Charles H Spurgeon Baptism - River Lark Ferry (1850)
On returning to Newmarket, everything was different. Spurgeon made a covenant with God, giving himself completely over to Him. He started by handing out tracts; he would not be happy unless he was doing something for God. He joined a Congregationalist church and was made a Sunday School teacher. He was so popular that adults started to join the children. Sometimes he would help the children in their homes, and he would take advantage of this by preaching the Gospel to the parents.
However, he soon found that he disagreed with the pastor concerning baptism, because he believed now in Baptism by immersion and not infant Baptism. He asked for permission from his parents to be baptised, permission which was only reluctantly given. During the time before his conversion and again before his baptism, Charles records many occasions of depression and joy. Later in life he was to experience many bouts of depression and some have diagnosed he was bipolar. Shortly before his sixteenth birthday, he was baptised in the river Lark in front of many people who lined both river banks. Spurgeon felt his timidity washed away, together with his fear of man.