I’ve been slowly working my way through Charles Spurgeon’s autobiography, “The Early Years, Volume 1” this year. I have a pace set out that will allow me to read both volumes through in 2012. I’m doing this with several other books and it’s proving to be quite a joy thus far.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I’m thankful to God for the mind He gave C.H. Spurgeon. I’m not sure we’ll ever see the like of him again. He has a masterful use of language which moves the heart and mind. It’s only a sign of God’s free grace that all of London wasn’t converted under his ministry in the late 1800s.
Here’s an example I shared with my congregation this past Lord’s Day. Spurgeon has been contemplating how God drew him to Himself.
"There was a day, as I took my walks abroad, when I came hard by a spot for ever engraven upon my memory, for there I saw this Friend, my best, my only Friend, murdered. I stooped down in sad affright, and looked at him. I saw that his hands had been pierced with rough iron nails, and his feet had been rent in the same way. There was misery in his dead countenance so terrible that I scarcely dared to look upon it. His body was emaciated with hunger, his back was red with bloody scourges, and his brow had a circle of wounds about it: clearly could one see that these had been pierced by thorns. I shuddered, for I had known this Friend full well. He never had a fault; he was the purest of the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured him? For he never injured any man: all his lifelong he "went about doing good;" he had healed the sick, he had fed the hungry, he had raised the dead: for which of these works did they kill him? He had never breathed out anything else but love; and as I looked into the poor sorrowful face, so full of agony, and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been a wretch so vile up as to pierce hands like his. I said within myself, "Where can these traitors live? Who are these that could have smitten such an one as this?" Had they murdered an oppressor, we might have forgiven them; had they slain one who had indulged vice or villainy, it might have been his desert; had it been a murderer and a rebel, or one who had committed sedition, we would have said, "Bury his corpse: justice has at last given him his due." But when Thou was slain, my best, my only-beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me seize them, and they shall be put to death. If there be torments that I can devise, surely they shall endure them all Oh! what jealousy, what revenge I felt! If I might but find these murderers what would I not do with them! And as I look upon that corpse, I heard a footstep, and wondered where it was. I listened, and I clearly perceived that the murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find him. I found that, somehow or other, wherever I put out my hand, I could not meet with him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go. At last I put my hand upon my breast. "I have thee now," said I' for lo! he was in my own heart; the murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul. Ah! then I wept indeed, that I, in the very presence of my murdered Master, should be harbouring the murderer, and I felt myself most guilty while I bowed over His corpse, and sent that plaintive hymn––!
“ ‘Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were;
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.”