 |
Our First Seven Years
(From the April 1876 issue of The Sword and the Trowel)
[We have been preparing a History of the Tabernacle, and it will be ready with the magazine, or soon after, price one shilling. It is full of illustrations, and to give our readers a taste of it we here insert part of Chapter VIII.] |  |
 T is not to be expected that
we should write the story of our own personal ministry: this must be
left to other pens, if it be thought worth while to write it at all. We
could not turn these pages into an autobiography, nor could we very well
ask any one else to write about us, and therefore we shall simply give
bare facts, and extracts from the remarks of others.
On one of the last Sabbaths of the
month of December, 1853. C. H. Spurgeon, being then nineteen years of
age, preached in New Park Street Chapel, in response to an invitation
which, very much to his surprise, called him away from a loving people
in Waterbeach, near Cambridge, to supply a London Pulpit. The
congregation was a mere handful. The chapel seemed very large to the
preacher, and very gloomy, but he stayed himself on the Lord, and
delivered his message from James 1:17. There was an improvement even on
the first evening, and the place looked more cheerful; the text was,
"They are without fault before the throne of God."
In answer to earnest requests, C. H.
Spurgeon agreed to preach in London on the first, third, and fifth
Sundays in January, 1854, but before the last of these Sabbaths he had
received an invitation, dated Jan. 25, inviting him to occupy the pulpit
for six months upon probation. The reply to this invitation will be
found entire in Mr. Pike's "Sketches of Nonconformity in
Southwark."
The six months' probation was never
fulfilled, for there was no need. The place was filling, the prayer-
meetings were full of power, and conversion was going on. A requisition
for a special meeting, signed by fifty of the male members was sent in
to the deacons on April 12, and according to the church book it was, on
April 19, resolved unanimously, "that we tender our brother, the Rev.
C. H. Spurgeon, a most cordial and affectionate invitation forthwith to
become pastor of this church, and we pray that the result of his
services may be owned of God with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and
a revival of religion in our midst; that it may be fruitful in the
conversion of sinners and in the edification of those that believe."
To this there was but one reply, and
it was therefore answered in the affirmative in a letter dated, 75,
Dover Road, April 28, 1854, also inserted in Mr. Pike's book, which can
be had of our publishers.
In a very short time the congregation
so multiplied as to make the chapel in the evening, when the gas was
burning, like the black-hole of Calcutta. One evening in 1854 the
preacher exclaimed, "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, and by
faith this wall at the back shall come down, too." An aged and prudent
deacon in somewhat domineering terms observed to him, at the close of
the sermon, "Let us never hear of that again." "What do you mean?" said
the preacher, "you will hear no more about it when it is done,
and therefore the sooner you set about doing it the better." A meeting
was held, and a fund was commenced, and in due course the vestries and
schools were laid into the chapel and a new school-room was erected
along the side of the chapel, with windows which could be let down, to
allow those who were seated in the school to hear the preacher. While
this was being done, worship was carried on at Exeter Hall, from Feb.
11, 1855, to May 27 of the same year. At this time paragraphs began to
appear in the papers announcing that the Strand was blocked up by crowds
who gathered to hear a young man in Exeter Hall. Remarks of no very
flattering character appeared in various journals, and the multitude was
thereby increased. Caricatures, such as "Brimstone and Treacle,"  adorned the printsellers' windows, the most
ridiculous stories were circulated, and the most cruel falsehoods
invented, but all these things worked together for good. The great Lord
blessed the word more and more to the conversion of the hearers, and
Exeter Hall was thronged throughout the whole time of our sojourn.
To return to New Park-street, enlarged
though it was, resembled the attempt to put the sea into a teapot. We
were more inconvenienced than ever. To turn many hundreds away was the
general if not the universal necessity, and those who gained admission
were but little better off, for the packing was dense in the extreme,
and the heat something terrible even to remember. Our enemies continued
to make our name more and more known by penny pamphlets and letters in
the papers, which all tended to swell the crowd. More caricatures
appeared, and among the rest "Catch-'em-alive-O!"
In June 1856 we were again at Exeter
Hall, preaching there in the evening and at the chapel in the morning;
but this was felt to be inconvenient, and therefore in August a fund was
commenced to provide for the erection of a larger house of prayer.
Meanwhile the Exeter Hall proprietors intimated that they were unable
to let their hall continuously to one congregation, and therefore we
looked about us for another place. Most opportunely a large hall, in the
Royal Surrey Gardens, was just completed for the monster concerts of M.
Jullien, and, with some trembling at the magnitude of the enterprise,
this hall was secured for Sabbath evenings.
We find the following entry in the
Church-book:—
"Lord's-day, Oct. 19, 1856. On the evening of this day, in
accordance with the resolution passed at the Church meeting, Oct. 6th,
the church and congregation assembled to hear our pastor, in the Music
Hall of the Royal Surrey Gardens. A very large number of persons (about
7000) were assembled on that occasion, and the service was commenced in
the usual way, by singing, reading the Scriptures, and prayer. Just,
however, after our Pastor had commenced his prayer, a disturbance was
caused (as it is supposed, by some evil-disposed persons acting in
concert), and the whole congregation were seized with a sudden panic,
This caused a fearful rush to the doors, particularly from the
galleries. Several persons, either in consequence of their heedless
haste, or from the extreme pressure of the crowd behind, were thrown
down on the stone steps of the northwest staircase, and were trampled
on by the crowd pressing upon them. The lamentable result was that seven
persons lost their lives, and twenty-eight were removed to the hospitals
seriously bruised and injured. Our pastor not being aware that any loss
of life had occurred, continued in the pulpit, endeavouring by every
means in his power to alleviate the fear of the people, and was
successful to a very considerable extent. In attempting to renew the
service, it was found that the people were too excited to listen to him,
and the service was closed, and the people who remained dispersed
quietly. This lamentable circumstance produced very serious effects on
the nervous system of our pastor. He was entirely prostrated for some
days, and compelled to relinquish his preaching engagements. Through the
great mercy of our heavenly Father, he was, however, restored so as to
be able to occupy the pulpit in our own chapel on Sunday, Oct. 31st, and
gradually recovered his wonted health and vigour. "The Lord's name be
praised!"
The church desire to note this event
in their minutes, and to record their devout thankfulness to God that
in this sad calamity the lives of their beloved pastor, the deacons, and
members were all preserved; and also with the hope that our heavenly
Father from this seeming evil may produce the greatest amount of real
lasting good.
This was the way in which this great
affliction was viewed by our church; but we had, in addition to the
unutterable pain of the whole catastrophe, to bear the wicked
accusations of the public press. We will give only one specimen; it is
taken from a popular newspaper which has long been most friendly to us,
and therefore we will not mention names. In the days of its ignorance
it said—
Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher who hurls damnation at the heads
of his sinful hearers. Some men there are who, taking their precepts
from Holy Writ, would beckon erring souls to a rightful path with fair
words and gentle admonition; Mr. Spurgeon would take them by the nose
and bully them into religion. Let us set up a barrier to the
encroachments and blasphemies of men like Spurgeon, saying to them,
"Thus far shalt thou come and no further;" let us devise some powerful
means which shall tell to the thousands who now stand in need of
enlightenment—This man, in his own opinion, is a righteous Christian,
but in ours nothing more than a ranting charlatan. We are neither
straightlaced nor Sabbatarian in our sentiments: but we would keep
apart, widely apart, the theatre and the church—above all, would we
place in the hand of every right-thinking man, a whip to scourge from
society the authors of such vile blasphemies as on Sunday night, above
the cries of the dead and the dying, and louder than the wails of misery
from the maimed and suffering, resounded from the mouth of Mr. Spurgeon
in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens.
A fund was raised to help the poor
sufferers, and to avoid all fear of further panic the preacher resolved
to hold the service in the morning, though that part of the day is least
favourable to large congregations. The multitude came, however, and
continued still to come for three good years. All classes came, both
high and low. We have before us a list of the nobility who attended the
Music Hall, but as we never felt any great elation at their attendance
or cared to have their presence blazoned abroad, we will not insert the
names. It was a far greater joy to us that hundreds came who were led
to seek the Lord, and to find eternal life in him.
A famous letter, signed Habitans
in Sicco, and dated from Broad Phylactery, Westminster, appeared at
this period in the "Times," and as it was known to be written by
an eminent scholar it produced a very favourable impression. Part of the
letter ran as follows:—
"I want to hear Spurgeon; let us go." Now, I am supposed to
be a high churchman, so I answered, "What! go and hear a Calvinist—a
Baptist!—a man who ought to be ashamed of himself for being so near the
Church, and yet not within its pale?" "Never mind; come and hear him."
Well, we went yesterday morning to the Music Hall, in the Surrey
Gardens. . . . Fancy a congregation consisting of 10,000 souls,
streaming into the Hall, mounting the galleries, humming, buzzing, and
swarming—a mighty hive of bees—eager to secure at first the best
places, and, at last, any place at all. After waiting more than half an
hour—for if you wish to have a seat you must be there at least that
space of time in advance—Mr. Spurgeon ascended his tribune. To the hum,
and rush, and trampling of men, succeeded a low, concentrated thrill and
murmur of devotion, which seemed to run at once, like an electric
current, through the breast of every one present; and by this magnetic
chain, the preacher held us fast bound for about two hours. It is not
my purpose to give a summary of his discourse. It is enough to say of
his voice, that its power and volume are sufficient to reach every one
in that vast assembly; of his language, that it is neither high-flown
nor homely; of his style, that it is at times familiar, at times
declamatory, but always happy, and often eloquent; of his doctrine, that
neither the Calvinist nor the Baptist appears in the forefront of the
battle which is waged by Mr. Spurgeon with relentless animosity, and
with gospel weapons, against irreligion, cant, hypocrisy, pride, and
those secret bosom sins which so easily beset a man in daily life; and
to sum up all in a word, it is enough to say of the man himself, that
he impresses you with a perfect conviction of his sincerity.
But I have not written so much about
my children's want of spiritual food when they listened to the mumbling
of the Archbishop of _______, and my own banquet at the Surrey Gardens,
without a desire to draw a practical conclusion from these two stories,
and to point them by a moral. Here is a man not more Calvinistic than
many an incumbent of the Established Church, who "humbles and mumbles,"
as old Latimer says, over his liturgy and text—here is a man who says
the complete immersion, or something of the kind, of adults is necessary
to baptism. These are his faults of doctrine; but if I were the
examining chaplain of the Archbishop of ______, I would say, "May it
please your grace, here is a man able to preach eloquently, able to fill
the largest church in England with his voice, and what is more to the
purpose, with people. And may it please your grace, here are two
churches in the metropolis, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. What does
your grace think of inviting Mr. Spurgeon, this heretical Calvinist and
Baptist, who is able to draw 10,000 souls after him, just to try his
voice, some Sunday morning, in the nave of either of those
churches?"
Meanwhile the collection of funds for
a new building went on, and in January, 1858, the money in hand was
£6100; by January, 1859, it was £9,639, and £5,000 of it was set aside
to pay for the ground near the Elephant and Castle. We went plodding on,
the pastor collecting personally, or by his sermons, very much of the
money, travelling far and wide to do so; Scotch friends especially
helping; till in January, 1860, after the first stone had been laid,
£16,868 was in hands or more than half of the sum required, so that the
land had been paid for, and installments paid to the builder as
required. The first stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was laid with
great rejoicings, August 16th, 1859, by Sir Morton Peto; but as a report
of the whole proceedings can be procured of our publishers we will say
but little here. We feel constrained, however, to mention the singular
providence which placed Mr. Spicer and other friends upon the Court of
the Fishmongers' Company, so as to secure the land; next, the fact that
the company was able to sell the freehold; and, next, that the late Mr.
William Joynson, of Mary Cray, deposited the amount to pay for an Act
of Parliament to enable the company to sell in case it had turned out
that they had not the legal power to do so. Singularly happy also was
the circumstance that a gentleman in Bristol, who had never heard the
pastor, nevertheless gave no less a sum than £5,000 towards the
building. Eternity alone can reveal all the generous feeling, and self-
denying liberality evinced by Christian people in connection with this
enterprise,—to us at any rate so gigantic at the time that apart from
divine aid we could never have carried it through. One of the chief of
our mercies was the fact that our beloved brother, William Higgs, was
our builder, and treated us with unbounded liberality throughout the
whole affair. He is now a worthy deacon of our church.
In December, 1859, we left the Surrey
Music Hall. We paid the company a large sum for our morning service, and
this was the only amount out of which a dividend was paid. They proposed
to open the gardens for amusement on the Lord's-day evening, and we
threatened to give up our tenancy if they did so. This prevented the
evil for some time, but at length the baser sort prevailed, and under
the notion that Sunday "pleasure" would prove remunerative, they
advertised that the gardens would be opened on the Sabbath: we,
therefore, felt bound in honour to leave the place, and we did so. After
a while a fire almost destroyed the building, and the relics were for
years turned into a hospital. We commenced on December 18th, 1859, our
third and longest sojourn at Exeter Hall, which ended on March 1st,
1861. A few of our remarks upon leaving that place may fitly be quoted
here.
In the providence of God we, as a church and people, have
had to wander often. This is our third sojourn within these walls. It
is now about to close. We have had at all times and seasons a compulsion
for moving: sometimes a compulsion of conscience, at other times a
compulsion of pleasure, as on this occasion. I am sure that when we
first went to the Surrey Music Hall, God went with us. Satan went too,
but he fled before us. That frightful calamity, the impression of which
can never be erased from my mind, turned out in the providence of God
to be one of the most wonderful means of turning public attention to
special services, and I do not doubt that—fearful catastrophe though
it was—it has been the mother of multitudes of blessings. The Christian
world noted the example; and saw its after-success; they followed it;
and to this day, in the theatre and in the cathedral, the word of Christ
is preached where it was never preached before. In each of our movings
we have had reason to see the hand of God, and here particularly; for
many residents in the West End have in this place come to listen to the
word, who probably might not have taken a journey beyond the river. Here
God's grace has broken hard hearts; here have souls been renewed, and
wanderers reclaimed. "Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the
Lord glory and strength; give unto the Lord the glory due unto his
name." And now we journey to the house which God has in so special a
manner given to us, and this day would I pray as Moses did, "Rise up,
Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee
flee before thee."
Under date January 6th, 1861, there
stands in our records the following solemn declaration, signed by the
pastor and leading friends: "This church needs rather more than £4,000
to enable it to open the New Tabernacle free of all debt. It humbly asks
this temporal mercy of God, and believes that for Jesus' sake the prayer
will be heard and the boon bestowed. As witness our hands."
Now let the reader mark that, on May
6th of the same year, the pastor and many friends also signed their
names to another testimony, which is worded as follows:
We, the undersigned members of the church lately worshipping
in New Park Street Chapel, but now assembling in the Metropolitan
Tabernacle, Newington, desire with overflowing hearts to make known and
record the lovingkindness of our faithful God. We asked in faith, but
our Lord has exceeded our desires, for not only was the whole sum given
us, but far sooner than we had looked for it. Truly the Lord is good and
worthy to be praised. We are ashamed of ourselves that we have ever
doubted him, and we pray that as a church and as individuals we may be
enabled to trust in the Lord at all times with confidence, so that in
quietness we may possess our souls. To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost we
offer praise and thanksgiving, and we set to our seal that God is
true.
After about a month of Opening
Services, of which a full account can be had of our publishers, we began
regular work at the Tabernacle in May 1861, the whole building being
free of debt, and the accounts showing that £31,332 4s. 10d. had
been received, and the same amount expended. Truly we serve a gracious
God.
|
