ably sui generis, and, taking it all in all, is the most generally useful and important book of the day.

The "Lectures to My Students" are worthy of a place in the library of every minister in the kingdom. They are upon topics of supreme importance. Everything that relates to the aim, the methods, the discouragements, the failures and successes of ministerial life, is passed under review. Such lectures as those on "The Preacher's Private Prayer," on "The Matter of Sermons," on "The Voice," " Attention," "The Faculty of Impromptu Speech," and "The Minister's Fainting Fits," are invaluable, and they are written in a style which we do not usually associate with college prelections. "They are colloquial, familiar, full of anecdote, and often humorous." They are never dull or common-place. We cannot remember a tame or spiritless line in them. They are everywhere bright, genial, and sparkling, weighted with solid instruction, but conveyed in forms which might convert Dr. Dry-as-dust himself into one of the liveliest and most cheerful of companions. The lectures gain their worth from the fact that they are full of Mr. Spurgeon himself.

The companion volume, entitled "Commenting and Commentaries," is less attractive to the general reader; but the two lectures in the early part of it are as piquant and racy as anything of Mr. Spurgeon's we have read; and the list of commentaries is likely to prove of immense service. Nearly fifteen hundred works are named, and their general character tersely indicated. As a rule, Mr. Spurgeon's estimate of these works is fair and judicious; and he is not backward in acknowledging the merits of writers who belong to other schools of theology than himself. But he is, as it seems to us, somewhat prone to depreciate "the Germans." We set a higher store than he does on "The Speaker's Commentary," and we have certainly not found in "Candlish upon Genesis" anything that could induce us to speak of it as THE work on Genesis. We were, on the contrary, bitterly disappointed in it, and pity the writers who, on this ground, have been eclipsed by one whom we gladly acknowledge to have been the greatest ecclesiastical debater of our age.

When Mr. Spurgeon first came to London, the opposition he encountered was proportioned to his popularity. He was denounced as an ignorant and vulgar charlatan. "The most ridiculous stories were circulated, and the most cruel falsehoods invented." Caricatures were seen in the printsellers' windows, and were hawked in the streets. Jealousy, envy, and other evil passions did their utmost to malign him and destroy his growing influence. But it was all in vain. He lived down all opposition-generally by taking no notice of it, and quietly persisting in his own path.

There was, too, a time when he was not treated, even by Baptists, with excessive generosity. It was not an uncommon thing for "brethren in the ministry" to declaim against him, and to speak of him as "a nine days' wonder." But now all this is changed, and there is no man among us more thoroughly trusted or more intensely

loved. His manliness, his sincerity, his fervent piety have won for him the esteem of all who know him, and turned even detractors into friends.

There can be little doubt that Mr. Spurgeon himself has throughout every year of his life grown in solid worth and power. He has thrown aside most, if not all, of the things which in his early ministry were most objected to. His doctrinal beliefs, while substantially the same, are more matured and consistent. They are less partial and one-sided than they once were, and few men observe more carefully "the proportion of the faith." He is withal more tolerant of those who differ from him, and gives greater and more frequent prominence to those essential points which are deeper than all our differences. His style is free from the extravagances which were at one time charged against him, and for which a greater allowance ought surely to have been made. Considering his extreme youth, the absence of a college training, and the unparalleled number of his preaching engagements both in London and in the country, the marvel is that in those early days he reached the excellence he did. We can recall passages from sermons we heard him deliver then which were as pure and classic in style as the most fastidious critic could desire. And those of a contrary sort have become fewer and

fewer.

The Autumnal Sessions of the Baptist Union would not have been fruitless if they had done nothing more than suggest the formation of the London Association. That Association has rendered effective service to our denomination, and, beyond any other agency, it has fostered a feeling of brotherhood between Mr. Spurgeon and his ministerial brethren, which has unquestionably been a "means of grace" both to him and to them. He and they are alike stronger and happier for it, and to the churches at large the gain has been great.

We do not intend to attempt any task so presumptuous as "an analysis of Mr. Spurgeon's power," but to one or two conspicuous elements of it we may direct attention.

That he possesses in an unusual degree the physical, the mental, and the spiritual qualifications requisite for the work of the ministry, it is superfluous to remark. He has a constitution of remarkable strength, capable of doing and enduring the work and strain of a dozen ordinary men. His voice is both sweet and powerful. Its notes are rich and varied, and he uses it so naturally, and yet so skilfully, that he is unto men "as a lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument." It is not only clear and distinctthere is melody in its every sound; and in Mr. Spurgeon's most impassioned efforts, in which he employs at one moment argument and at another entreaty, in which solemn statements of truth alternate with tender pathos, and gentle invitations are followed by faithful warnings, it is, to quote words applied to another, "as if the various stops of a fine organ were being by turns employed at the will of a great player, calling into action the full power of the instrument in a

rich and magnificent combination of all its qualities." There is one peculiarity of Mr. Spurgeon's voice which is worthy of special note. We have sat within two or three yards of him on the platform, and it was not in the least too loud; we have been at the opposite end of the Tabernacle, and not a word was lost. He is reported to have been heard at the distance of a mile, but we cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report.

The structure of Mr. Spurgeon's mind is favourable to his efficiency in the pulpit. His perceptive powers are of the first order. He sees quickly and clearly, and his vision is not bewildered by mists and shadows. His judgment is sound and practical. No man displays stronger common sense than he, or understands more perfectly the needs of ordinary life. His memory must be singularly tenacious, and his readiness for any and every emergency is surprising.

The theology of the great Puritan writers he has completely mastered, and made in every sense his own. And there is, probably, no living author or preacher who in this field can compete with him. There is, however, one respect in which he is by no means Puritanical, and that is in the clearness and force of his style. With their minute and endless sub-divisions, their involved and complicated sentences, their Latin quotations and other antique fashions, he has shown no sympathy. He is, on the contrary, simple, pithy, and forcible. His words are mainly Saxon terms of every-day use in the house and in the street, in the market-place and on 'Change. There is nothing "bookish" about them, they can all be "understanded of the people."

He has, of course, fine powers of illustration. He does not disdain a good anecdote when it will serve his purpose, but it must be a good one, and capable of aiding his main design. His sermons abound in natural and expressive imagery. He often thinks in metaphors, enforces his statements of spiritual truths by analogies and resemblances drawn from all quarters, and so brings the recondite near. Along with Mr. Beecher, whose power in this direction is unequalled, and Dr. Maclaren, whose range, though higher, is perhaps more limited, Mr. Spurgeon may be pronounced "A Prince of Illustrators;" and if his sermons were sifted with this end in view, they would yield thousands of "choice extracts," such as would delight those who cannot discern or invent for themselves.

Of his intense and all-absorbing interest in his work it would be superfluous to speak. His honesty of purpose, his strong and overmastering convictions, his uncompromising zeal, are too patent to be ignored even by unfriendly critics. He has what Dr. Chalmers described as "blood earnestness." He knows what he believes. He means what he says. He is aglow, not merely with his subject, but with the love of souls. His sermon is no mere literary production, no mere exposition or illustration of abstract truth, but an instrument of spiritual power, palpably designed to convince of sin, and to lead

unto Christ. Such pleading as we have frequently heard, so winning and tender, so persistent and unwearied, it seems almost impossible to resist.

Mr. Spurgeon always speaks "because he has something to say, and never because he has to say something." He has a broad and powerful grasp of the essential truths of the Gospel, and if he holds them, they also hold him. He could not preach as he does unless he lived in close fellowship with God; and he rightly insists on the need of constant dependence on the Holy Spirit both in the preparation and the delivery of sermons. "To me," he has said, greatest secrecy in prayer has often been in public; my truest loneliness with God has occurred to me while pleading in the midst of thousands. I have opened my eyes at the close of a prayer and come back to the assembly with a sort of shock at finding myself upon earth, and among men." Can we wonder after this that his word should be with power?

my

This dependence upon God delivers him from the fear of man, keeps him calm and confident, and frees him from those forebodings of failure which have hindered the success of many a ministry. This we believe to be one great secret of Mr. Spurgeon's power.

It is a mistake to suppose that the majority of his sermons are literally off-hand and extemporaneous. They are carefully prepared as to their matter and substance, though not as to their forms of expression. The outline has been mastered beforehand, and so have the leading ideas. It is the language only which is left to the inspiration of the moment. He can, of course, speak impromptu, as few others can; but that is the result of hard work. He advises his students to collect a fund of ideas and expressions to aid this power. "He who has much information well arranged, and thoroughly understood, with which he is intimately familiar, will be able, like some prince of fabulous wealth, to scatter gold right and left

crowd.

among the Get at the roots of spiritual truths by an experimental acquaintance with them, so shall you with readiness expound them to others. Ignorance of theology is no rare thing in our pulpits, and the wonder is, not that so few men are extempore speakers, but that so many are, when theologians are so scarce. We shall never have great preachers till we have great divines. You cannot build a man-of-war out of a currant-bush, nor can great soul-moving preachers be formed out of superficial students. And second only to a store of ideas is a rich vocabulary. Beauties of language, elegances of speech, and, above all, forcible sentences, are to be selected, remembered, and imitated. You must be masters of words; they must be your genii, your angels, your thunderbolts, or your drops of honey."

It is a still greater mistake to imagine that Mr. Spurgeon possesses no learning, and in fact despises it. A scholar, in the technical sense of the word, he is not, though he might have been had he not had other and higher work to accomplish. But he is an exceedingly well-read man,

and is said to know more Latin and Greek than many whose pretensions are far loftier than his. He contends that "every minister should be able to read the Bible in the original. He should aim at a tolerable proficiency both in the Hebrew and the Greek. These two languages will give him a library at a small expense, an inexhaustible thesaurus, a mine of spiritual wealth. Really the effort of acquiring a language is not so prodigious that brethren of moderate abilities should so frequently shrink from the attempt. A minister ought to attain enough of these tongues to be at least able to make out a passage by the aid of a lexicon, so as to be sure that he is not misrepresenting the Spirit of God in his discoursings, but is, as nearly as he can judge, giving forth what the Lord intended to reveal by the language employed." These are wise words which every preacher should "mark, learn, and inwardly digest;" and if he has not now the requisite knowledge to enable him invariably to consult the original in every sermon, he should set himself, if possible, to attain it.

The

Mr. Spurgeon's comments as he reads the Scriptures are too notable a feature of his service to be passed over in silence. We have often felt them to be even more profitable than his sermons. They are short, racy, and suggestive-not critical, of course, but always sensible, judicious, and to the point. Few men can do this work well. We have witnessed many failures. It should never be attempted by any who are not prepared to devote to each chapter not less time than they give to the preparation of a sermon. Word of God is too sacred to be associated with the commonplace, easy-going, and careless remarks we have heard from men who have neither Mr. Spurgeon's spirituality nor genius. We cannot rightly serve God or benefit men "with that which doth cost us nothing"; and, while we fully endorse the great preacher's commendation of this practice, and delight in his own expositions, we earnestly deprecate all attempts to do this work in that off-hand and superficial fashion which some men evidently think sufficient.

Our subject is not exhausted, but our space is, and we must reluctantly close. Our article is sadly incomplete, as we warned our readers it would be. It could not be otherwise; and we will only further say that if our remarks lead others to study for themselves, or to study anew a life so strong and inspiring, and if any are thereby induced-not to imitate Mr. Spurgeon either in the pulpit or out of it, for that is weak and contemptible-but to accept the truths he so powerfully proclaims, to seek a supply of the spirit by which he is animated, and to labour with similar zeal and fidelity, we shall be amply rewarded. For we are guilty of no exaggeration in asserting that the nineteenth century has produced no nobler man and no greater preacher than Charles Haddon Spurgeon.