The most successful preacher, evangelist and theologian in Victorian London by any standards was Charles Haddon Spurgeon. During a ministry of thirty-eight years, he built up a congregation of 6,000, and it is estimated that over 14,000 new members were added to the church during this time. Spurgeon regularly preached in his Metropolitan Tabernacle to an audience of 5,000, and is said to have had an amazing ability to remember names of his members. He had a library numbering some 12,000 volumes, and he not only read a half-dozen substantial books a week, but also remembered what he had read and where. Spurgeon’s sermons were originally published in fifty-six volumes, and these as well as numerous works by and about him are still being published and widely read.
Spurgeon, whose father and grandfather were both Nonconformist ministers, was called to the New Park Street Baptist Chapel, Southwark, in 1859. Soon overflowing crowds necessitated the building of the huge Metropolitan Tabernacle, on the site of which the third chapel of that name survives today (see Places and Monuments). His immense popularity and unconventional methods, such as preaching in Surrey Music Hall while his tabernacle was being prepared, led to much attention from the press and a great deal of harsh criticism. Undaunted by criticism, Spurgeon was a pioneer throughout his lifetime, establishing a famous pastors’ training school now known as ‘Spurgeon’s College’, temperance and clothing societies, an orphanage (still in existence), a mission and a colportage association. He also helped to found the London Baptist Association.
Here is a description of Spurgeon by the London diarist Charles Greville:
I am just come from hearing the celebrated Mr Spurgeon preach in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens. It was quite full; he told us from the pulpit that 9,000 people were present. The service was like the Presbyterian: Psalms, prayers, expounding a Psalm, and a sermon. He is certainly very remarkable, and undeniably a fine character; not remarkable in person, in face rather resembling a smaller Macaulay, a very clear and powerful voice, which was heard through the whole hall; a manner natural, impassioned, and without affectation or extravagance; wonderful fluency and command of language, abounding in illustration, and very often of a familiar kind, but without anything either ridiculous or irreverent. He gave me an impression of his earnestness and his sincerity; speaking without book or notes, yet his discourse was evidently very care-fully prepared. The text was “Cleanse me from my secret sins”... He preached for about three-quarters of an hour, and to judge of the handkerchiefs and the audible sobs, with great effect.’