SPURGEON ON PERFECT PEOPLE.

Evening Star, Issue 4295, 1 December 1876, Page 4

SPURGEON ON PERFECT PEOPLE.

The Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, as John Ploughman, thus delivers himself on the doctrines of the perfectionists “He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I have been a good deal up and down in the wcrW, and I never did see either a perfect horse or a perfect man, and I never shall till two Sundays come together. You cannot get white gloves out of a coal sack, nor perfection out of human nature ; he who looks for it had bettor look for sugar in the sea. The old saying is “ Lifeless, faultless.” Uf dead men we should say nothing but good, but as for the living they are all tarred, more or less, with the black brush, and half an eye can see it. Every head has a soft place in it, and every heart has its black drop ; every rose has its prickles, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds. Nobody is so wise but he has folly enough to stock a stall at Vanity Fair. When I could pot see the foolscap I have nevertheless heard the bells jingle. As there is no sunshine without; some shadow, so is all human good mixed up more or less wdth evil. Even poor law guardians have their little failings, and parish beadles are not wholly of heavenly nature. The best wine has its lees. All men’s faults are not written upon their foreheads, and it is quite as well they are not, or hats would need wide brims; yet as sure as eggs are eggs, faults of some sort nestle in every man’s bosom. There’s no telling when a man’s sins may show themselves, for hares pop out of a ditch just when you are not looking for them. A horse that is weak in the legs may not stumble for a mile cr two, but it’s in him, and the rider had better hold him up. The tabby cat is not lapping the milk just now, but leave the door open, and we will see if she is not as bad a thief as the kitten. There’s fire in the Hint, cold as it looks ; wait till the steel gets a knock at it, and you will see. _ Everybody can read that riddle, but it is not everybody that will remember to keep his gunpowder out of the way of the caudle.”