A PROPHET OF THE PEOPLE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 757, 20 October 1876, Page 3

A PROPHET OF THE PEOPLE.

Success is' in itself a power, and Mr Spurgeon is hot only a successful man but a successful man born amongst those whom ho addresses. The sun of a baker, ho has been auvshor at a small school, a tract distributer, and a clerk. At seventeen ho was installed as a lull-blcrS’n preacher at Waterbeach. Before be was twenty he was drawing, Stmday after Sunday, enormous audiences at a chapel in Now Park-street, Southwark. The place was enlarged, and services were temporarily performed at Exeter Hall. But Mr Spurgeon had become a celebrity, and the building in the Strand was insufficient to contain the growing crowds. From Exeter Hall and Southwark he migrated to the Surrey Music Hall, capable of holding ten thousand people. Here ha displayed a calmness fend courage, ou fe certain Occasion when an alarm of lira was given, which deservedly won him fresh fame. In 1801 the Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened. It may not be superfluous to say that this building is 100 feet long, SO feet wide, and 70 feet high—that it has two galleries, the preacher’s platform being on a level with the lower one—that its average congregation is 0000 people—that of these, 0000 are ad. inittad by tickets only, .fend that when it was flrst opened it was announced that ‘ the only warming apparatus would be the pulpit. ’ Iho tabernacle has 4000 communicants, while upwards of fifty proselytes a month, largely consisting of domestic servants, are received into its congregation. Of Mr Spurgeon’s printed sermons, which are all taken down by shorthand writers, upwards of ten million copies, it is calculated, have been sold. But these facts represent on'yasmall portion of Mr Spurgeon’s labors. Attached to the Tabernacle are a Pastor’s College, with about 80 students, a group of almshouses, a boys’ school, in which 800 children are trained on wholly unsectarian principles, and an institution for colportage. 'J heu there is the Stookwell Orphanage, also an unseetarian establishment, maintained at a cost of some five thousand a year. For the conduct of each of these Mr Spurgeon is personally responsible, and the total of endowment is not more than L 30.000.