above referred to he not only prayed earnestly for the rulers of the land, but also prayed that Parliament might be permitted "to do as little hurt as possible." His life was crowded full of remarkable answers to prayer, many of which were of the most startling character, amounting really to miracles in the true Christian sense. In consultation with a friend on this subject he said: Look at my Orphanage. To keep it going entails an annual expenditure of about ten thousand pounds. Only one thousand four hundred pounds are provided for by endowment. The remaining eight thousand pounds come to me regularly in answer to prayer. I do not know where I shall get it from day to day. I ask God for the cash and he sends it, without my advertising or writing begging letters or canvassing in any way. In every direction I am constantly witnessing the most unmistakable instances of answers to prayer. My whole life is made up of them. I should be the most irrational creature in the world if I should entertain the slightest doubt upon the subject. The God that answers by orphanages, let him be God. The tenacity of his belief in the strict Calvinistic theology suffered him to brook no departure from it in his brethren without a vehement protest. And yet men would do their own thinking in spite of Mr. Spurgeon, and further and further his Baptist coadjutors drifted from what he held to be the only true basis of religious faith and fellowship. In an agony of soul he declared to all the world that his brethren were on the downgrade, and he began to talk of what he regarded as the apostasy of English Christianity. At last, in strictest loyalty to his own sense of responsibility and duty, he withdrew from the Baptist Union of Great Britain. It was a sad mistake, putting him really in a wrong light before the world, and yet with his peculiar make-up it was inevitable. To him theology was not a progressive science, and he never abandoned or even modified a single tenet of his system from the beginning to the end of his career. In the controversy referred to he was conscientious, and consistent with his creed and his character. He was quickly left behind and alone. But the weight of his theology could not crush out his love, or in the least degree abate his earnestness in saving men. The people flocked to hear him just the same, although many of them were now obliged to take what they considered the bitter in order to get the sweet. Their heads often refused submission, but their hearts were still led captive at his will. The thinker and writer in Mr. Spurgeon kept even pace with the preacher. His printed sermons will not, from a literary standpoint, for a moment bear comparison with those of Liddon or Beecher or Phillips Brooks, and yet in readableness and effectiveness they surpass all these as sermons. As an author his product was enormous. For nearly forty years he published a volume annually of his sermons, and the sales often reached a hundred thousand copies, besides a much larger number of single sermons in pamphlet form. His sermons and other writings were translated and largely circulated in almost every country of the world. A complete list of his publications would require more than a full page of this magazine. The Treasury of David, in seven volumes, is his greatest work; his John Plowman's Talks is the most popular, for one hundred and ten thousand copies were sold within three years of its publication, and three hundred and seventy thousand copies have been sold up to date. His books are literally packed full of pithy sayings and expressions, all with a practical direction, and yet many of them gems of thought and facile composition. With these, as with almost everything he gave to the world, the tendency was not only to make men think worthily for the time being, but to act worthily, and that continually. He baited his hook with surpassing skill; he cast it forth with an adroitness born of faith and prayer; and he caught men. In 1877 the membership of his London church was five thousand one hundred and fifty-two, while during his ministry he received more than thirteen thousand persons into his church. But he was larger than London. He preached to the world, and the saved through his direct instrumentality will no doubt be finally numbered by the hundreds of thousands. He was notably a teacher of preachers, and so multiplied his effectiveness indefinitely. So far as his London work was concerned Mr. Spurgeon was also a great organizer. A visit with him to his Pastors' College, where over one thousand young men have been trained for the ministry at home and abroad, or to his Orphanage, accommodating two hundred and fifty boys and as many girls, revealed to one a new and noble side to his nature, and aroused fresh won der at the broadness of his powers. At the Orphanage, espe cially, his generous, manly heart found full play, to the constant delight of himself and others. He established a large refuge and a colporteur association, with seventy agents, in different parts of England. A book fund, originated by Mrs. Spurgeon, supplied during the first ten years of its existence over one hundred and fifteen thousand volumes to poor ministers of all denomi nations. He also established several almshouses and a flourishing missionary society for work in North Africa. To all these institutions he gave his personal supervision. It is said that his church maintained thirty-six chapels in different parts of London. Mr. Spurgeon was open-handed in the use of money. His charity in this respect was munificent and out of all proportion to his means. He earned large sums of money, but laid by only a competency. On different anniversaries his admirers gave him many thousands of pounds, but in every instance every pound finally went to Christian organizations. He desired money that he might spend it for others; but the spirit of mere money-making he thoroughly despised. He was offered a thousand dollars a night in gold to lecture in America. He said: I know nothing about lecturing; I can only preach, and if I went to America to preach I would not take money for it. He knew the value of money, and while generous to a fault with his own was extremely prudent and exact in his use of all trust funds. Hundreds of thousands of pounds passed through his hands, for which he was able and willing at any moment to give an account even to the last shilling. Everybody trusted him, and nobody's confidence was ever betrayed even in the slightest degree. Said one good man of his church to me: I am grateful, beyond all power of expression, to Almighty God that no stain or shadow of any kind has ever fallen upon the character of our Mr. Spurgeon. All the institutions under his oversight were models of business order. The impression made by Mr. Spurgeon upon this generation was so widespread and so various that no complete estimate of it is possible. The results of his vast work abide as a rich legacy to the Church of Christ. Even his conservatism was, in the main, a blessing to the world, tempered as it was with his faith and love. His self-abnegation in planning and working was Christlike. God has taken him to the activities and joys of a higher, holier sphere, but his memory will be forever precious here on the earth. Of him it may be said in the fullest and most truthful sense: the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." closing words of his last sermon were: 66 Blessed are the dead which die in The My time is ended, although I have much more to say. I can only pray the Lord to give you to believe in him. If I should never again have the pleasure of speaking for my Lord upon the face of this earth I should like to deliver, as my last confession of faith, this testimony: that nothing but faith can save this nineteenth century; nothing but faith can save England; nothing but faith can save the present unbelieving Church; nothing but firm faith in the grand old doctrines of grace and in the everliving and unchanging God can bring back to the Church again a full tide of prosperity, and make her to be the deliverer of the nations for Christ; nothing but faith in the Lord Jesus can save you or me. The Lord give you, my brothers, to believe to the utmost degree for his name's sake! Amen. Ross & Houghton ART. III.-REGENERATION AS A FORCE IN REFORM MOVEMENTS-SECOND PAPER. IN adverse comment on a former article in the Review but one point worthy of attention has come to our notice, the prevailing sneer at the communism of the primitive Church. It is exceeding strange that the men who were with Jesus and were instructed by him should, in the very hour of the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, make such a blunder as they are charged with in ordinary allusions to that topic. In proof that this feature of the early Christian organization was not a mere brief and disastrous experiment we have space but for one quotation. Waddington quotes, in his Church History, from a letter written by Lucian at a date probably not earlier than A. D. 250, in which he says: Their first lawgiver has taught them (the Christians) that they are all brethren. . . . They despise, therefore, all earthly possessions, and look upon them as common. Here we have evidence that for more than two hundred years after the crucifixion the social features of the apostolic Church remained unchanged. We repeat that if the entire population of the country should be "converted," or "regenerated," in an hour, it would not result in a single reform in the industrial or social world. question now is, Can that position be maintained? The True reform in every department of society must begin with the abolition of unrighteousness (that which is not right) and the recognition of strict and impartial justice in all relations between man and man. The natural heart craves ease, possessions, and power, and seeks the easiest and speediest means of attaining them, and without regard to the rights of others. This is covetousness. Covetousness operates along distinctly marked lines; it takes possession, by force of arms, by strength of custom, and by power of legislation, of that which rightfully belongs to others. The outcome is the division of mankind into two classes, the robbers and the despoiled. The agencies employed by covetousness to enrich the few at the expense of the many lie open to the view of every thinker. All of the material bounty which God provides for the race |