_Spurgeon and Cummings._
MR. SPURGEON and his Tabernacle are “down” in guide-books among the
lions of the metropolis. But, in engaging a carriage to take us to the
Tabernacle on Sabbath morning, we had to clarify the perceptions of our
very decent coachman by informing him that it was hard by the “Elephant
and Castle.” Nothing stimulates the wit of the average Briton like the
mention of an inn or ale-house, unless it be the gleam of the shilling
he is to spend therein.
In anticipation of a crowd, Caput had provided himself with tickets
for our party of three. These are given to any respectable traveller
who will apply to the agent of the “concern,” in Paternoster Row. To
avoid the press of entrance we allowed ourselves an hour for reaching
the church. The Corinthian portico was already packed with non-holders
of tickets, although it lacked half an hour of the time for service.
There were ushers at a gate at the left of the principal entrance,
who motioned us to pass. The way lay by a locked box fastened to
a post, labelled “FOR THE LAY COLLEGE,” or words to that effect.
In consideration of the gratuity of the tickets, and the manifest
convenience of the same, that stranger is indeed a churl, ungrateful,
or obtuse to the laws of _quid pro quo_, who does not drop a coin into
the slit, and feel, after the free-will offering, that he has a better
right to his seat. A second set of ushers received us in the side
vestibule and directed us to go upstairs. The gallery seats are the
choice places, and we obeyed with alacrity. A third detachment met us
at the top of the steps, looked at and retained our tickets, and stood
us in line with fifty other expectants against the inner wall, until
he could “h’arrange matters.” Our turn came in about five minutes, and
we were agreeably surprised at being installed in the front row, with
a clear view of stage and lower pews. In five minutes more an elderly
lady in a black silk dress trimmed profusely with guipure lace, a
purple velvet hat with a great deal of Chantilly about it, and a white
feather atop of all, touched my shoulder from behind, showing me a face
like a Magenta hollyhock, but sensible and kind.
“_Might_ I inquire if you got your tickets from Mr. Merryweather?”
I looked at Caput.
“No, madam!” he replied promptly. “I procured them from ——,” giving the
Paternoster Row address.
“Possible? But you are strangers?”
He bowed assent.
“_And_ Americans?”
Another bow.
“Then all I ’ave to say is, that it is extror’nary! most extror’nary!
I told Mr. Merryweather to give three tickets, with my compliments, to
an American party I heard of—one gentleman and a couple of ladies—and I
was in hopes they were providentially near my pew.”
She leaned forward, after a minute, to subjoin—“Of course, you are
welcome, all the same!”
“That is one comfort!” whispered Prima, as the pew-owner settled
back rustlingly into her corner. “In America we should consider her
‘very-very’ impertinent. _Do_ circumstances and people alter cases?”
Ten minutes more and the galleries were packed by the skilled ushers,
and the body of the lower floor was three-quarters full of pew-holders.
We scanned them carefully and formed an opinion of the social and
intellectual status of the Tabernacle congregation we saw no reason to
reverse at our second and longer visit to London, two years afterward,
when our opportunities of making a correct estimate of pastor and
people were better than on this occasion. Caput summed it up.
“I dare affirm that eight out of ten of them misplace their _h’s_——”
“And say, ‘sir!’” interpolated Prima, gravely.
Yet they looked comfortable in spirit, and, as to body, were decidedly
and tawdrily overdressed—the foible of those whose best clothes are
too good for every-day wear, and who frequent few places where they
can be so well displayed and seen as at church. Somebody assured me
once, that white feathers were worn in Great Britain out of compliment
to the Prince of Wales, whose three white plumes banded together are
conspicuous in all public decorations. If this be true, the prospective
monarch may felicitate himself upon the devotion of the Wives and
Daughters of England. I have never seen one-half so many sported
elsewhere, and they have all seasons for their own.
The last remaining space in our slip was taken up by a pair who arrived
somewhat late. The wife was a pretty dumpling of a woman, resplendent
in a bronze-colored silk dress, _garnie_ with valenciennes, a seal-skin
jacket, and a white hat trebly complimentary to H. R. H. She and her
dapper husband squeezed past those already seated, obliging us to rise
to escape trampled toes, wedged themselves into the far end of the
pew, and a dialogue began in loud whispers.
“I say it’s a shame!”
“If you complain they may say we should a’ come h’earlier.”
“I don’t care! I will ’ave my say! Mr. Smith!” This aloud, beckoning
an usher; “I say, Mr. Smith! You’ve put one too many h’in our pew. Its
h’abominably crowded!”
The slip was very long. Besides the malcontents, there were five of us,
who looked at each other, then at the embarrassed usher. The gentleman
next the aisle arose.
“If you can provide me with another seat I will give the lady more
room,” he said to the man of business.
With a word of smiling apology to his companion—a sweet-faced woman
we supposed was his wife—he followed the guide, and, as the reward
of gallantry stood against the wall back of us until the sermon was
half done. We did not need to be told what was his nationality. The
victorious heroine of the skirmish did not say or look—“I am sorry!” or
“Thanks!” only, to her husband,—“_Now_ I can breathe!”
She was civilly attentive to me, who chanced to sit nearest her,
handing me a hymn-book and offering her fan as the house grew warm. She
evidently had no thought that she had been rude or inhospitable to the
stranger within the gates of her Tabernacle.
The great front doors were opened, and in less time than I can write of
it the immense audience-chamber, capable of containing 6,500 persons,
was filled to overflowing. The rush and buzz were a subdued tumult.
Nobody made more noise than was needful in the work of obtaining
seats in the most favorable positions left for the multitude who were
not regular worshippers there, nor ticket-holders. But I should have
considered one of Apollos’s sermons dearly-bought by such long waiting
and the race that ended it. The ground-swell of excitement had not
entirely subsided when the “ting! ting!” of a little bell was heard. A
door opened at the back of the deep platform already edged with rows of
privileged men and women, who had come in by this way, and Mr. Spurgeon
walked to the front, where were his chair and table.
I have yet to see the person whose feeling at the first sight of the
great Baptist preacher was not one of overwhelming disappointment.
His legs are short and tremble under the heavy trunk. His forehead is
low, with a bush of black hair above it, the brows beetle over small,
twinkling eyes, the nose is thick, the mouth large, with a pendulous
lower jaw. “Here is an animal!” you say to yourself. “Of the earth,
earthy. Of the commonalty, common!”
He moved slowly and painfully, and while preaching, praying and
reading, rested his gouty knee upon the seat of a chair and stood upon
one leg. His hand, stumpy and ill-formed, although small, grasped the
chair-back for further support. If I remember aright, there was no
invocation or other preliminary service before he gave out a hymn. His
voice is a clear monotone, marvellously sustained. The inflections are
slight and few, but exceedingly effective. The ease of elocution that
sent every syllable to the farthest corner of the vast building was
inimitable and cannot be described.
“We will sing”—he began as naturally as in a prayer-meeting of twenty
persons—“We will _all_ sing, with the heart and with the voice, with
the spirit, and with understanding, the ——th hymn:
“Let us all, with cheerful mood
Praise the Lord, for He is good!”
The pronunciation of “mood” rhymed precisely with “good,” and he said
“Lard,” instead of “Lord.” But the words had in them the ring of a
silver trumpet.
The precentor stood directly in front of the preacher, facing the
audience and just within the railing of the stage. The instant the
reading of the hymn was over, he raised the tune, the congregation
rising. The Niagara of song made me fairly dizzy for a minute.
Everybody sang. After a few lines, it was impossible to refrain from
singing. One was caught up and swept on by the cataract. He might not
know the air. He might have neither ear nor voice for music. He was
kept in time and tune by the strong current of sound. There was no
organ or other musical instrument, nor was the voice of the precentor
especially powerful. It was as if we were guided by one overmastering
mind and spirit constraining the least emotional to be “conjubilant in
song” with the thousands upon thousands of his fellows. Congregational
psalmody, such as this, without previous rehearsal or training, is
phenomenal.
A prayer followed, as remarkable in its way as the singing.
Comprehensive, devout, simple, it was the pleading of man in the _felt_
presence of his Maker;—the key-note—“Nevertheless, I will talk with
Thee!” Next to Mr. Spurgeon’s earnestness his best gift is his command
of good, nervous English,—fluency which is never verboseness. Knowing
exactly what he means to say, he says it—fully and roundly—and lets
it alone thereafter. He is neither scholarly, nor eloquent, in any
other sense than in these. He read a chapter, giving an exposition of
each verse in terse, familiar phrase. There was another hymn, and he
announced his text:
“_Rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven!_”
I should hardly name humility as a characteristic of prayer or sermon;
yet, for one whose boldness of speech often approximates dogmatism,
he is singularly free from self-assertion. His sermon was more like a
lecture-room talk than a discourse prepared for, and delivered to a
mixed multitude. His quotations from Holy Writ were abundant and apt,
evincing a retentive memory and ready wit. One-third of the sermon
was in the very words of Scripture. His habitual employment of Bible
phrases has lent to his own composition a quaint savor. He makes lavish
use of “thee” and “thou,” jumbling these inelegantly with “you” in the
same sentence.
For example:—He described a man who had been useful and approved as
a church-member: (always addressing his own people)—“The Master has
allowed you to work for many days in His vineyard, and paid thee good
wages, even given thee souls for thy hire.”
In what shape reverses came to the prosperous laborer we were not told,
but that he did see others outstrip him in usefulness and honors:
“You are bidden by the Master to take a lower—maybe the lowest seat.
Ah, then, my friend, _thou hast the dumps_!”
I heard him say in another sermon: “If my Lord were to offer a prize
for a joyful Christian I am afraid there are not many of you who would
dare try for it. And if you did, I fear me much you would not draw even
a third prize.”
Occasionally he is coarse in trope and expression. I hesitate to record
a sentence that shocked me to disgust as being not only in atrocious
taste and an unfortunate figure of speech, but, to my apprehension,
irreverent:
“If we are not filled, it is because we do not hang upon and suck at
those blessed breasts of GOD’S promises as we might and should do.”
His illustrations are like his diction—homely. There was not a new
grand thought, nor a beautiful passage, rhetorically considered,
in any discourse we ever heard from him; not a trace of such fervid
imagination as draws men, sometimes against their will, to hear Gospel
truth in Talmage’s Tabernacle, or of Beecher’s magnificent genius.
We have, in America, scores of men who are little known outside of
their own town, or State, who preach the Word as simply and devoutly;
who are, impartially considered, in speech more weighty, in learning
incomparably superior to the renowned London Nonconformist. Yet we
sat—between six and seven thousand of us—and listened to him for
nearly an hour, without restlessness or straying attention. Yes! and
went again and again, to discover, if possible, as the boys say of the
juggler—“how he did it.”
In giving out the notices for the week, Mr. Spurgeon thanked the
regular attendants of the church for having complied with the request
he had made on the preceding Sabbath morning, and “stopped away at
night,” thus leaving more room for strangers. “I hope still more of
you will stop at home this evening,” he concluded in a tone of jolly
fellowship the people appeared to comprehend and like. He was clearly
thoroughly at one with his flock.
At night we also “stopped away,” but not at home. After much
misdirection and searching, we found the alley—it was nothing
better—leading to Dr. Cummings’s church in Crown Court, Long Acre. It
was small, very small in our sight while the remembered roominess of
the Tabernacle lingered with us,—plain as a Primitive Methodist Chapel
in the country; badly lighted, and the high, straight pews were not
half filled. The author of “Voices of the Dead” and “Lectures upon
the Apocalypse” is a gray-haired man a little above medium height.
His shoulders were bowed slightly—the bend of the student, not of
infirmity; his features were clear-cut and spirituelle. He preached
that night in faith and hope that were pathetic to us who had read his
prophecies—or his interpretation of Divine prophecy—as long ago as
1850, and recalled the fact that the time set for the fulfilment of
some of these had passed.
His text was Rev. i. 3: “_Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things that are written
therein—for_ THE TIME IS AT HAND!”
He believed it. One read it in every word and gesture; in the rapt look
of the eyes so long strained with watching for the nearer promise—the
dayspring—of His coming; in the calm assurance of mien and tone, the
dignity of a seer, whom Heaven was joined with earth to authenticate.
He spoke without visible notes; his only gesture a slight lifting of
both hands, with a fluttering, outward movement. We listened vainly
for some token in his spoken composition of the epigrammatic, often
antithetical style, that gives nerve and point to his published
writings. The interesting, albeit desultory talk was, he informed us,
the first of a series of sermons upon the Apocalypse he designed to
deliver in that place from Sabbath to Sabbath. He had been diligently
engaged of late in recasting the horoscope of the world. That was not
the way he put it. But he did say that he had reviewed the calculations
upon which his published “Lectures” were based, and would make known
the result of his labors in the projected series.
He preferred, it was said, the obscure corner in which he preached
to any other location, and had refused the offer of a lady of rank
to build him a better church, in a better neighborhood. I suppose he
thought it would outlast him—and into the millennial age.
I read, but yesterday, in an English paper, that he had retired from
pulpit duties, in confirmed ill-health, and that after his long life
of toil he is very poor. Some of his wealthy friends propose to pension
him. And we remember so well when his “Voices of the Night”—“The
Day”—“The Dead” were read by more thousands and tens of thousands than
now flock to hear Spurgeon; when the “Lectures upon the Apocalypse”
were a bugle-call, turning the eyes of the Christian world to the so
long rayless East. We recall, too, the title of another of his books,
with the vision of the bent figure and eyes grown dim with waiting for
the glory to be revealed,—and another text from his beloved Revelation:
“_These are they that have come out of Great Tribulation, and have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb._”