic certainty
and confidence which was manifest in the way the Victorians
carved out a commercial and industrial empire at home and
abroad. This confidence was also evidenced in the cultural
egotism they evinced as they strove, first to conquer, then
to "westernize" the native populations of Africa and Asia.

And yet, in spite of this superficial confidence
and certainty, there was an underlying spirit of doubt and
criticism in Victorian England. At first this doubt was
limited to the luminaries of the age, the so-called intelli—
gentsia of whom Matthew Arnold was among the most articulate.
In 1867 Arnold poignantly described his own growing un-

certainty in his beautiful poem, Dover Beach. After having

 

described the way in which the moonlit sea has endlessly
washed upon the shore since the days of the ancient Greeks,
he applied the analogy to his own feelings of doubt and

uncertainty.

193

194

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.1

In this melancholy expression of the decline of

faith and certitude, Arnold foreshadowed the future of a
great portion of Victorian society. As the century de-
veloped, the impact of Darwinism was felt in science,
religion, and society as a whole. From the Continent, and
Germany in particular, came "higher criticism" of the Bible,
in which the authenticity, authorship, and accuracy of
Scripture was now placed under the careful scrutiny of
critical scholars. Dogmas which had traditionally been
held to be above criticism were being severely challenged.
Victorian thought was in the process of experiencing what
has been called a "Heraclitean Revolution," in that truth
or reality was no longer considered to be static and un-
changing as it had been thought to be ever since Plato and
Aristotle. Not only had historic truths been challenged,
but the very nature of Truth itself had changed. The
nineteenth century, with its concern for development and

progress (as evidenced by Marx in history, Hegel in

philosophy, and Darwin in science), now looked at reality

1Arthur M. Eastman, ed., "Dover Beach," The Norton
Anthology of Poetry, Matthew Arnold, 1867 (New York: W. W.
Norton and Co., Inc., 1970), p. 883.

 

 

195

as a changing, developing process, not a static body of
truths. Thus, it has well been observed that "while the
eighteenth century was satisfied with what it was, the
nineteenth century was satisfied with what it was becoming."2
This is not to say, however, that the average Vic-

torian was plagued with doubts. Of course there were
questions present in the back of his mind which bothered
him those moments of lonely reflection, but the average
Victorian (if, indeed, there was such a creature) was
usually too busy in his everyday activity to let such
questions keep him from his work. He still attended church,
for the sake of respectability if nothing else, and he still
gave at least a nominal acceptance to the teachings of
historic Christianity. The middle class especially con-
tinued to suppress what doubts they might have entertained,
for the anxiety that doubts brought with it did not lend
itself to productivity, which was essential to the Victorians.

The truth is that to a large extent the will to believe

overrode the desire to question, and private judgment

was renounced, both deliberately and unconsciously,

for external authority.3

And yet, the seeds of doubt were there and not every-

one chose to suppress them. On an increasing scale the dis-

coveries of science and Biblical criticism were being

2Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind,
1830-1870 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957),
p. 38.

 

 

3Ibid., p. 94.

196

accepted and the traditional beliefs were being seriously
challenged.

Perhaps the greatest and most widespread impact on
the Victorian frame of mind was the publication in 1859 of

Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species by Natural

 

Selection. In a mere decade Darwin's teachings had been
generally accepted, if not by the majority of laymen, then
by those who counted in the scientific world. Those who
continued to oppose Darwinism usually did so, not on
scientific grounds, but on a religious or emotional basis.4

It was not Darwin's concept of evolution that was
so unique. Indeed, geologists for some time had held to

evolution of one form or another.5

Darwin's importance lay
first of all in the overwhelming amount of evidence he had
so meticulously gathered in support of evolution and, even
more importantly, in his concept of natural selection.
Whereas evolution had many supporters before 1859, no one
really knew hey_things had evolved. It was Darwin who
supplied this "missing link" in the evolutionary scheme by

his theory of natural selection. Basically, this theory

taught that there was no overriding plan to nature, but

 

4Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian
hevolution (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc., N.D.),
pp. 307-309.

5Sir Llewellyn Woodward, The Age of Reform, 1815-
1870 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 573.

 

 

 

197

that things develop by chance occurrences which serve to
eliminate the weaker elements of life and perpetuate the
stronger.

It was this challenge to the eighteenth-century
concept of teleology that was the basic objection to Darwin
in the Victorian Age. The picture of "nature red in tooth

and claw,‘ as Tennyson described it, was in direct opposi-
tion to the finely wound watchmaker's Universe of the
Enlightenment. The real issue was not between creationism
and evolution, then, but whether or not there was any

order or design to a world engulfed in a desperate struggle
for survival.

Men asked how an omniscient mind which knows
precisely what is wanted can set Nature groping her
way forward as if she were blind, to find the path
of least resistance. And again, they ask how, if bad
only becomes good by steady starvation of the worse,
it is possible to see in this process the cherishing
love of a divine Creator.6

Throughout the nineteenth century and even into the

twentieth, the basic text in virtually all the divinity
schools and seminaries in Britain had been Bishop Paley's
lengthy work on "Natural Theology" in which God and His
universe were explained in teleological terms. Man's place

in the world is secure, for the God who cares for the spar-

row is in loving control. As Paley so graphically explained,

 

6R. H. Hutton, Aspects of Religious and Scientific
Thought, p. 48, as quoted in H. G. Wood, Belief and Unbelief
Since 1850 (Cambridge: University Press, 1955), pp. 52-53.

 

 

 

198

Nor ought we to feel our position insecure. In . . .
every portion of nature which we can descry, we find
attention bestowed upon even the minutest parts. The
hinges in the wings of an earwig, and the joints of
its antennae, are as highly wrought, as if the
Creator had nothing else to finish. We see no signs
of diminution of thought by variety. We have no
reason to fear, therefore? our being forgotten, or
overlooked, or neglected.

The third reason why Darwinism became so popular on
such a grand scale was that the idea of natural selection
and the "survival of the fittest" agreed with and supported
the Victorian social ethic. In economics, the system of
free trade simply taught that the best and strongest will
survive when the competition is free. In politics, the
rise of nationalism was the basis for an aggressive foreign
policy along the lines of Bismarck and Disraeli in which
only the fittest survive and prosper. With the rise of
imperialism, the social implications Of Darwinism provided
the basis for racism and exploitation. And, with the advent
_of militarism towards the end of the century, came the
belief that struggle was essential to progress and that
one ought, therefore, to prepare for conflict.8

Whether Darwinism produced the latter, or whether

these tendencies prepared the way for Darwinism, is

 

7Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Century: Evolution and
the Men Who Discovered It (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
and Co., Inc., 1958), p. 176

 

 

8Bryce Lyon, Herbert H. Rowen, and Theodore S.
Hamerow, A History of the Western World, Vol. III, The Age
of Revolution to the Present (Chicago: Rand McNally and
Co., 1968), p. 759.

 

 

199

difficult to say, but one can conclude that there was some-
thing in the spirit of the times which was conducive to
them all. Darwinism was utilized to provide an ideological
basis for nationalism, militarism, racism, war, violence,
monOpOly, and the cults of the supreme race.9 The scien-
tific theories of this quiet and shy naturalist were
beautifully adaptable to the prevailing sentiments of his
day and, thus, the impact of his thought in the realm of
science was extended to include much, much more than Darwin
intended.

Darwinism was not the only factor that was making
inroads into traditional beliefs. The historical criticism
which was leveled against the Bible has been viewed by many
as the ax at the root of evangelical Christianity. It was
the criticisms of skeptics such as Voltaire and other
eighteenth-century thinkers and, even more significantly,
the closely worked arguments of German theologians of the
early nineteenth century, which caused a shift in attitude
toward the Scriptures. Men such as Julius Wellhausen and
Abraham Kuenen displayed a deep knowledge and appreciation
for the Bible along with their criticisms of it in literary
and scientific terms. As the century wore on, an increasing
number of English scholars expressed their sympathy with

the conclusions of higher criticism. The first public

 

9Himmelfarb, p. 416.

200

manifestation of this attitude came in 1860 with the publi-

cation of a collection of articles entitled Essays and

 

Reviews, edited by Benjamin Jowett. It has aptly been
called "an attempt to let in fresh air by breaking a win-

dow."10

The outcry against the liberal views therein
expressed was almost deafening. Nevertheless, the generation
that followed grew less and less averse to the arguments of
higher critics. Prior to the 1890's, higher criticism had
made a great deal of progress, especially among the leaders
of Nonconformity but, owing to their tact and caution, the
masses of the church members had scarcely realized what was
afoot.ll
Evangelicals who resisted the teachings of higher
criticism claimed that the foundation of orthodox Christi-
anity was under attack. They argued that the Bible is
essential, and once it is subjected to the capricious
criticism of sinful men, Christianity loses the import of
Divine authority. Such was not necessarily the case, how-
ever, for it had been demonstrated many times over by the
turn of the century that one could hold to higher criticism

and remain orthodox in theology. A prime example was

W. Robertson Smith, a teacher of Old Testament in the

 

10H. G. Wood, p. 64.

llWillis B. Glover, Evangelical Nonconformists and
Higher Criticism in the Nineteenth Centupy (London:
Independent Press, Ltd., 19541, p. 151.

 

 

201

Free Church of Scotland, who was dismissed from his post
because of his radical views of Scripture in 1881 and con-
tinued to demonstrate his orthodoxy. At any rate, tradi-
tional orthodoxy was severely shaken by the arguments of
higher criticism.

Whether or not it had its roots in the attacks of
Biblical critics, there was a marked decline in orthodoxy
in the last half of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the
greatest factor in this decline was the concept of progress
and development which had become essential to the Victorian
world-view. The thinkers of the Enlightenment had also
been convinced that the world was improving and that the
condition of man was progressing. Thought in the nineteenth
century, however, was different from that of the Enlighten-
ment in that the concept of development was applied to
philosophical truths as well. The whole conception of
reality had changed. Until the nineteenth century, truth
was considered to be absolute, unchanging, and static, but
the Victorians were different in that they increasingly
viewed reality as a growing, developing process. History
was the prestige discipline of the last century, and
progress was one of the most venerated ideas. In 1851
one Victorian writer, taking pride in the spectacle of
the Great Exhibition, reacted in these adulating terms:

All who have read, and can think, must now have full
confidence that the 'endless progression,‘ ever

202
increasing in its rapidity, of which the poet sang,
is the destined lot of the human race.

It was this conception of progress and development
which lay the groundwork for the decline of orthodoxy, for
when it was applied to theology, it became antithetical to
historic Christian dogma. Traditional Christianity viewed
truth in absolute terms, stated in the uncompromising
edicts of the Scriptures and the creeds. The spirit of
meliorism of the day saw truth as a developing phenomenon
in which yesterday's truths could well be tomorrow's false-
hoods. Orthodoxy emphasized the depravity of the human
race, while the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries exhib-
ited a faith in the improvability of the human condition.
Thus, the decline of Christian orthodoxy in the last half
of the nineteenth century was due not only to Darwinism
and higher criticism, but also to the inherent conflict
between the spirit of meliorism or progress and the negative
aspectSOf orthodox dogma, along with its conception of
truth in absolute terms.13

Spurgeon's reaction to the trends of his times was

complex and often contradictory, on the surface at least.

 

12E. Royston Pike, Gelden Times: Human Documents
of the Victorian Age_(New York: Schocken Books, 1972),
p. 45. This was taken from an article on "The Great
Exhibition," The Economist, Jan. 4, 1851.

13Howard Murphy, "Ethical Revolt Against Orthodoxy
in Early Victorian England," American Historical Review, LX,
July, 1955, p. 817. Also see Glover, p. 71.

 

 

203

On some issues he was an optimist, while on others he was
very pessimistic; he believed in progress and unchanging
orthodoxy at the same time; he appreciated science but
despised the teachings of Darwin.

It is Spurgeon's attitude toward science which is
the easiest to describe. His personal philosophy was
strictly authoritarian, and final authority for him lay
in the Scriptures as historically interpreted. Although
he claimed to have read a good deal on the subject, Spurgeon's
rejection of Darwinism was seldom based on a scientific
examination Of the evidence, but on the contention that it
conflicted with divine revelation as he saw it.

But we shall not just yet fall down and worship
the image of human wisdom, notwithstanding all the
flutes, harps, sackbuts, psaltries, dulcimers,
weekly papers, quarterly reviews, and boastful
professors. Show us a man of science worthy of the
name, and then we will not follow him if he dares
to oppose revealed truth.

From the first doctor in the school of science
down to the last, error has not only been possible,
but almost unavoidable, from the limitation of human
faculties and the mystery of phenomena. . . . Yet
THE BOOK retains its impregnable position. If it
ever comes to a matter of decision whether we shall
believe God's revelation or man's science, we shall
unhesitatingly cry, 'Let God be true, and every man
a liar.‘1

14C. H. Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, Addresses

pe_Ministers and Students (London: Banner of Truth Trust,
1960), p. 100;

15C. H. Spurgeon, The Clue of the Maze, A Voice
Lifted Up on Behalf of Honest Faith (London: Passmore and
Alabaster, 1899), p. 54.

 

 

 

204

Spurgeon was convinced that Darwinism contradicted
the revealed account of Creation as given in the book of
Genesis and, if for no other reason, that alone was enough
to warrant its rejection. If scientists and geologists
wanted to believe in and spread the teachings of Darwin,
so much the worse for science and geology!

It is Spurgeon's conception of progress and develop-
ment that presents a far more complex and Often confusing
problem. This is because the implications of meliorism
take on different nuances when applied to different areas.
Generally speaking, Spurgeon denounced progress and develop-
ment when applied to theology, but he openly professed his
belief in progress as regarding the physical and social
condition of the human race. He was pessimistic regarding
man's ability to earn salvation (as a good Calvinist, indeed,
should be), but he was Optimistic that morality and religion
were becoming increasingly widespread.

During the first half of his ministry in London,
the chief target of Spurgeon's more barbed invectives was
usually either Roman Catholicism or what he referred to as

"Puseyism,' those high churchmen who emphasized ritual and
tradition within the Angelican Church. During the 1870's,
however, he changed his emphasis away from Romanism and

focused his criticism upon liberal theology. Spurgeon

was convinced that he was witnessing a decline in orthodoxy

205

which, if carried to its full extent, would destroy the
evangelical church. He voiced his concern that the Church
was on the verge of another theological "Dark Age" such as
there had been, in his opinion, just prior to the Refor-
mation.16 He was fearful lest the clamor for progress be
translated into theological apostasy.

There is a more dangerous spirit now abroad,
entering into Nonconformist churches, climbing into
their pulpits, and notably preventing the testimony
of some . . . by those who reckon themselves to be
men of culture and intellect. . . . Their theology
is fickle as the wind. Landmarks are laughed at,
and fixed teaching is despised. 'Progress' is the
watchword, and we hear it repeated ee nauseam. . . .
It is too often progress from the truth7 Wthh being
interpreted, is progressing backwards.

As Spurgeon approached the twilight of his career
he became increasingly aware of the trend toward liberal
theology. Spurgeon, of course, had little patience with
the higher critics of Scripture. He was convinced that
once one begins to challenge the authority and accuracy of
Scripture, one's whole theology is then placed upon a
foundation of shifting sand. Although he did not use the
term "inerrancy" in discussing his views of the Bible,

there is little doubt that he held to it, whether explicitly

or implicitly. He referred to Scripture as "the infallible

 

16Ibid., pp. 79-80.

17C. H. Spurgeon, ed., The Sword and the Trowel, A
Record of Combat with Sin and Labour for the Lord (London:
Passmore and Alabaster, 1865-92), XIII, 1877, pp. 195-96.

 

206

"18

revelation of God. "Of what use is the Bible to us,"

he inquired, "if it is not infallibly inspired by the Holy
Spirit? An erring guide is as bad as none at all when a

19 He believed the Old Testament

step may lead to ruin."
to be just as inspired and infallible as the New, and had
little patience with scholars who doubted the authenticity
of the Pentateuch and the prophets.

But even more alarming to Spurgeon than the attacks
of higher criticism was the departure from what he knew to
be the orthodox "doctrines of grace." He expressed his
dismay at the prospect of Nonconformists who no longer
believed in the eternal punishment of the damned, and he
was even more distraught with those who denied the tradi-
tional view of the Atonement and the very deity of Christ.
During the last five years of his life, no other theme
arose more often than that of his concern over theological
apostasy. And yet, to be fair, one must understand this
to be his natural reaction to what has been called the

"Downgrade Controversy,‘ one of the most perplexing episodes
in Spurgeon's life.
It has already been stated that Spurgeon was neither

a controversialist nor a bigoted sectarian. Indeed, up

until 1887 he had been one of the central figures in a

¥

18Needham, The Life and Labors of Charles H.
Spurgeon, p. 192.
19

 

The Sword and the Trowel, XIX, 1883, p. 359.

 

207

general movement to soften the differences between Non-
conformist denominations. He had been an active member of
the Evangelical Alliance and the Liberation Society, both
inter-denominational organizations. On the whole, his
attitude had been one of kind COOperation with other
Evangelical brethren and his pulpit had been opened to a
number of speakers of various denominations and doctrinal
positions. To view Spurgeon as a super-sensitive and
intolerant sectarian, looking for a fight with anyone who
might hold a different doctrinal conviction is to ignore
the greater part of his career.

How then is one to explain his actions in the Down-
grade Controversy? There simply is no easy answer to this
puzzle. In brief, the Downgrade Controversy began when,

in the March issue of The Sword and the Trowel, of 1887,

 

there appeared an unsigned article entitled "The Down-
grade“ (J. C. Carlile ascribes the article to the Rev. R.

20 The article described the defection of

Shindler).
eighteenth-century Nonconformists from Calvinistic doctrines.
In this issue Spurgeon merely attached a footnote pointing
out the timeliness of the article.

By the time the April issue was published Spurgeon

had been inundated with letters asking whether he believed

—_¥

20J. C. Carlile, C. H. Spurgeon, An Interpretative
§Tography (London: The Religious Tract Society and the
Kingsgate Press, 1933), p. 245.

 

 

208

the Wesleyans (known for their Arminian theology) to be
apostates. Spurgeon replied in his "Notes" that he believed
the real struggle was with "modern thought" and not with
Arminianism.21 The issue also contained a second article
on the "Downgrade" which was even more Calvinistic than the
first, and claimed that the heresies of the eighteenth
century stemmed from a denial of the authority of the
Bible.22
Finally, in August of the same year, Spurgeon him-
self wrote an article claiming that doctrinal apostasy was
prevalent among Nonconformists of his own day. He went
on to question "how far those who abide by the faith once
delivered to the saints should fraternize with those who

have turned aside."23

Spurgeon's rather narrow views served
to confuse the issue for many. His insistence on a Calvin-
istic form of orthodoxy caused many Arminians to misunder-
stand the core of his complaints. He seemed to assume that
one doctrinal error necessarily leads to another, and, thus,
if a man disagrees on one point of orthodoxy, his whole
theology must be erroneous. Spurgeon also clouded the issue

with his personal prejudices in that he insisted that

theatre-going was on a par with doctrinal heresy. He even

 

21The Sword and the TroweT, XXIII, April, 1887,

p. 196.

221bid.. pp. 166-70.

23Ibid., p. 400.

209

managed to alienate Joseph Parker, the famous pastor of
the City Temple, on this issue.24
The criticism which Spurgeon received as a result
of this article seemed to bring out the worst in him. It
was as though he had wandered out on a limb and, rather
than soften his accusations, he belligerently insisted on
sawing the limb off. He received every Objection to his
charges as though they were gauntlets cast in challenge
to his honor and veracity. He denied that his illness,
which had been severe for some months, had caused him to

be overly pessimistic, as The British WeekTy had claimed.25

 

Finally, in the October issue of The Sword and the
Trowel, Spurgeon replied to his critics by quoting some
liberal thought in the press and reaffirmed his desire to
avoid personal attacks in the controversy. He concluded
by announcing his intention to withdraw from the Baptist

Union.26 He was prompted in this action by information

 

24This unfortunate disagreement became published
abroad when both men ungraciously answered one another
publicly. While Spurgeon was less gracious in his
denunciations of Parker, Parker was less judicious in
publicly printing his wounded reply. (See W. Y. Fullerton,
Charles Hadden §purgeon, A Biogrephy, and Glover,
Eyangelical Nonconformists and Higher Criticism.)

25G. Keith Parker, "The Downgrade Controversy in
Nineteenth Century England," The Quarterly Review, Vol.
XXXII, No. 3 (April-June, 1972): p. 47. This is one of
the fairest treatments of the subject.

26

 

 

 

Ibid.

210

which Samuel Harris Booth, who was at that time the secretary
of the Union, had provided regarding the heretical views of
a number of ministers within the Baptist Union.27 FOr
Spurgeon, this was all the "proof" he needed to support
his claims.

Unfortunately, when the Baptist Union Council met
in December to discuss the situation, Booth refused to
inform the members of his correspondence with Spurgeon.
When Spurgeon was asked to support his general charges
with specific instances, he asked Booth whether he could
use the information he had given him. Booth asked him not
to "as a matter of honor."28 Spurgeon honored this request,
but as a result the Council publicly registered its complaint
regarding Spurgeon's actions, which seemed to them to be mere
trouble-making without substantive support. Spurgeon inter-
preted this action as a public censure and the breach was
made, both sides being wounded beyond repair.

Spurgeon subsequently received much criticism; he
was lampooned as an inquisitorial buffoon, a heresy-hunting
pope, and an outdated bigot. Many of these attacks were
grossly unfair, but to the casual observer it was difficult

to View the issue with much charity. Spurgeon tried to

27Carlile, p. 246. See also A. C. Underwood,.h
History of the English Baptists (London: The Carey
Kingsgate Press Ltd., 1947).

281bid., p. 50.

211

take his vast following with him when he pulled out of the
Baptist Union, and a good number joined him. One glaring
exception was his own brother who managed to stay in the
good graces of both sides.

Throughout all this furor, Spurgeon's invectives
against the "new Theology" were both prolific and scathing.
He was convinced, in fact, that English Christianity was
on the verge of a "Downgrade" and saw himself as the boy
with his finger in the dike, holding back the floods of
heterodoxy and liberalism. There is little doubt that
Spurgeon was correct in his observation that the winds of
change were blowing in the religious world, but that the
decline of orthodoxy was the basic factor behind the decline
of religion in England is a difficult thesis to substantiate.
Theological liberalism had been around long before 1887 and
was generally widespread by 1900. Still, the London Baptist
Association reached its zenith in terms of numbers as late as
1907. Even as late as 1925, the number of members in the
Association was less than two percent feweIchan it had

been in 1907.29

One might better describe the decline of
religion in Britain in sociological terms, for the Church's

failure to win the lower classes resulted in disaster when

 

29W. Charles Johnson, Encounter in London: the
§tory of the London Baptist Association, 1865-1965 (London:
Carey Kingsgate Press, Ltd., 1965), p. 46.

 

 

212

the twentieth century witnessed the ascendency of the common
man.

It is indeed, unfortunate that Spurgeon has so often
been judged solely on the basis of his involvement in the
Downgrade Controversy. Modern fundamentalists have mistaken-
ly claimed him as their patriarch because of his defensive
and narrow sectarianism in this tragic episode in his life,
while theological liberals have viewed him as the champion
of bigotry of the most unenlightened kind. Neither View
is historically accurate for they are drawn from generali-
zations based on Spurgeon's last, disease-ridden years.
Spurgeon in these years was so overcome with pain and
pressure that often he could not preach and was forced to
withdraw to the quiet and solitude of southern France. It
was while he was in France that some of the worst effects
of the Downgrade Controversy developed, because he was
removed from the scene and had to rely upon rumors, news-
paper clippings, and correspondence. The Downgrade Contro-
versy was essentially a personal issue of unfortunate conse-
quences in which neither side was willing to concede and
thus, both parties were driven into Opposing camps. As one
observer has noted, Spurgeon "was a broken man, the martyr

of a cause that got out of hand on its own Down Grade."3O

 

30Parker, p. 50.

213

All this is not to say, however, that Spurgeon ever
considered changing his own theology to respond to the
spirit of the times. Indeed, he took pride in the fact that
his basic message had not changed in the years of his minis-
try. As he explained in an interview with a newspaper
reporter,

In theology I stand vhere I did when I began preaching.
. . . If I ever did such things, I could preach my
earliest sermons now without changelso far as the
essential doctrines are concerned.
This, in fact, was true. Although he shifted his emphases
to meet what he considered to be the needs of the time (i.e.
the shift after 1870 from anti-Puseyism to anti-liberalism),
the core of his theology remained that of orthodox Calvinism,
and the cure for man's spiritual ills never ceased to be the
atonement of Jesus Christ. Spurgeon never was, nor ever
claimed to be, a theological innovator. He was "content to
live and die as a mere repeater of Scriptural teaching, as
'a person who never thought out anything--never invented
anything."32

It is, perhaps, due to the fact that Spurgeon's

message never changed that he serves as a good barometer

to measure the change in religious thought that late

Victorian England experienced. When he arrived in London

 

31W. T. Stead, ed., "Topics of the Day with Heroes of
the Hour," Pall Mall Gazette, Vol. XXXIX, No. 6015, p. 11.

32"The Silver Wedding of the Metropolitan Taber-
nacle," The Baptist, April 2, 1886.

 

 

214

in 1854, he was considered to be a young, flash-in—the-pan
maverick with unheard-of methods to reach the unchurched
masses. In his later years he preached the same message,
in almost the same manner, but he was then considered to be
an absurd reactionary by many, the representative of the
old, conservative religious tradition. As one commentator

observed,

It would rather seem as if Mr. Spurgeon were getting
played out. . . . The fact is, Mr. Spurgeon is too
narrow-minded for the present day. His mental calibre
is that of the imperfectly educated bigot, and, no
doubt to his annoyance, even Nonconformist ministers
are expected to possess a little more grammar and a
little more liberality of mind than was the case when
Mr. Spurgeon began his eccentric, but successful
career.3

With this change in public attitude toward what was essen-
tially the same message, it is little wonder that Spurgeon
sensed a change in the religious thought of Victorian England.

That Spurgeon was intransigent in his theology is

beyond dispute. To say that he did not believe in progress,
however, is quite another matter. In fact, the opposite is
true, for he believed that society was progressing both
morally and socially. Although the optimistic belief in
progress that Spurgeon shared with many of his contempo-
raries seems naively idealistic from the vantage point of

the twentieth century, one should keep in mind that they

were living in what has aptly been called the "Age of Reform"

 

33Court and Society, Sept. 21, 1887.

215

and they were seeing improvements in society on a gradual,
yet steady, basis. These reforms were made possible, not
because the Victorians were governed by an ethereal, naive
hope that things would somehow improve, but because they
were willing to work long and hard to bring about the desired
result. Spurgeon's optimism was tempered by this same con-
sideration. His attitude toward progress often reflected
the success of the reform movement in Britain in that when
progress was being made he was encouraged. When injustice
and social ills were discovered and reform proposals were
defeated, he would express his doubts about man's ability
to improve himself and his condition. When, during Glad—
stone's first ministry, a number of much—needed reforms
were carried out by Parliament, Spurgeon was almost ecstatic
in his outlook for the future.
We are all amazed with the world's progress. What
changes have been wrought within this year 1869!
Struggling principles have leaped to victory . . .
landmarks supposed to have been far ahead have been
left behind. . . . Nor is this all, the impetus which
has already shaken the ramparts of time-honored errors,
is at work with undiminished energy, testing all
things, and dooming to destruction all that is not
founded on the rock of truth and righteousness. The
stars in their courses are contending for the cause
Of God. The great current of events sets towards the
end desired.34

Spurgeon went on to warn that future improvements

would not come about automatically, but only by continued

 

34"Preface," The Sword and the Trowel, V, 1869:

 

p. III.

216

hard work and diligent effort would necessary reforms be
successful. Although he was to be disappointed in many of
his expectations, he never really lost this deep-lying
conviction that things, in general, were steadily improving.
He could point to the growth of the temperance movement and
the decline of drunkenness and alcoholism as one evidence
of improvement. He was also pleased that his fellow
Victorians were more judicious in their reading material
("Our grandmothers read books which our daughters would be

35 He was also convinced that crime and

36

ashamed to Open").

lawlessness in London were on the decline. Regarding

this same issue, he told his readers,

I am sometimes asked whether I think the world is in
the least improved. It is said it will all break to
pieces, there is no hope of its being made to know

the Lord. I don't believe it. I heard an old man

say it was useless for people to say there had been

no improvement in the morals of the peOple, for he

had lived long enough to see a marked difference which
quite astonished him. There is a rising in the tone

of morals distinctly apparent in a less degree to those
who have lived half a century.

This confidence was subject to the influence of
events. Just three years later he referred to his belief

in moral progress as a "pleasing delusion" which had been

 

35W. T. Stead, "Topics of the Day," p. 12.

36Ibid.

37"Mr. Spurgeon on Sunday and Ragged Schools,"
Sunday School Chronicle, October 20, 1882.

 

217

"summarily dispelled."38 But he adamantly continued to
retain his belief in the improvement of society in general
in spite of his waverings regarding moral improvement.
Even the Downgrade Controversy failed to dampen his opti—
mism for society, for he still did not renounce his belief
that society could and would be won over to the side of
truth and right. If this had not been the case, he might
well have disbanded his orphanage, dismissed his students,
and discontinued his efforts to alleviate the worst of
society's social ills. On the contrary, however, he never
viewed himself as a Jeremiah prOnouncing doom on his society
and weeping in the knowledge that no one would hear and
repent. No, Spurgeon's career was one of difficult and
significant endeavors in the hope that his efforts would
be successful. Simply, he intended to succeed in all his
efforts, whether spiritual or temporal, and in this he was
a man of his times.

gpurgeon in the Context of Nineteenth-
Century Reform

 

 

An understanding of Spurgeon's career would not be
complete without placing him within the context of his
times. The late Victorian Era was a period rife with
schemes for the social redemption of Britain. Spurgeon's

achievements, significant though they might have been, were

 

38The Sword and the TroweT, XXI, 1885, p. 397.

 

218

only a small part of the general movement for reform in that
period. As one observer has ably noted, the last third of
the nineteenth century abounded with "schemes everywhere"
to solve the social problems of Victorian England.39 There
were those like Herbert Spencer and Samuel Smiles, who
wanted to help the workers help themselves. Matthew Arnold
was convinced that the solution lay in education; Arnold
Toynbee felt settlement houses could provide help for the
lower classes. Many were convinced that temperance (i.e.
total abstinence) was the panacea for society's ills.

Edwin Chadwick and the indefatigable Florence-Nightingale
saw the primary need to be in the area of public health.
Charles Bradlaugh advocated secularism, birth control, and

mass emigration during his tumultuous career. Henry George,

in his widely-read book, Progress and Poverty, called for the

 

reduction of workers' taxes as well as land reform. Frederic
Harrison and his fellow Positivists called for energetic
social legislation by Parliament, while William Morris, in

his social novel, hews from Nowhere, had the Houses of

 

Parliament converted into a storage place for manure. Morris,
Thomas Hughes, H. M. Hyndman, and Robert Blatchford, to

name but a few, all advocated socialism in one form or
another as the cure-all for Britain's social and industrial

needs.

L

39Herman Ausubel, In Hard Times: Reformers Among
the Late Victorians (New York: Columbia University Press,
1960): pp. 180-93.

 

 

 

219

These are only a few of the seemingly countless
plans for social reform in nineteenth-century Britain. In
an attempt to place Spurgeon within this context let us
briefly consider some of the more.prominent reformers and
their ideas of reform. Among the most radical schemes were
those of the socialists. Until the last few decades of
the century, socialism was viewed by the general populace
as some sort of devil-inspired doctrine espoused only by
wild-eyed foreigners or demented infidels. As the century
wore on, however, and as the economic situation in general
failed to improve after 1873, socialism grew in respect
and influence. By 1894 the Fabian Society contained twenty-
five "reverends" on its list of members.40 One of the most
outspoken socialists in England was H. M. Hyndman who, as
the chief figure in the Social Democratic Federation, was
a convinced Marxist expecting the fall of capitalism at
any moment. Hyndman was not a revolutionary, however, in
that he did not actively plot the destruction of society.
Rather, he waited for capitalistic society to fall of itself
and planned to reorganize things on a socialistic basis.41

The parties on the left during this period had a
pronounced propensity toward factionalism. Their leaders

were individualists who seldom displayed a spirit of

—_‘

40Warren Sylvester Smith, The London Heretics, 1870—
1914 (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1967): p. 177.

41

 

Ausubel, pp. 148-49.

220

compromise. Hyndman was particularly difficult to get
along with, as was Robert Blatchford, one of the most

popular socialists of his time. Blatchford's influence
was primarily through the medium of literature. He was

the editor of The Clarion and had written a book, Merrie

 

England, which had sold nearly two million copies by the

turn of the century.42 His career was a stormy and a

controversial one indeed. Possessing no formal education

and little working-class experience, Blatchford was greatly

influenced by his brief stint in the army. He emerged as

a super-patriot and a militarist as well. He advocated

socialism only because he was convinced that socialism

would improve the British working class and, thus, strengthen

the nation as a whole. He never placed any faith in an

international brotherhood of workers. "In the course of

the years Blatchford revealed himself as an advocate of

economic nationalism, imperialism, militarism, jingoism,

and an uncompromising opponent of parliamentarianism."43
Of a less radical nature, yet still within the

socialist camp, was William Morris. Morris at one time

had been an active secretary of Hyndman's Social Democratic

Federation, but in 1884 he split away and formed his own

421bid., p. 111.

43Bernard Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform,
English Social—Imperial Thought, 1895-1914 (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1960), p. 216.

 

 

221

Socialist League with Edward Aveling and Karl Marx's eldest
daughter, Eleanor. Their slogan manifested their methods:

Agitate, Educate, Organize. Morris edited the Commonweal

 

which supported international revolutionary socialism and

attacked the party politics of Britain. At its peak the

Commonweal had a weekly circulation of 2600.44

 

Of an even less disruptive nature was the movement
known as Christian Socialism, which sought to combine
religious motivation and social concern. Among the leaders
of this movement were Charles Kingsley (an advocate of what
he called "muscular Christianity"), Thomas Hughes, and
F. D. Maurice. Maurice had been a professor of English
literature and history at King's College, London, when he
was ousted in 1846 for his unorthodox views. He had begun
his religious pilgrimage as a Unitarian, but moved from there
to Anglicanism of a liberal form. His socialism was of a
mild brand for, as he explained, "Anyone who recognizes the
principle of co-operation as a stronger and truer principle
than that of competition has a right to the honour or

45 In 1854 Maurice

disgrace of being called a Socialist."
founded the Working Men's College and served as its president
until 1866, when he moved to Cambridge to teach Moral The-

ology. In spite of its title, however, the students at the

 

44Ausubel, pp. 150-55.

45Arthur V. Woodworth, Christian Socialists in England
(London, 1903), p. 20, as taken from Smith, pp. 174-76.

 

222

Working Men's College tended to be more from the middle
classes than the working classes.46

One of the more practical outgrowths of Maurice's
Christian Socialism was the Guild of St. Matthew under the
leadership of Stewart Headlam, a former student of his at
Cambridge. In 1877 Headlam founded what he called the
Christian Socialist Guild of St. Matthew in the working-
class district of Bethnal Green, London. Its published
objectives were,

1. To get rid . . . of the existing prejudices,
especially on the part of the Secularists against
the Church . . . and to endeavor to justify God
to the people.

2. To promote frequent and reverent worship in the
Holy Communion, and a better observance of the

teaching of the Church of England.

3. To promote the study of social and political ques-
tions in the light of the Incarnation.

Headlam began with forty members who attended
lectures and debates. By the 1890's the group reached its
zenith with 364 members, including 90 clergymen. They
actively promoted such ideas as the disestablishment of
the Church, education of children, an eight-hour working
day, fair wages, and nationalization of the land. While
Headlam was never a Marxist he remained a member of the

Fabian Society all his life.

 

46Ibid.

47Ihid.. pp. 181-87.

223

The Guild of St. Matthew was successful in raising
the social consciousness of the Church. In response to its
agitation, the Christian Social Union was formed within the
Church to try to apply Christian principles to social
problems and to try to reclaim the working classes for
Christendom. By 1896 their numbers had reached over three
thousand. It is important to remember that the Christian
Social Union was "social" but not "socialistic."48

Another attempt to combine religion and social con-
cern was the growth of the Labor Churches in the 1890's.
The outstanding figure in this movement was John Trevor.
Trevor came from a lower-middle class family and was taught
from early childhood to fear the Jehovah of the strict,
Calvinist Baptists. He lost his faith in his youth and
turned instead to Unitarianism, and finally left the
Unitarian Church as well to establish the first Labor
Church in Manchester in 1891, "without priest, without
parson, without creed, without tradition, without Bible."49
Trevor was convinced that "the great religious movement
of our time is the movement for the emancipation of

"50

labour. The services of these Labor Churches were light-

hearted, including the singing of hymns with no mention of

 

48Ibid., p. 195.

49E. J. Hobsbawm, Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels,
§tudies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and
ggth Centuries (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 19597} p. 143.

50Ibid.

 

 

 

224

Jesus, some vague form of prayer, and sermons or addresses
by socialists, Laborites, or intellectuals. Trevor himself
was not an advocate of socialism, being convinced that

"when priests and people lay their heads together to achieve
Socialism, only God and a whole army of martyrs will be able

to drag poor humanity out of the mess they make."51

Actually
the Labor Churches offered no radically different solutions
and did not survive World War I.
The late nineteenth century also saw the rise of
those who advocated a secularistic or atheistic approach
to the problems of modern living. One of the first leaders
of this secularist movement was George Jacob Holyoake, the
sickly son of a Birmingham foundry worker, who rejected
Christianity mainly because of the Church's indifference
to suffering. Holyoake was a leading editor and leader of
a cooperative movement. Although he was not a strict
atheist, he was sentenced to six months in jail once for
"blasphemy."52
A more notorious secularist was Charles Bradlaugh,
the self-proclaimed atheist who was ousted from Parliament
for his views in 1881. Bradlaugh had been a Sunday School

teacher in his youth, but was dismissed from his post for

asking his minister some questions about discrepancies in

 

51Smith, p. 180.

521bid., p. 27.

225

the Gospels. He eventually lost his job and his home over
the matter. Still a Christian, he debated Openly on behalf
of a church-less Christianity but was slowly won over by

the kindness as well as the arguments of his Infidel
opponents.53 Bradlaugh's stormy career included the pro-
motion of atheism and such ideas as birth control among

the working classes. While distributing literature for

the latter with his intimate friend, Annie Besant, Bradlaugh
was arrested. He was never a socialist, however, and split

with Besant when she joined the Fabians.54

On the whole,
Bradlaugh offered little in regard to the theory of social
reform.

Of a more "respectable" nature were the efforts of
legitimate trade unionists who patiently pushed for better
working conditions on behalf of the working classes. It
was not until the very end of the century that trade unionism
was considered to be a respectable cause. Most mid-Victorians
regarded trade unionists in the same light as socialists and
revolutionaries. Charles Dickens gave assent to this con-

viction when he described the union organizers as "contentious

men, who work them [workers] up into a state . . . and are

 

53Susan Budd, "The Loss of Faith: Reasons for
Unbelief among Members of the Secular Movement in England,
1850-1950," Past and Present, No. 36 (April, 1967): PP. 112-
13.

 

54Smith, pp. 48-50.

226

the greatest Pests their own employers can encounter on
earth."55
No one man did more to diminish this attitude than
Robert Applegarth. Born in Hull in 1834, the son of a
sailor, Applegarth was a successful carpenter who had spent
three years in New York. As secretary of the Amalgamated
Society of Carpenters and Joiners, he was the advocate of
workers everywhere. Yet he managed to gain the respect of
the established classes as well and was respected by both
Karl Marx and Queen Victoria. What made him so acceptable

to the upper classes was his own character and industrious-

ness. When listed in Who's Who, he gave as his recreations
"56

 

"work, more work, and still more again. He insisted

that union members should all be "men of good moral charac-

"57 It was this attitude

ter, steady habits and good workers.
that brought respect to Trade Unionism. Neither revolu-
tionary nor socialistic, Applegarth merely advocated a
fair day's wage for a fair day's work. As one historian
has observed,
To understand the English working classes in the
middle years of the century, there is little need to go
beyond Applegarth . . . he held that it [the working

classes] could advance only by education and superior
organization, not by picking up railings at Hyde Park

 

55Ausubel, p. 42.

56Asa Briggs, Victorian People, A Reassessment of
Tersons and Themes, 1851-1867 (New York: Harper and Row,
Publishers, 1955), p. 171.

57

 

 

Ibid., p. 179.

227
or by accepting a 'scientific' theory of tactics and
objectives.

Perhaps the most characteristic of all the Victorian
reformers was Samual Smiles. Born in Scotland, Smiles lived
in Leeds between 1838 and 1858 and became actively involved
in Radical politics, Corn Law repeal, suffrage, and mass
education. He soon became convinced of the futility of
artificially imposed reform, however, and turned to the
gospel 0f self-help. The only way to reform society radically,
he believed, was for individual workers to educate themselves
both scholastically and morally, and to practice self—
discipline and thrift in order to become economically
independent. As he explained in his widely-sold books,

Self-Help_and Thrift,

 

As steady application to work is the healthiest
training for every individual, so it is the best
discipline of a state. Honourable industry travels
the same road with duty; and Providence has closely
linked both with happiness.59

This is not to say, however, that Smiles Opposed all
forms of governmental involvement. He distinguished between

economic laissez faire and social laissez faire. Regarding

 

 

social evils, Smiles was willing to concede that, in some
cases, governmental controls were necessary. The best way

to attack these social problems, however, was to combine

 

58Ibid., p. 196.

59Ibid., p. 116.

228

the minimum of state interference with the maximum of
voluntary c00peration.60

It must be noted, however, that "the biggest single
influence that made peOple reformers in the late Victorian

period was still religion "61

The vast majority of involve-
ment in social endeavors was carried out by people who
claimed to be motivated by Christian principles. Generally
speaking, they were either Nonconformists or Low Churchmen
and were less involved with what they regarded as utopian
schemes and more concerned with humanitarian philanthropy.
While their methods were not particularly inspired, the
scale on which they applied them was indeed remarkable.
There is little doubt that the place of eminence
among Victorian philanthropists belongs to Lord Ashley, the
Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. As the humanitarian champion
of chimneysweeps, destitute children, prisoners, drunkards,
and generally, the unfortunates of society, Shaftesbury has
been referred to as "the best known friend of labor until

"62

he died at eighty-four in 1885. Shaftesbury had little

patience with Radical proposals to reshape society.

 

6OAsa Briggs, The Making of Modern England, 1783—
1867, The Age of Improvement (New York: Harper and Row,
Publishers, 1959), p. 439.

61

 

 

Ausubel, pp. 67-68.

621bid., p. 178.

229

Civil and religious liberty are complete with us
. . . the people have not a wrong unredressed, nor the
Radicals a right unattained, and yet their [the English
Radicals'] spirit is that of Mazzini.

To Shaftesbury, as to Spurgeon and so many other
Victorians, society did not need reforming so much as the
people within society needed to be brought to exercise their
humanitarian concern. Unlike Spurgeon, however, Shaftesbury
chose to incorporate the methods of party politics in an
effort to get Parliament to pass needed legislation when
employers proved too hard-hearted to respond to humanitarian
pleas.

John Bright, the Quaker Member of Parliament, was
another luminary among nineteenth-century reformers. For
Bright, reform was a creed which needed no defense. Bright's
measures were quite moderate, however, in comparison to
those we have mentioned thus far. Simply, Bright called
for the extension of free trade, the reduction of taxes,

a cheaper foreign policy, and the extension of suffrage to

64

the working classes. Bright remained consistent with his

Liberal convictions by opposing factory legislation and
other social measures as governmental interference. While

he believed employers ought not overwork their employees,

63E. Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl
of Shaftesbury, II (1887), p. 447, as taken from Briggs,
The Making of Modern England, p. 430.

64

 

 

Briggs, Victorian People, p. 209.

 

230

he opposed any laws enforcing men to act in this manner
against their wills.

Among religious leaders of the period, General
William Booth, founder and "dictator" of the Salvation Army,
stands out in the area of social reform, both as a theo-
retician and as a practical influence on the city streets
of Britain. Although Booth was convinced that the primary
need of the British working classes was for individual
conversion, his sympathy for their social plight prompted
him to write In Darkest England and the Way Out, in which
he pr0posed a City Colony, a Farm Colony, and an Oversea
Colony with an emigration bureau, a labor bureau, prison
reform, holidays, and insurance compensation--all accompanied
by voluntary salvation meetings. It is interesting to note
that this fantastic scheme received widespread support,
not the least significant of which came from the pastor
of the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

As the century developed, ministers were more and
more inclined to get directly involved in politics and social
reform, as is evident from the membership lists of various
socialist societies. One of London's most famous preachers
during this period was Dr. Joseph Parker of the City Temple.
A rousing and emotional speaker with long, flowing hair,
Parker was a common visitor to the meetings of the Fabians

and an active participant in their discussions. Extremely

231

tolerant in spite of his own narrow religious convictions,
Parker was a close friend of G. J. Holyoake, the Secularist,
as well as a number of others who were not within the pale
of orthodoxy. Nor was he fearful of new theological thought
himself. Parker's influence in social affairs, however,

was limited more to exhortation and less to actual achieve-
ment.

In Baptist circles an interesting comparison can be
made between Spurgeon and John Clifford, both of whom were
the central figures of the denomination during the last
quarter of the century. Clifford was only two years younger
than Spurgeon, but whereas Spurgeon might be considered the
"last of the Victorians" in his individualistic, philan-
thropic, approach to social problems, so Clifford might
well be described as the first of the new breed. Clifford
was the son of a midlands iron worker and, like so many
others, had improved his station by self-help. He earned
a doctorate from the University of London and had a healthy
respect for new knowledge. Although he still held to the
need for personal evangelism, Clifford's sympathy for the
condition of the lower classes led him to a more active
involvement in social reform. It was this concern that led
him to join the Fabian Society and to try to influence
Parliament on behalf of social legislation. According to

Clifford,

232

Politics are one of the organs and instruments
by which true Christians hasten the coming of God.
I hate the selfishness which leaves the world to
the devil and loses the soul in uncertain and blind
efforts to save it.55
Clifford's political involvement culminated in 1902
when he led a number of Nonconformists in passive resistance
to the Education Act of that year. He had his furniture
sold from under him and was even sentenced to a brief jail
term. Still, few men in all of Britain were more respected
than John Clifford.
Spurgeon's approach to social problems lay directly
in the vein of Victorian individualism and philanthropy.
He had little interest in most of the schemes for reorgan-
izing society because he was convinced, like Smiles, Bright,
Shaftesbury and a host of others, that improvement of
society could come about only when the individuals which
make up that society are improved. In the meantime it was
one's Christian duty to involve himself in philanthropical
activities in order to relieve some of the worst effects
of the sinful society in which he lived.
Spurgeon died in 1892 at the relatively young age
of fifty-seven. It is tempting to speculate whether his

views regarding social reform might have moderated with

the growing respectability of socialism. It seems doubtful

 

65Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C. H.;
Life, Letters, and Reminiscences (London: Cassel and Co.,
Ltd., 1924), p. XII.

 

 

233

that much change would have occurred for the last five years
of his life found him involved in a struggle against modern
theological ideas which seemed to make him averse to any
new ideas no matter what their form. His world was rapidly
changing and Spurgeon was beginning to picture himself as

the last hope of orthodoxy in England.

Spurgeon and Fundamentalism

 

One of the major points of interpretation concerning
Spurgeon regards the question of whether or not he should
be classed as a "fundamentalist." In the light of his stand
regarding Darwinism and higher criticism, it is little wonder
that twentieth-century fundamentalists should view Spurgeon
as one of their own founding fathers. Many would interpret
the Downgrade Controversy as the British foreshadowing of
the Fundamentalist-Modernist conflict of the 1920's and 1930's
in America. To consider this evaluation in any depth, it
would be well to give a brief sketch of the rise of Funda—
mentalism. It should be kept in mind that, while there are
a number of evangelicals in Britain who share similar views
with American fundamentalists, essentially Fundamentalism,
as a religious movement, is an American phenomenon. The
question we should consider is whether Spurgeon can be
identified as a nineteenth-century British ancestor of

modern Fundamentalism in America.

234

Generally speaking, most Church historians have
placed the rise of Fundamentalism in the context of the
1920's. For some time a conflict had been brewing within
Christendom between those who respected modern scholarship,
higher criticism, and Darwinism, and the conservative
branch of Protestantism which dogmatically held to what
they called the "fundamentals of the faith." These basic
doctrines were: (1) the inerrancy of the Bible, (2) the
Virgin Birth and diety of Christ, (3) the substitutionary
Atonement, (4) the physical Resurrection, and (5) the
physical Second Coming of Jesus Christ.66

The conflict came to the surface in 1925 with the
widely publicized Scopes trial. The media protrayed the
case as a battle between the Bible and the Botanists and,
rightly or wrongly, Fundamentalism found itself paired off
against science and scholarship in general. As a result,
conservative Christians became increasingly defensive,
suspicious of any suggestion of change or modification on
any level, and often belligerent toward thoSe who held
different views.

In matters of social concern, evangelicals whose
fathers and grandfathers had been in the vanguard of social

reform, abolition, and temperance now refused to become

 

66Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the
Centuries (Grand Rapids: Zondervan PubliShing House,
1954), pp. 480-81.

235

involved in any way in what they called the "social gospel"
of the Modernists. As liberal Christians increasingly had
less and less to say in theological terms, they turned to
social issues which replaced theology as the center of their
concern. It would seem that fundamentalists then concluded
that social action was no longer worthy of their attention.
Thus, evangelical Christianity retreated into a defensive
shell, lashing out at anything that hinted at modification,
generally anti-intellectual, and usually suspicious of any
talk of social involvement. Positively speaking, the
fundamentalists continued to stress the historic imperatives
of orthodoxy, emphasizing that man's basic needs are spirit-
ual and can only be dealt with on that basis.

Recent historians have made a rather credible effort
in tracing Fundamentalism back to the nineteenth-century
millenarian movements in Britain first, (beginning with
the Plymouth Brethren), and subsequently in America as

67

well. These millenarians combined a literal method of

Biblical interpretation with the conviction that Christ

68 Their insistence on a literal

might return at any moment.
interpretation of Scripture caused them to be seriously

alarmed at any "attacks" on the Bible by higher critics

 

67Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism:
British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970):

68

 

 

Ibid., p. XVII and p. 39.

236

or science, and their belief in the imminent return of
Christ tended to make them uninterested in efforts at
social reform. By the 1920's many of the doctrines of
the millenarians were generally accepted among funda-
mentalists.

The question remains, then, whether or not Spurgeon
should be cast as the forerunner of this movement.

Again, as is so often the case with Spurgeon, he is
difficult to characterize or pigeon-hole, for he seems to
have cast his own mold. Regarding his theology, Spurgeon
was ever the conservative, orthodox Calvinist. To the very
end of his life he held to the infallibility of the Scrip-
tures (by which he meant inerrancy as well), the deity of
Christ, and the Atonement in its traditional sense. Among
these "fundamentals" he included a generally Calvinistic
view of salvation and predestination.69

Regarding the doctrine of eschatology or final
things, Spurgeon throughout the majority of his life rejected
any "schemes" or interpretations which attempted to deter-
mine when the return of Christ would occur. In his own
words, "only fools and madmen are positive in their interpre-
tations of the Apocalypse."70 Earlier in his career,

especially, he retained the hope that the world would

 

69The Sword and the Trowel, XXVII, 1891, p. 446.

 

7OIbid., III, 1867, p. 470.

237

eventually be converted to the Gospel, and several times

he spoke out openly against the Plymouth Brethren for their
disruptive effect on Christendom and their unique schemes

to unlock the mysteries of Scripture. Thus, it is sur-
prising to find that in the last full year of his life,

he and his colleagues published what he called his "Confes-
sion of Faith" and included in it, almost as an afterthought,
the statement, "Our hope is the Personal, Pre-millenial

Return of the Lord Jesus in glory."71

While this provides
only the slightest concession to the millenarians and, by
no means constitutes a form of dispensationalism (the
particular doctrine of the Plymouth Brethren), it is still
impossible to explain why he would include the term "premil—
lenial" except that, obviously, late in life he came to
believe in this position regarding the second advent.

Thus, in theology Spurgeon advocated the "funda-
mentals" except, perhaps, in terms of an imminent return
of Christ. It must be stated that Spurgeon was never a
millenarian in the classic sense of the term, nor could one
characterize his approach as defensive or negative, at
least until the Downgrade Controversy broke out. Spurgeon's
impact over most of his career was a positive one. Rather

than argue and quibble over theological disputations,

Spurgeon generally preferred simply and openly to present

 

7lIbid., XXVII, 1891, p. 446.

238

the gospel as he saw it, and let it stand on its own merit.

As he told his readers,
I'd rather walk ten miles to get out of a dispute than
half-a-mile to get into one. I have often been told
to be bold, and take the bull by the horns, but, as I
rather think that the amusement is more pleasant than
profitable, I shall leave it to those who are so
cracked already that an ugly poke with a horn would
not do damage to their skulls.72

Spurgeon, then, was not a defensive sectarian poised
to react against any opposition or disagreement with his
personal views. He was not millenarian in his eschatology.
And he was not on the defensive in his approach until after
1887 and the outbreak of the Downgrade Controversy. Spurgeon
was, however, soundly orthodox in his own theology and
remained constant in his views, refusing to budge in the
light of Darwinism or higher criticism. In this sense,
at least, the Fundamentalists can claim a champion in
Spurgeon.

In the area of social concern and political improve-
ment, however, Spurgeon would have been appalled at the
rejection of the social implications of Christianity by
twentieth-century Fundamentalists. As has been explained
in the previous chapters, Spurgeon was convinced of the

need for Christians to be an influence for good in their

communities and nations. A Christianity that has nothing

 

72C. H. Spurgeon, John Ploughman's Talk; or Plain
Advice for Plain People (New York: Sheldon and Co., N.D.),
p. 69.

 

 

239

to say regarding injustice, poverty, squalor, and ignorance
has little to do with the gospel with which Spurgeon was
vitally concerned. His own life was a living testimony of
what Christianity could do when applied to the concerns of
everyday living. He had little time for Christians who
were too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good. In
this sense, then, Spurgeon had little in common with modern
Fundamentalists, and would undoubtedly have renounced them

for their lack of social conscience.

Spurgeon in Retrospect

 

In making any final evaluation of Spurgeon it would
be well to recount what his contemporaries felt about him.
That he had the avid support of a broad, middle-class
following seems to have been beyond dispute. That his
influence was widely felt is equally indisputable. His
contemporaries, however, differed widely as to the quality
and nature of Spurgeon's influence.

W. E. Gladstone, perhaps the most eminent of the
Victorians, referred to Spurgeon in his diary as "the most
pOpular and effective of the nonconforming preachers and

"73

workers of the time. On the other hand, Bishop Samuel

Wilberforce, upon being asked whether he did not envy the

 

73H. S. Curr, "Spurgeon and Gladstone," The Chronicle,
Vol. VI, No. 3 (July, 1943), p. 116. This was taken origi-
nally from the British Baptist Historical Quarterly.

 

 

240

Nonconformists their possession of Spurgeon, answered

rather tersely, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass."74
The author George Eliot was one of Spurgeon's most

severe cities. On one occasion she observed that "the

Essex man [Spurgeon] drove bullocks through ecclesiastical

"75

aisles. In 1888 one of the weekly magazines carried the

account of her first encounter with Spurgeon as she recorded
it in her diary.
It was the most superficial grocer's-back-parlour
view of Calvinistic Christianity: and I was shocked to
find how low the mental pitch of our society must be,

judged by the standard of this man's celebrity.

He said, 'Let us approach the throne of God,‘ Very
much as he might have invited you to take a chair.

It is interesting to note that Spurgeon must have
been a bit chafed at the writer's remarks, for he scribbled
in the margin of this article the comment, "Who cares what
a harlot says?"

Although Spurgeon had his share of detractors, he
also had a large number of supporters. Numbered among these
were Dwight L. Moody, the famous American evangelist,
Matthew Arnold, David Livingstone, President James A.

Garfield, Dr. R. W. Dale of Birmingham, and, as one might

 

74Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, A Biography,
p. 101.

751bid., p. 185.

76"George Eliot and Mr. Ruskin on Mr. Spurgeon,"
The British Weekly Pulpit, May 11, 1888.

241

well expect, Lord Shaftesbury, who noted that "few men have
preached so much and so well, and few men have combined so
practically their words and their actions."77

The passing of time serves both a positive and a
negative end: it both gives one the vantage point of
perspective, and it tends to dim the view. The object may
be better appreciated in the context of its surroundings
as well as obscured in its finer points of detail. This
has been the case with Spurgeon as well. He has been known
for his oratorical ability and his vast religious following,
but little of his practical endeavors has been remembered.
What has generally been lost to posterity has been his great
concern with social works and philanthropy as well as his
political influence.

In the context of his times Spurgeon was both an
innovator and a child of his age. As an innovator he
refused to wear the long frock coat and other of the regalia
of the Nonconformist uniform. He disdained as well to speak
in the Latinized English which was the tradition in the
first half of the century. Instead, he spoke in earthly
Saxon, which was easily understood by the common citizens,
and spiced his sermons with interesting and often humorous

anecdotes. In a further effort to reach the masses, he

refused to be confined to a church building and rented the

 

77"Mr. Spurgeon on Sunday and Ragged Schools,"
Sunday School Chronicle, Oct. 20, 1882.

 

242

Surrey Music Hall as well as Exeter Hall. Spurgeon refused
to be bound by tradition; he met problems empirically and
chose the best and quickest solution. He was never afraid
to attempt huge enterprises, and, thus, the success he did
achieve brought huge dividends in terms of students educated,
orphans cared for, literature distributed, and suffering
alleviated, not to mention religious conversions.

But Spurgeon was a man of his times as well. In
his approach to social problems he failed to see a need for
any significant structural reform of society, choosing
instead to meet England's problems on an individual, philan-
thropical basis. His belief in the eventual betterment of
society was indicative of the general optimism among the
middle class of his day.

And yet, Spurgeon withstood some of the prevailing
winds that swept up many of his own generation. He refused
to be caught up in the imperialistic "jingoism" of the late
nineteenth century. Spurgeon also refused to modify his
theology to accommodate the claims of science or historical
criticism, and remained adamant in his loyalty to the "faith
once delivered to the saints." Perhaps it was his ability
to present traditional beliefs in an eloquent and convincing
manner that, partly at least, explains his success, for in
an age that experienced change and development, there was
a good number of Englishmen who needed the stability of

the old religious truths as an anchor amidst the fluctuations

243

of the late nineteenth century. As his obituary in The

Qailnyhronicle reads,

 

Mr. Spurgeon remained an eloquent voice crying in
the wilderness, and preaching the old notions with
the old force and the old intensity of personal belief.

78
In this, as is the case with many eminent men,

Spurgeon was perfectly suited for his times. What he had

to say was exactly what a good many middle-class Victorians

wanted to hear. His faults as well as his merits combined

to make him one of Victorian England's most pOpular and

influential religious leaders.

 

78$he Daily Chronicle, Feb. 1, 1892.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

In conducting research on a man who was as prolific
a writer as C. H. Spurgeon, one has the tendency to feel
overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his publications. This
can be both a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, one
is certainly not at a loss for source materials, but on the
other hand, one hardly knows where to begin. Scores of
volumes of Spurgeon's sermons in fine print, many more
volumes of his magazine, as well as over fifty single publi-
cations leave the researcher with no small task. This is
not to mention the considerable number of biographies,
monographs, and newspaper articles that have been written
about him.

The best collection of Spurgeon's writings undoubt-
edly belongs to the library of Spurgeon's College in London.
Without the considerate co-operation of the faculty and
staff, which are under the able leadership of the Rev. Dr.
George Beasley-Murray, my task would have been much more
difficult.

The chief source of information in a study of
Spurgeon would have to be the enormous collection of his
sermons. It is doubtful that any other single preacher

in Western Civilization has had more sermons printed than

244

245

Charles H. Spurgeon. They were originally published in two
series, C. H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, I-VI (London,
1855-60), and C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit, VII-LXII (London, 1861-1916). Many different compil-
ations and sets of his sermons have since been published
(i.e.--"Spurgeon's Sermons on the Second Coming," or “Spurgeon
on Soul-winning"), but the original set contains almost every
sermon he ever preached from the year 1855 to his death in
1892. It is the first ten or twelve volumes of his sermons
that contain the most comments on social and political
issues. Indeed, at times a whole sermon would be given over
to address a question of national import, such as the Indian
Mutiny of 1857. The sermons were sprinkled with rich, and
often humorous, illustrations and, thus, the reading of them
is less tedious than one might expect.

The primary source of Spurgeon's social and politi-
cal thought, however, is to be found in his monthly magazine,
C. H. Spurgeon, ed., The Sword and the Trowel; A Record of
Combat with Sin and Labour for the Lord, I—XXVIII (London,
1865—1892). Hardly an issue would go by without a descrip-
tion of some valiant mission in the poorer sections of
London or in the lonely country villages of the English
countryside, and all of these included social comment of
Hone form or another. The magazine also contained the usual
Spurgeon sermon, articles on Church history, political and

social issues, book reviews, brief homilies, moral

246

illustrations, and a section entitled, "Notes," in which
Spurgeon would comment upon prevalent newsworthy issues of
social, political, and religious concern. .On the whole,
the articles and comments were interesting and informative,
although during the last few years of Spurgeon's life, when
he was ailing at Mentone in southern France, he contributed

less and less to the magazine. Nevertheless, The Sword and

 

the Trowel is still one of the indispensable sources of

 

material for Spurgeon's social and political comment.

In order of importance, the next source of primary
material regarding Spurgeon's social and political views
and influence was the collection of pamphlets by and about
C. H. Spurgeon. This is to be found in the Heritage Room
of Spurgeon's College under the unpublished title of "Heritage
Room Collection of Pamphlets By and About C. H. Spurgeon,"
I-IX. These were primarily concerned with religious issues,
such as the controversy over baptismal regeneration which
arose in 1864. Most of the pamphlets date from Spurgeon‘s
earlier years and they provide a good source of information
as to the acceptance (or rejection) he generally received
when he first arrived in London.

Of equal importance, especially regarding social
and political concerns, was a similar collection of news-
paper articles by and about Spurgeon also in the Heritage
Room at Spurgeon's College. The labors of some unknown

clerk or secretary at the turn of the century, meticulously

247

collecting and saving newspaper articles from literally
every corner of the world, and then cataloguing them on a
chronological basis, have provided an invaluable source

of information about Spurgeon which might have been forever
lost. There are forty-one volumes of these clippings from
obscure newspapers and periodicals from places such as
South Africa, Cincinnati, Ohio, Australia, New Zealnd,

and South America, as well as the more familiar newspapers
of London and New York.

Another unpublished collection of the Heritage Room
is a brief and sketchy compilation of Spurgeon's letters,
"Original Correspondence of Charles Haddon Spurgeon," I—II.
It is indeed unfortunate that this is all that is left of
the numerous letters that Spurgeon wrote. Even these are
of little significance, except, perhaps, for a short
exchange between Spurgeon and Prime Minister Gladstone.
Beyond these two volumes, there has been one volume of
Spurgeon's letters which have been collected and edited by

his son, Charles Spurgeon, ed., The Letters of Charles Haddon

 

Spurgeon (London, 1923). These, however, give almost no
insight into Spurgeon's social and political views. On
the whole, the collection seems to be designed to render
an insight into Spurgeon's personal character, but it is
important to note that, if this were all one had to rely ‘
upon, Spurgeon would be deemed a saint indeed. There is

virtually nothing in the volume that would detract in the

248

slightest from Spurgeon's character. The loyalty of
Spurgeon's son is certain, if not his scholarship.

The primary source of biographical information is
found in C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, I-IV (London, 1897),
compiled from his diary, letters, and records by his wife
and his private secretary. This is not a true autobiography,
for Spurgeon himself did not write it beyond the many quo-
tations which are included. As a detailed source of factual
data about his life and career it is indispensable. As one
might imagine, however, there is little or nothing of a
critical nature in it.

Other primary works of Spurgeon which provided
insights into his social and political views as well as
his attitude toward some of the intellectual trends of the
late nineteenth century include C. H. Spurgeon, Jghh

EToughman's Talk; or Plain Advice for Plain People (New York,

 

N.D.). In this book Spurgeon couched his attitudes and
views in homey homilies designed for popular consumption.
These primarily involved common-sense advice, sprinkled
with coarse humor. This book was followed by a companion

volume, C. H. Spurgeon, John Ploughman's Pictures: or More

 

9f His Plain Talk for Plain PeopTg (Philadelphia, 1881).

 

Much of the same format was followed, although more emphasis
was placed on the evils of alcohol.
Another book, C. H. Spurgeon, Poland (London, 1864),

was written in response to the political crisis in Poland

249

in 1864. Although very brief, it includes a concise
account of Spurgeon's political sentiments at that time.
One of the more widely-known books which Spurgeon

published was his manual, hectures to My Students, I-II

 

(Grand Rapids, 1971). This is a collection of Friday
afternoon lectures which he had presented to the students
of the Pastors' College. They are essentially of a prag-
matic nature of interest to preachers, and they include
advice on public speaking, gestures, and illustrations.
There was little political or social commentary, however.
Another book of the same nature was Spurgeon's An All-
Round Ministry, Addresses to Ministers and Students (London,
1960). This is a collection of his addresses to the Annual
Conference of the Pastors' College and serves as a good
barometer to what Spurgeon felt to be the prevailing
issues of that year from a pastor's point of View.

Other works containing material regarding Spurgeon's

social and political concern are C. H. Spurgeon, Booksellers

 

and Bookbuyers in Byeways and Highways (London, 1882), in

 

which he points up the need for the Colportage Society and
its effect upon British society. In a similar work, C. H.
Spurgeon, Outline of the Lord's Work by the Pastors' College

and Its Kindred Organizations at the Metropolitan Taber-

 

nacle (London, 1867), Spurgeon explained the need for the
Pastors' College. In the same vein, Spurgeon explained the

history and purpose of his church in his book, The.

250

Metropolitan Tabernacle, Its History and Work (London, 1876).
This volume offers a complete list of the social committees
which Spurgeon's church Sponsored.

Two books that were written in the face of the
challenges of late nineteenth-century thought to orthodox
doctrine were C. H. Spurgeon, The Clue of the Maze, A Voice
Lifted Up on Behalf of Honest Faith (London, 1899), and
C. H. Spurgeon, The Greatest Fight in the World (London,
1891). These incorporated the traditional arguments for
God and orthodox theology, but he seems to misunderstand
the basis for the prevalent doubt of his age. In many ways
Spurgeon was still living in the seventeenth century and,
therefore, his arguments hold little credence-and even less
originality.

The rest of the books published by Spurgeon were
almost exclusively of a devotional nature with only occasion-
al allusions to political and social problems. Neverthe-
less, they are important sources in helping one to gain a
better understanding of the man and how he thought about
things. Most of these were designed for popular consumption
and, characteristically, are replete with illustrations and
anecdotes. Spurgeon also wrote a number of books which
contained illustrations for sermons, most of which were
drawn from every-day experiences. These exhibit an active
and entertaining imagination and sold well, not only to

preachers, but also to the general public.

251

Spurgeon produced two works which can be ranked as
scholarly studies during his career, both of which were of
a theological nature. One, entitled Commenting and Com-
mentaries: Two Lectures Addressed to the Students of The
Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, together with a
Catalogue of Biblical Commentaries and Expositions (London,
1876), displayed an admirable depth and breadth of know-
ledge of Biblical studies and commentaries, both modern and

ancient. The other work is Spurgeon's The Treasugy of

 

David: Containing an Original Exposition of the Book of
Psalms; A Collection of Illustrative Extracts from the
Whole Range of Literature; A Series of Homiletical Hints
gpon Almost Every Verse; And Lists of Writers gpon Each
Eiélfll I-VI (New York, 1913). This is very likely one of
the best known and respected commentaries on the Book of
Psalms. Spurgeon not only gave his own interpretation and
comments, but he also researched a wide number of sources
and included their ideas as well. In these volumes Spurgeon
has demonstrated his impressive knowledge of Scripture,
theology, and Biblical scholarship in general.

Although Spurgeon's own writings provide the best
source of information, other studies were also of great
help in this dissertation. One of the most interesting
and informative of these was the interview with Spurgeon
conducted by W. T. Stead, ed., "At Home With Spurgeon,"

and "Topics of the Day by Heroes of the Hour," Pall Mall

 

252

Gazette, Nos. 6014 and 6015, XXXIX (1884). It was in this
interview that Spurgeon was confronted directly with the
"tOpics of the day," and his answers were given forth-
rightly. Questions such as democracy, extension of the
franchise, progress, and temperance were raised and Spurgeon
shared his opinions regarding each issue.

There have been over thirty biographies written
on Spurgeon, and, unfortunately, almost all of them can be
classes as hagiography in that they tend to portray the man
in terms of a saint. Spurgeon was an outstanding preacher
and a generous humanitarian, but he was no saint. Thus,
Spurgeon's biographers have done him a disservice in their
comments, for he comes off as something other than the
supremely human person that he was. In their efforts to
relate what they consider to be Spurgeon's greatness, these
biographers have failed to recount his faults and the result
is something less than credible scholarship. The worst of

these is the most recent: Ernest W. Bacon, Spurgeon: Heir

 

to the Puritahg (London, 1967). This monograph is incredibly

 

simplistic in its child—like hero worship. Another that is
nearly as one-sided but somewhat more scholarly in its

approach is W. Y. Fullerton, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, A

 

Biography_(Chicago, 1920). Fullerton was a close friend

 

of Spurgeon's and thus offers some insight, but he still
treats Spurgeon with uncritical deference. Fullerton's

biography, however, is noteworthy in that it is one of the

253

most readable studies on Spurgeon. Only one other is

better written from a literary standpoint, that being J. C.
Carlile, C. H. Spurgeon, An Interpretative Biography (London,
1933). Carlile, who was also a close friend to Spurgeon,

was also generally uncritical, but he provided a unique and
thought-provoking chapter on "Spurgeon the Mystic." George
C. Needham, The Life and Labors of Charles H. Spurgeon
(Cambridge, Mass., 1882), is not the worst biography although
he was somewhat limited because the book was written ten

years before Spurgeon died. Henry David Northrup, The Life

 

and Work of Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon (Philadelphia, 1892),
and Richard B. Cook, The Wit and Wisdom of Charles H.
Spurgeon (London, 1892), may both be judged as eulogy,
written in the sentimental euphoria that produced a number
of biographies of Spurgeon in the year that he died. G.
Holden Pike has the distinction of having written two

biographies of Spurgeon. The first, Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

 

Preacher, Author, Philanthropist (New York, 1892), is a
single-volume work that is particularly commendable for its
treatment of Spurgeon's social endeavors. The second
biography, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
I-VI (London, N.D.), is a six-volume study that, for sheer
detail and comprehensiveness, has to be the best biographi-
cal work on Spurgeon apart from his own autobiography.
Although it tends at times to be a tedious account of

Spurgeon's day-to-day life, and it still tends toward

254

uncritical eulogy, Pike's work on Spurgeon is one of the
only biographies that sees in Spurgeon something more than
the soul-winning orator. Pike was an intimate friend of
Spurgeon's who often contributed to The Sword and the
Trowel, and who observed first-hand the time and effort
which Spurgeon put into his social institutions.

Other biographies that contributed to the back—
ground of this dissertation include A. W. W. Dale, The
Life of R. W. Dale, of Birmingham (London, 1899). It is
unfortunate that this is the only serious biography of
this important figure, but soon after this volume was
completed, Dr. Dale's papers were consumed by fire. It
is an adequate biography, although somewhat uncritical as
one might expect from the subject's own son. Another

important work was Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford,

 

C. H.; Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London, 1924)-
This is still the foremost study of this eminent figure in
the religious and political worlds of the late Victorian
and Edwardian eras. The well-written, albeit‘brief,

biography by G. F. A. Best, Shaftesbugy (London, 1964),

 

serves as a rather fair introduction to Lord Ashley, but
is by no means a comprehensive study of the man. The most
informative work on Shaftesbury remains E. Hodder, The

Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (London,

 

1887). Another noteworthy study is found in Harold C.

255

Steele, Ikwas a Stranger, The Faith of William Booth,
Founder of the Salvation Army_(Neinork, 1954). Although
this is not considered to be the standard biography of
Booth, it is interesting and important for its comments on
Booth's social schemes and their impact on late Victorian
society.

The closest thing to a biography on Mrs. Spurgeon

is her own monograph, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, Teh Years of My_

 

Life In the Service of the Book Fund: Being a Grateful
Record of My Experiences of the Lord's Ways, and Work and
nge§_(London, 1886). This study offers little biographical
material about the author beyond her connection with the
book fund. It is basically a diary of the development of
that work and a collection of thankful letters from grateful
preachers.

There are a large number of political biographies,
few of which were cited in this dissertation, but all of
which contributed to opinions expressed therein. The most

important of these were Philip Magnus, Gladstone (New York,

 

1954), and Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York, 1967). The
former takes what might appear to many as a dull and boring
person, and makes him appear interesting and alive, while
the latter, unfortunately, takes an exciting person and
tends to bury him in the mountains of evidence which the
author deems necessary to prove his case. These are

mentioned because they figured directly in the dissertation.

256

Other political biographies were influential in forming
general Opinions, but are too numerous to mention in a
critical essay of this nature.

The social historian of this era is confronted with
a plethora of source materials. One of the most enlighten-
ing and informative studies of London in the mid-nineteenth
century is that which was conducted by Henry Mayhew, London
Labour and the London Poor, A Cyclopedia of the Conditions
and Earnings of those that Will Work, those that Cannot
Wprk, and those that Will Not Wohh, I-IV (New York, 1969).
In this work Mayhew systematically interviewed the lowest
of London's working classes, observing their living and work-
ing conditions, their attitudes on life, and how much money
they received in return for their labors. Although he
provides statistical information about London's working
classes, Mayhew did not lose the human element in amassing
his figures. There is a pathetic element to his interviews
that goes beyond mere statistical analysis. One must be
careful, however, not to generalize about the whole of
London life from Mayhew's description. That horrible
conditions existed in Victorian London is beyond dispute,
but that this was the sole characteristic of the city is
indeed doubtful.

Another work on Victorian social history was G. M.

Trevelyan, English Social History, A Survey of Six

 

Centuries; Chaucer to Queen Victoria (London, 1942). This

 

257

is one of the standard works on English social history. A
more recent collection of primary material is found in
E. Royston Pike, ghlden Times: Human Documents of the

Victorian Age (New York, 1972). This collection contains

 

documents relating to crime, ideas of progress, the role

of women, and other pertinent subjects of interest to the
social historian. A more important primary source is William
Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out (New York, 1890),
in which the leader of the Salvation Army provides a

detailed description of the social conditions of England's
poor and offers a possible solution to the problem. Although
Booth's suggestions seem absurd from the present standpoint,
they were well-received in the 1890's. An important second-
ary work on social conditions in late Victorian England is

Herman Ausubel, In Hard Times: Reformers Among the Late

 

yictoriah§_(New York, 1960). Of a more restricted subject

 

is Bernard Semmel's study, Imperialism and Social Reform,

 

Ehglish Social-Imperial Thought, 1895-1914 (Garden City,

 

N.Y., 1960).
One of the more important studies of the role of
the Church in social reform and philanthrOpy is Katherine

Heasman, Evangelicals in Action, An Appraisal of their

 

Social Work in the Victorian Era (London, 1962). This study

 

was extremely helpful in the course of this dissertation in
that it provided a scholarly study of the Evangelical

movement as a whole in the nineteenth century in relation

258

to social action. It was a commendable work of a rather
large sc0pe, but provided a fair appraisal of Evangelical
social concern in the Victorian era.

As far as the role of the Metropolitan Tabernacle

in particular is concerned, Eric W. Hayden, A Centennial

 

History of Spurgeon's Tabernacle (London, 1962), gives an
adequate description. Little criticism is offered, perhaps
because Hayden was a pastor of the Tabernacle. W. Charles
Johnson, Encounter in London: The Story of the London

haptist Association, 1865-1965 (London, 1965), offers one

 

of the better accounts of London Baptists and their effect

on London society. This study also gives one of the best
descriptions of the disruptive Downgrade Controversy. Another
consideration of the role of Baptists in social action is
Austin K. deBlois, "Social Rights and Baptist History," Th2.

Christian Review (March and June, 1936), 153-160. The

 

author makes a tenuous argument for Baptists as the leaders
of religious liberty, social justice, and political inde-
pendence. The core of this position relies on his identifi-
cation of Baptists with sixteenth-century Anabaptists, a
View which is at least questionable.

Another reservoir of information regarding social
conditions and attitudes can be found in the many novels
that were published in the Victorian era. To name just a
few of the more significant ones, Benjamin Disraeli's social

novels, originally published in the 1840's, Sybil (London,

259

1845), and Coningsby (London, 1844), provide an insight
into the social and political world of the early Victorian
period, and also provide the seed-thoughts to what later
developed into "Tory Democracy." Of Charles Dickens' many

novels, hard Times (London, 1854) and Oliver Twist (London,

 

1838), are two of the most revealing in terms of the effect
of industrialism on the lot of the lower classes. One

other novel, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days (London,

 

1857), provides one of the more popular descriptions of the
way of life in one of England's exclusive public schools.
Spurgeon's opinions regarding the intellectual

trends of the times culminated in the Downgrade Controversy,
which has proved to be an embarassing enigma to Baptists
ever since, and, thus, there is little written on it. One
of the best treatments of the issue is G. Keith Parker, "The
Down Grade Controversy in Nineteenth Century England," The“

Quarterly Review, Vol. 32, No. 3 (1972), 40-52. Parker has

 

traced the controversy through The Sword and the Trowel and

 

concludes that Spurgeon was not a controverSialist, but
allowed himself to be driven into his extreme position. A
book which takes the opposite position is Iain Murray, The

Forgotten Spurgeoh (London, 1966), in which the author sees

 

Spurgeon as a controversialist of the Fundamentalist mold.

Willis B. Glover, Evangelical Nonconformists ahd

 

Higher Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1954),

 

is a work which considers Evangelical Protestantism as a

260

whole and its reaction to Biblical criticism.. The author
argues that the Victorians only came to accept higher
criticism when they were convinced that it would not neces-
sarily damage their orthodoxy. The article of Harold R.
Murphy, "The Ethical Revolt Against Christian Orthodoxy in

Early Victorian England," American Historical Review, LX

 

(1955), 800-817, argues that neither Darwinism nor higher
criticism caused the decline in orthodoxy, but rather the
spirit of meliorism of the age. Susan Budd, "The Loss of
Faith: Reasons for Unbelief among Members of the Secular
Movement in England, 1850-1950," Past and Present, No. 36
(April, 1967), 106-125, sees the shift to unbelief as due
less to intellectual causes such as higher criticism or
Darwinism than to a moral revulsion to the Old Testament.
Her information is drawn mainly from obituaries found in
Secularist newspapers and magazines.

A general study of the intellectual history of
nineteenth-century Britain might well begin with D. C.

Somervell, Ehglish Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New

 

York, 1929). Somervell gives a sufficient overview of the
century and also provides a number of short biographical
essays on the more important figures. Another, more
detailed study of intellectual themes in Victorian society

is Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1820-

 

1870 (New Haven, 1957). The author displays a depth and

breadth of Victorian literature, but tends to generalize

 

261

from a few, isolated sources. Still, this is one of the

more important studies in Victorian intellectual history.
The impact of Darwinism has prompted a number of

monographs. Gertrude Himmelfarb_gives one of the best

treatments of the subject in her book, Darwin and the

 

Darwinian Revolution (New York, 1959). The author renders
an excellent study of Darwin, his ideas, and the immediate

reception they received. Loren Eiseley, in Darwin's

 

Century; Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It (Garden

City, N.Y., 1958) goes in the opposite direction, tracing

the intellectual background to Darwin's discovery. Another
study which offers a more than adequate account of both

the origin and the reception of Darwinism is the easily
readable work of William Irvine, Apes, Angels, and Victorians:
Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution (New York, 1955).

A study of C. H. Spurgeon would be neither trust-
worthy nor complete without a consideration of the religious
develOpments of the nineteenth century. One of the best
starting points in a study of this nature is Owen Chadwick,

The Victorian Church, I-II (New York, 1966, 1970). This is

 

the most reliable general study of the Christian Church in
nineteenth-century Britain. The author deals with the
intellectual and social issues in a scholarly and open
manner which provides a refreshing change for a field that
has witnessed the publication of too many biased and

sectarian works. The history of the Baptist denomination

262

in England has best been described by A. C. Underwood, A
History of the English Baptists (London, 1947). This is a
well-written, concise history of the origins and develop-
ments of the Baptists, including both the General (Armenian)
and the Particular (Calvinist) Baptists. Another study of

noteworthy merit is Ernest A. Payne, The Baptist Union, A

 

Short Histogy (London, 1958). Payne also gives a careful

 

account of the Downgrade Controversy. Of the Baptist
denomination in general, one of the most readable and

relatively trustworthy works is Robert G. Torbet, A History

 

of the Baptist§_(Valley Forge, Pa., 1950).

 

As Chadwick has pointed out, there has yet to be
written a good history of Nonconformity in the nineteenth
century. A generally disappointing substitute is Henry
Townsend, The Claims of the Free Churches (London, 1949).
Less than a history, this is more of a polemic against the
Established Church of England. A better offering is found

in Erik Routley, English Religious Dissent (Cambridge, 1960),

 

which, although it does not pretend to be a definitive
history of Nonconformity, supplies a brief but interesting
treatment of the English "institution" of Dissent.

A new study of Fundamentalism in America which
deserves comment is Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Funda-

mentalism, British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930

 

(Chicago, 1970). This rather controversial monograph traces

the origins of Fundamentalism back into the nineteenth-century

 

263

movements of American and British millenarians. While this
is an admirable work, one wonders whether this is a case
of the tail wagging the dog. It can be established that
the Millenarians were essentially Fundamentalistic, but one
wonders whether Fundamentalism was necessarily millenarian.
Other noteworthy studies of religious developments
in late Victorian England include Warren Sylvester Smith,
The London Heretics, 1870-1914 (London, 1967), and H. G.
Wood, Belief and Unbelief Since 1850 (Cambridge, 1955).
Both of these works provide a general description of the
decline of religion in England since 1870, but neither
establishes a credible thesis as to why this phenomenon
occurred. The religious scene in early Victorian England

is adequately described by Ford K. Brown, Fathers of the

 

Victorians, The Age of Wilberforce (Cambridge, 1961). Brown
maintains that the moral tone of the nineteenth century was
established by the predominance of Evangelicalism among
those who counted in English society in the early nineteenth
century. In arguing his thesis the author tends to play
down the importance of the Methodist revival of earlier

years. E. J. Hobsbawm in his work, Sgcial Bandits and

 

Primitive Rebels, Studies in Forms of Social Movement in

 

the 19th and 20th Centuries (Glencoe, Ill., 1959), argues

 

for the importance of religious dissent, especially the
Methodists, in shaping the character of late Victorian

England.

264

No bibliography of this period would be complete
without mentioning the standard works of Sir Llewellyn
Woodward, The Age of Reform, 1815-1870 (London, 1962), and
R. C. K. Ensor, England, 1870-1914 (London, 1936). These
monumental studies, although outdated in places, are still
the standard general histories of England in the Victorian
Era. Other general studies of noteworthy importance are
G. Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England (Cambridge,
Mass., 1962), Asa Briggs, The Making of Modern England,
1783-1867, The Age of Improvement (New York, 1959), and
Asa Briggs, Victorian People, A Reassessment of Persons

and Themes, 1851—1867 (New York, 1955).

  

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