Spurgeon Anecdotes
Posted
Monday, August 28, 2006
by
Charlie Trimm
In the course of my research for the sermon about Spurgeon, I came across many funny stories from his life. They were so humorous I could not keep them to myself, so here are some of my favorites.
Charles Spurgeon Anecdotes
From Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers, by Lewis Drummond
When he was a child, Spurgeon had a child’s rocking horse. Painted gray, it could be ridden astride or side saddle. Spurgeon said, “This was the only horse that I ever enjoyed riding.”
When new boys came to the school, Spurgeon would tell them to take a good whiff of a bottle, which turned out to contain ammonia. When one boy fell over in a dead faint, Spurgeon stopped pulling the trick.
A normal church day for the recently-converted Spurgeon: “Went to Sunday School at 9, stayed till service at 10.30, out at 12.15, Sunday School at 1.30, service 3 till 4, visiting till 5.”
When Spurgeon told his Congregationalist mother that he wanted to be baptized, she said that she had prayed that he would become a Christian, but had never prayed that he would become a Baptist. Spurgeon responded that sometimes God does above and beyond what we ask!
One time Spurgeon asked the deacons several times to permanently open some windows in the upper balcony, but they refused. One day, people gathered in the church to see that a vandal had broken the windows. A reward was offered to find the culprit. But it turned out to be Spurgeon himself! He said “The next best thing to the grace of God for the preacher is oxygen.”
There was no prayer meeting during the service, as is often reported, but there was a prayer meeting on Mondays with 3000 attending.
To stay warm while traveling, he cut a hole in a rug, put his head through the hole, and wore it as a coat.
Spurgeon was very opposed to dancing. He said the first Baptist minister had his head danced off!
A small church once wrote to Spurgeon asking for recommendations for a pastor, but the salary was very small. So Spurgeon said “The only individual I know, who could exist on such a stipend, is the angel Gabriel. He would need neither cash nor clothes. He could come down from heaven every Sunday morning and go back at night, so I advise you to invite him.”
Spurgeon was not a fan of long prayers. He once said “Long prayers injure prayer meetings. Fancy a man praying for twenty minutes, and then asking God to forgive his shortcomings.”
During a cold night, Spurgeon said “Now, it is a very cold night, and if anybody prays very long somebody will be frozen to death… I am not like Paul, and cannot restore him to life, so please don’t render a miracle necessary since I cannot perform one.”
“Once someone took him to task for riding in his carriage on Sunday thus making his horse work. Charles replied he was free from sin because his horse being a Jew had been resting on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.”
One Anglican minister, when asked if he was jealous of the success of a Baptist preacher, said sarcastically that “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s ass.”
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