SPUR'GEON, CHARLES HADDON (1834-92). A celebrated English preacher. He was horn at Kelvedon, Essex, attended school at Colehester, and spent a few months at an agricultural col lege at Maidstone. His family intended him for an Independent minister, but his own sym pathies drew him toward the Baptists, whose connection he joined in 1850. The same year he became a school-teacher, and, removing to Cam bridge, began to deliver cottage sermons in the neighborhood. The popularity of the 'boy preach er' was almost immediately established, and at the age of eighteen he had charge of a small Bap tist congregation in the village of Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. In 1854 he entered upon the pastorate of the New Park Street Chapel, London, where his preaching proved so attractive that in two years' time the building had to be greatly enlarged. The Surrey Music llall was for some time engaged for his use, and finally his follow ers built for him the well-known 'Metropolitan Tabernacle' in Newington Butts, opened in 186L Many evangelistic and philanthropic agencies grew up in connection with this immense chapel, such as the Stockwell Orphanage; a pastor's col lege, where hundreds of young men were trained for the ministry under Spurgeon's. care; the Gold en Lane Mission, etc. He was compelled in his later years to stop his work frequently because of ill health, and died at Mentone, France. His sermons were published weekly from 1854, and yearly vol nines were issued since 1856. They had an enor
MOUS circulation, and many of them were trans lated into various languages. He also published many volumes, including: The Saint and His Saviour (1857) : Morning by Morning, and Even ing by Evening (1866-68) ; John Ploughman's Talks (1860) ; The Treasury of David (a com mentary on the Psalms, largely from Puritan writers, 1870-85) ; Lectures to My Students (1875-77) ; Commenting and Commentaries (1876); John Ploughman's Pictures (1880) ; and after 1865 he edited a monthly magazine, Sword and Trowel.
In theology he was a pronounced Calvinist, in biblical science an extreme conservative, in policy an open communion Baptist. in politics a Liberal Unionist, in all things independent. He attacked the Low Church Party in the Church of England because it countenanced, he asserted, the teaching of baptismal regeneration in the Prayer Book, and in 1864 withdrew from the Evangelical Al liance because it was supported by it. He at tacked his own co-religionists for their alleged rationalistic views and withdrew in 18S7 from the Baptist Union. As a preacher he knew how to enchain the attention of his hearers through sermons of great length, by a flow of vigorous English and a mingling of tenderness and stern ness, humor and soberness. A biography by his wife and private secretary was published in Lon don in 1897-98.