HIS LIFE,SERMONS, AND MINISTRY AN APPRAISAL:

THE REPUBLICATION OF THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT MISTER MOODY ON SPURGEON\par REMARKS MADE AT A JUBILEE TESTIMONIAL SERVICE FOR C. H. SPURGEON IN C. H.SPURGEON: We have need to praise God that he enables the church to carry on all these institutions. Let us sing hymn No. 7, “Hallelujah for the Cross.” (The hymn was sung.)

I want you now to hear me a moment while I say that the brother who is now about to speak, Mr. Moody, is one whom we all love. He is not only one whom we all love, but he is evidently one whom God loves. We feel devoutly grateful to Almighty God for raising him up, and for sending him to England to preach the gospel to such great numbers with such plainness and power. We shall continue to pray for him when he has gone home.

Among the things we shall pray for will be that he may come back again. I might quote the language of an old Scotch song with regard to Prince Charlie, — “Bonnie Moody’s gang awa Will ye no come back again?

Better loved ye canna’ be, Will ye no come back again?” Now let us give him as good a cheer as ever we can when he stands up to speak. MR. D. L.MOODY: Mr. Spurgeon has said tonight that he has felt like weeping. I have tried to keep back the tears. I have not succeeded very well. I remember, seventeen years ago, coming into this building a perfect stranger. Twenty-five years ago, after I was converted, I began to read of a young man preaching in London with great power, and a desire seized me to hear him, never expecting that some day I should be a preacher.

Everything I could get hold of in print that he ever said I read. I knew very little about religious things when I was converted. I did not have what he has had — a praying father. My father died before I was four years old. I was thinking of that tonight as I saw Mr. Spurgeon’s venerable father here by his side. He has the advantage of me in that respect, and he perhaps got an earlier start than he would have got if he had not had that praying father. His mother I have not met, his father I have; but most good men have praying mothers — God bless them. In 1867 I made my way across the sea, and if ever there was a sea-sick man for fourteen days, I was that one. The first place to which I carne was this building. I was told that I could not get in without a ticket, but I made up my mind to get in somehow, and I succeeded. I well remember seating myself in this gallery. I remember the very seat, and I should like to take it back to America with me. As your dear Pastor walked down to the platform, my eyes just feasted upon him, and my heart’s desire for years was at last accomplished. It happened to be the year you preached in the Agricultural Hall I followed you up there, and you sent me back to America a better man. Then I went to try and preach myself, though at the time I little thought I should ever be able to do so. While I was here I followed Mr. Spurgeon everywhere, and when at home people asked me if I had gone to this and that cathedral, I had to say “No,” and confess I was ignorant of them; but I could tell them something about the meetings addressed by Mr. Spurgeon. In 1872 I thought I would come over again to learn a little more, and again I found my way back to this gallery. I have been here a great many times since, and I never come into the building without getting a blessing to my soul. I think I have had as great a one here tonight as at any other time I have been in this Tabernacle. When I look down on these orphan boys, when I think of the 600 servants of God who have gone out from the College to preach the gospel, of the 1,500 or 2,000 sermons from this pulpit that are in print, and of the multitude of books that have come from the Pastor’s pen — (Scripture says of the making of books there is no end, and in his case it is indeed true) — I would fain enlarge upon all these good works, but the clock shows me that if I do, I shall not get to my other meeting in time.

But let me just say this, if God can use Mr. Spurgeon why not the rest of us, and why should not we all just lay ourselves at the Master’s feet, and say “Send me, use me” ? It is not Mr. Spurgeon after all, it is God. He is as weak as any other man away from him. Moses was nothing, but it was Moses’ God. Samson was nothing when he lost his strength, but when it came back to him then he was a mighty man; and so, dear friends, bear in mind that if we can just link our weakness to God’s strength we can go forth and be a blessing in the world. Now, there are others to speak, and I have also to hasten away to another meeting, but I want to say to you, Mr.

Spurgeon. “God bless you.” I know that you love me, but I assure you I love you a thousand times more than you can ever love me, because you have been such a blessing to me, while I have been a very little blessing to you. When I think of a man or woman who has been in this Tabernacle time after time and heard the gospel, I pity them deep down in my heart if they are. found among the lost. I have read your sermons for twenty-five years, and what has cheered my heart has been that in them was no uncertain sound. In closing, let me give you a poem that one of our American Indians wrote. The first line began with “go on,” the second line was “go on,” and the third line was “go on,” and this was all he could write. I say “go on, brother, and God bless you.” You are never going to die. John Wesley lives more today than when he was in the flesh; Whitefield lives more today than when he was on this earth; John Knox lives more today than at any other period of his life; and Martin Luther, who has been gone over 400 years, still lives. Bear in mind, friends, that our dear brother is to live for ever. We may never meet together again in the flesh, but by the blessing of God I will meet you up yonder.

B. H. CARROLL’S REMARKS ON CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON From an Address at Nashville. Tennessee on the first Sunday in February.

Last Sunday night at Mentone, France, there died the greatest man of modern times. If every crowned head in Europe had died that night, the event would not be so momentous as the death of this one man. At the depot of death, God’s chariot met him as a kingly guest, and a convoy of angels escorted him home. Cherubim hovered over him and Seraphim flamed before him. The bended heavens stooped to meet him.

And who are these, like clouds of doves from the windows of heaven, that fly to greet him? These are his spiritual children, begotten unto God through his ministry, out of every nation and tribe and kindred. From the British Isles, from America, from the Australian bush, from the Islands of the sea, “from Afric’s torrid climes,” and “Greenland’s icy mountains,” “from India’s coral strand,” from the pine-clad mountains of Scandinavia, and bleak Nova Zembla, they had gone up before him and were waiting and watching for him.

But most rapturous and entrancing vision — see him meet the Master himself! Spurgeon and Christ — the saint and his Savior, meeting above clouds and sorrow and death.

See the saint casting all his star-crowns and honors at the nail-pierced feet, crying out: “My Lord and my God!” and shouting: “Grace, grace, all grace — a sinner saved by grace.”

Yes, Spurgeon is dead. The tallest and broadest oak in the forest of time is fallen. The sweetest, most silvery and far-reaching voice that published the glad tidings since apostolic times is bushed. The hand whose sickle cut the widest swath in the ripened grain-fields of redemption lies folded and nerveless on a pulseless breast, whose heart when beating time kept with every human joy and woe. In answer to the question: “How do you account for Spurgeon?” the answer is the monosyllable: “God.” Never since Paul died has so much work and so much success been crowded into so small a space of time.

Mr. Spurgeon was preeminently a preacher. He preached more sermons, perhaps, than any other man. More people have heard him than have heard any other man. More people have read and do read his sermons than the sermons of any other man. More of them have been translated into foreign tongues than any other sermons. More people have been converted by reading them, in more countries, than by, perhaps, all other published sermons.

Livingstone had one of them in his hat when he died, having carried it through Africa. A widow was found half frozen on an Alpine mountain peak, reading one of them through her tears. A bush-ranger in Australia was converted by reading one, blood-stained, which he had taken from the body of a man he had murdered.

He never found but one place that could hold his congregation — the open fields roofed by the skies.