Mr Spurgeon's Congregation.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 413, 23 October 1889, Page 6

Mr Spurgeon's Congregation.

Jlere is a picture of Mr Spurgeon's congregation by a writer in the ' Inquirer ' :— * Look around upon these latter-day Covenantors. Grit is visibly stamped upon their faces, though there be few outward signs of grace ; of fashion and frivolity there is hardly a trace, and I guess that cant and hypocrisy would have an uneasy time while Charles Haddon Spurgeon is on his feet. Grim, spectacled, tight-jawed women, rough unfinished men, and a small number of parchment-cheeked youths with a general watch-and-wait aspect^ m^ke up the company of the faithful, Evidently a people of enormous, patience and stubborn conviction, ; strange example of a frozen democracy ; a remnant of the bourgeoisie of the England before the French Revolution. To the heretic-stranger this atmosphere may be exhilarating at first, but ifc soon becomes depressing. The utter absence of the artistic or aesthetic sense in parson and people, the always prevailing airof business, the terrible solemnity of the whole proceedings, suggest a ' combination 'of funeral, counting-house, and quarter-ses-sion. And the only man to whom such a combination appeals is your Sp'urgeonite,'

A 'big man can fill a small office and lose nothing of his character ; but when a small man attempts to till a big office he la lost. The fashionable colour for the hair ; is propounced" to be '< a particularly beautiful and natural-looking shade '- of bright bronze brown.' 1 Mr Jason — How did your wife come to buy .such a cheap hafej : Wickwire ? Wickwirerr»l told, hey that itwas too young* for'! her face. <■ • ■« i. I