Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) is popularly known as the “Prince of Preachers.” He was widely regarded as the most prolific preacher in England during the Victorian Era and is among the most renowned preachers in Christian history. His now sixty-six volumes of printed sermons, his scores of devoted converts, and his myriad of published books and tracts attest to his legacy as a powerful preacher and Christian leader.
Looking to the Savior
Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, Essex on June 19, 1834. He was the first of seventeen children, only eight of whom survived infancy. Spurgeon came to saving faith in Jesus Christ in climactic fashion as a fifteen-year-old boy in January of 1851. He stepped outside his parents’ home in Colchester on a Lord’s day morning to attend a nearby church. However, he was caught in the middle of an intense snow storm and only made it a few blocks down the road before deciding to turn indoors at the local Primitive Methodist chapel. There were only about a dozen or so worshippers gathered that morning. A humble country preacher ascended the pulpit and preached from Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.” That day, Spurgeon looked to the Savior and never looked back
By the time he was sixteen, Spurgeon was teaching a large Sunday school class of children and adults in Cambridge. At seventeen, he was pastoring his first church in the small village of Waterbeach, a church which grew to over 400 people over the course of his eighteen-month ministry there. At the age of nineteen, he was called to pastor a church in the sprawling metropolis of London, one of the world’s largest and most industrialized cities. There he would pastor one of London’s most famous churches, which was then called New Park Street chapel, and later the Metropolitan Tabernacle. By the age of twenty-one, the first biographies of Spurgeon began to appear in print.
The Prince of Preachers
The heart of Spurgeon’s life and ministry was his preaching. He gave himself tirelessly to preaching the gospel and made the sovereign love of God shown in the cross of Jesus Christ the focal point of his message. Spurgeon often preached six to seven times per week, including two messages each Sunday at the Metropolitan Tabernacle which accommodated over 6,000 worshippers at both services every Lord’s day. It has been estimated that Spurgeon preached to over 10 million people over the course his life.
The Tabernacle membership grew in almost every year of Spurgeon’s tenure as pastor. Over his thirty–eight years in London, Spurgeon saw the church grow from 232 members when he first arrived in 1854 to 5,311 in 1892. Altogether 14,461 people were baptized during his ministry–an average of more than one per day. This sort of sustained success was without precedent in Spurgeon’s era. His power to draw large crowds was only exceeded by his ability to keep them for nearly four decades.
A Benevolent Ministry
Alongside his thriving preaching ministry was his ever-growing philanthropic work. The Metropolitan Tabernacle, under Spurgeon’s leadership, was home to sixty-six benevolent ministries by the 1880s. Most of these institutions were either founded or chaired by Spurgeon himself. Among the most famous of Spurgeon’s benevolent ministries were the Pastors’ College and the Stockwell Orphanage.
The Pastors’ College was founded in the late 1850s and began as a small training school for preachers in London with a mere handful of students. It eventually became the most productive theological college for Baptist preachers in all of England. By Spurgeon’s death in 1892, over 20% of all of the Baptist preachers in England had graduated from Spurgeon’s College. The Pastors’ College graduated over 900 students in Spurgeon’s lifetime. It has been estimated that by the end of Spurgeon’s life over 200 new churches were planted in Britain alone by graduates of the College. The Pastors’ College is considered one of Spurgeon’s benevolent institutions because for the first decade of the school’s existence it was almost entirely supported by Spurgeon himself through his sermon sales and book royalties.
The second most well-known of Spurgeon’s benevolences was the Stockwell Orphanage. The Orphanage housed roughly 500 orphans at any given time and provided care of the highest quality. Spurgeon would often spend his Christmas mornings with the orphans who, as he said, “compassed me about like bees.”
A Good Fight
Spurgeon died in Mentone, France on January 31, 1892 of kidney disease. His last conscious act was to send a £100 note to the Metropolitan Tabernacle benevolence fund along with the message “Love to all friends.” Though Spurgeon made millions throughout his lifetime through the sale of his sermons and books, he died nearly broke because he had given most of his money away to charitable causes. He was buried at Norwood Cemetery where hundreds still visit his grave each year. At the foot of the grave is a sculpture of a Bible opened to 2 Timothy 4:7-8: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Greatest Works: The Treasury of David, Morning and Evening, and Lectures to My Students
Recommended Biography: Spurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold A. Dallimore
Some sites we’ll visit on the tour:
Kelvedon – Spurgeon’s birthplace
Colchester – The Primitive Methodist chapel where Spurgeon was converted
Waterbeach – The village where Spurgeon first pastored at the age of seventeen
London – The Metropolitan Tabernacle where Spurgeon ministered for 38 years.
