evade it, but I looked that moment, the grace of God was vouchsafed that instant; and I shall never forget that hour while memory holds its place; nor can I help repeating that text every day of my life."

He preached his first sermon in a cottage at Teversham. From this time his labors as a preacher were incessant. His friends. wished him to attend college, to which he also inclined, and the cause of his failure upon this point may be best given in his own words. "I had agreed to go to college, the tutor had come to see me, and I had gone to see him. We were to meet at the house of a mutual friend. I was shown by the servant into one dark drawing room; he was shown into another. He sat and waited for me two hours, and I sat and waited for him two hours. He could wait no longer, and went away, thinking I had not treated him well; and I went away thinking he had not treated me well. As I left the house, the text 'Seekest thou great things? Seek them not,' came to my mind, and I declined to go to school." In the autumn of 1853, he was invited to supply, temporarily, the pulpit of New Park Street Chapel, Southwork, which had in former times been occupied by such men as Rev. Benjamin Keach, the well known author of "Scripture Metaphors;" Dr. Gill, the celebrated commentator; Dr. Rippon, of hymn book fame; Dr. Angus, the present highly respected and able President of Regent's Park Baptist College; the Rev. James Smith of Cheltenham, and Rev. R. Walters, now of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Notwithstanding the fact that so many eminent men had at one time or another labored there, the church had almost entirely lost all spiritual life and interest, and the congregation had declined until the young preacher found the chapel so empty as to be almost desolate. He created quite a sensation at once, and at the end of a probation of but six weeks the chapel was full. He was called to the pastorate, and entered upon the office when only nineteen years old. It is impossible to write of Mr. Spurgeon as we would write of common men. He has made for himself more friends and more enemies than any other preacher of his day; and gained for himself an unparalleled notoriety. His congregation is the largest in the world, and hundreds of converts yearly assert the power of the gospel he preaches, while his discourses are regularly published, and circulate all over the world. Yet there are those who de

nounce him bitterly, and deny his claim to confidence or respect. He is one of the most catholic though one of the most isolated divines of the age. He is a Baptist, and does not attempt to conceal his views, yet is never restricted by them in his Christian sympathies, or his manly genialities, or his religious charities. He is not the pampered idol of a sect or faction of the Church Universal, and has never sacrificed his individuality to partisanship, neither has he submitted to narrow denominational bondage; his time, his talents, and his influence are at the service of those who are engaged in good works. Even in the most stormy weather, when drenching rains fall, or wild winds blow, the Tabernacle, an immense building, arranged so as to economize space, is filled from top to bottom; leaving no doubt of his almost unbounded popularity; and spacious as is the edifice, his magnificent voice fills it without taxing it in the least; it is never husky-never hoarse-never weak, but clear as a bell and soft as a harp; and he speaks as easily to his vast audiences, and reaches each one with as little effort as if he were speaking to a few friends in his own private drawing-room. There is no question but this gives him a very great advantage. No one who judges by mere outward signs, or who never looks below the surface, or has studied the intricate workings of the human heart, can say correctly that they know him. We believe the world generally does not understand him. He has sometimes been supposed to be a flippant egotist-a grotesque humorist-a low comedian in the pulpit, while nothing can be farther from the truth. It would, of course, be absurd to deny that he has a vein of comic humor in his nature, and that his quick appreciation of and relish for the humorous, or for that which may be said to verge upon the ridiculous, are not in accordance with the strictest rules of ministerial dignity; but it is at least pardonable. He has said funny, audacious, and startling things, and provoked his auditors to laughter by the sharpness of the ready wit, that sprang, unpremeditated to his tongue; indeed I doubt if he was aware that he had even been witty. The faults which he has been charged with are even vir tues in his case, and lie at the foundation of his great success in the ministry. They are the fruits of a nature and temperament without which he could never have gone through one-half the work he has accomplished. He has an immense fund of animat

spirits, a fecund mind and a racy tongue; quick perceptions. thoughts that come to him, not always with regard to strict propriety, but with most perfect adaptability to circumstances; hence he may be said to have ready wit. The strange sayings in which he indulges are not stock-in-trade, carefully accumulated, preserved, assorted, arranged and labeled for ready use, but the exuberance of a strong, youthful, vigorous and prolific mind-exuberance which only a prude or a Pharisee would punish, but which a friend would seek at once to excuse and restrain; for they are the fruits of superabundant energy, vivacity fluency verbal aptitude, and unstudied, Saxon simplicity of speech.

In listening to Mr. Spurgeon, one is impressed with a peculiarity of his nature which goes far to account for what some people call nis wonderful popularity and power as a preacher. Religious life is with him real life. His spiritual experiences are actual, vivid, living and practical. He speaks of his love for Christ as one speaks of a human love; as if it were the most natural thing in the world-indeed the only natural or proper thing. God is not a concealed being, but an actual, living presence, a Being who walks and talks with him; not only at eventide in the garden, but everywhere in life; and heaven is not afar off, but even in his own heart; and he scarcely looks forward to the time when death must open the door and give him a glimpse into that land whose glories eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. The Songs of Solomon are not difficult of interpretation to him. Their tender and beautiful words of endearment are just what his own soul, with its strong emotional love would prompt him to lavish upon the Saviour. His church work is very extensive, and the Sabbath service, though important, is but a small part of it. Ordinary Christians will be surprised at the extent of Mr. Spurgeon's labors. The zeal to which he has trained his people has always been seconded by his own efforts and by his attractive and encouraging example, being literally first in all good words and works.

In connection with Mr. Spurgeon's church is a college, of which he is himself president, numbering seventy students; and the evening classes number one hundred and eighty-two members. This institution is supported at a cost of 3,000 pounds per year. In addition to the very large Sunday schools, no less than eight

preaching places are regularly supplied. The church is kept in admirable discipline, and exhibits a strength of attachment for their pastor which is little less than idolatry. Though sneered at as a boyish upstart by a few, whose ignorance and prejudice on their only excuse, he is respected by all candid men as an earnest, eloquent, Christian minister of the gospel, full of energy, untiring in devotion, and practical in his godliness, hence triumphant over his enemies A long and wide extended career of usefulness seems to lie before him. He labors in the fields that are white for the harvest, as one who feels that he was called by his Master, and many of the sheaves which he has gathered, are already garnered in the storehouse of the Lord; and the souls of such as were ready to perish, those for whom no man cared, will shine brighter than the stars of the firmament in the crown of his rejoicing in the day of the Lord.

JOHN WESLEY

HE founder of the Arminian branch of Methodists, John Wesley, was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, June 17, 1703. His father was rector of that place, and unlike many divines of that day, he was a rigid disciplinarian, and the strict enforcement of church rules and laws created so great a hostility against him that more than once the good man was driven almost to distraction. The education of his son was of an entirely religious character, and at the age of seventeen he became a student at Oxford, and while here formed, with fifteen other young men, a society which soon attracted attention by the austerity of their manners and the fervor of their piety. Their nightly meetings for social prayer and religious converse were held in Wesley's chamber, and from personal improvements they soon began to turn their eyes toward the poor, to whom, in these

days, the gospel was not especially preached, and they visited and labored with them in a systematic way that was productive of much good.

At the close of his university studies he was offered the position of assistant and successor of his father, but declined on conscientious principles, and returned to Oxford to labor amongst the students. In 1735 he was sent to the colonies of Georgia as missionary. He embarked for America with his brother Charles and settled at Savannah. He soon rallied a large congregation, which increased and flourished several years, until his rigid and sudden enforcement of every measure of discipline, raised such a storm of indignant protest from the people that he resigned. He returned to England where he met Whitfield, and the two erected one banner and commenced an active career of field preaching

At Bristol, in 1739, the first Methodist Chapel was built, under the supervision of these two active laborers. Soon after this a rupture between them occurred on account of a difference which they could not reconcile-Wesley being an Arminian, while Whitfield was a stubborn adherent to the creed of Calvin. Wesley, however, was as undaunted as he was indefatigable, and he preached all over the country, employing lay preachers, and promulgated his doctrines far and near, and in the conversion of thousands of souls he met his rich reward.

It is estimated that twelve million of the human race are taught weekly the lessons of religious experience wrought out in the active intellect of John Wesley; that no part of the known world has been unvisited by his disciples; that the tide of reform set in motion by his pure and lofty energy is still in the ascendant, is moving slowly onward with ceaseless vigor, and shows no traces of decay. Wherever the Anglo Saxon race penetrates it is pursued and softened by the influence of this unassuming saint. In Australia and South Africa, in America and the islands of the Pacific, the genius of Wesley is ever active. His schools and churches have belted the world with an illustrious chain. His writings have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, and are made familiar to the worshipers of Bramah and of Buddah. Since Luther, no other man has exercised so wide, so benign an influence upon his race. Nor is it unjust to assert thai but for his English successes the Reformation of the German Church