New Park Street Chapel, Southwark - Charles Spurgeon (1854-1861)

Charles H Spurgeon

After being at Wisbeach for around three years, a deacon of Loughton Baptist church heard Spurgeon speak at the Guildhall, Cambridge. This man was very impressed by what he heard, and later, when talking to his friend, a deacon of New Park Street chapel in London. He recommended Spurgeon to fill the empty pastorate there. New Park Street chapel had a brilliant past, having been led by several very gifted pastors, but by this time, the building that could contain 1,200 people could only scrape together two hundred. The chapel had moved from Carter Lane due to development at London Bridge, but the site chosen in Southwark was very poor. It was so low lying that it would often flood, also it was close to Southwark Bridge and people had to pay a toll if coming from the City, and what had been a residential area was fast becoming an industrial one.

Spurgeon received an invitation to speak at New Park Street in November 1853; he went nervously to preach his 673rd sermon to a smallish congregation. The people enjoyed it and told their friends about it, so the congregation in the evening was much larger than normal. After the sermon the people were too excited to go home. They got into groups to discuss the merits of asking Spurgeon to be their pastor. The deacons assured them that they would do their best to get the young preacher to say yes. He was asked immediately if he would come for six months, but he thought that everything was moving too fast, so he agreed to preach there a couple more times over the coming month. In a letter to his father, he said that the deacons were only impressed because they had had such poor preachers for a long time to compare him with. He recognised that he was in the hands of God. In another letter to his father, he said that the people were more extreme in their Calvinism than he was, but he could change that. On receiving the official invitation to pastor there for six months, he agreed to three because he felt that they were being too hurried in inviting such a young man with little experience.

As soon as he started to minister in Southwark, the building was packed to the rafters. The prayer meetings were full of power and there were many conversions. The people wanted his probation to end, so on April 19th, 1854, he was asked to be the pastor of the church, and he accepted. Spurgeon mentioned to the deacons his lack of College training, but they considered that an advantage as he would not be the power he was had he gone to college.

A contempory observer wrote, "His voice is clear and musical; his language plain; his style flowing, but terse; his method lucid and orderly; his matter sound and suitable; his tone and spirit cordial, his remarks always pithy and pungent, sometimes familiar and colloquial, yet never light or coarse, much less profane. Judging from a single sermon, we supposed that he would become a plain, faithful, forcible and affectionate preacher of the Gospel in the form called Calvinistic; and our judgment was the more favourable, because while there was a solidity beyond his years we detected little of the wild luxuriance naturally characteristic of very young preachers."

More eulogistic was the opinion of Sheridan Knowles, the actor and playwright. "Go and hear the Cambridgeshire lad at once; he is only a boy, but he is the most wonderful preacher in the world. He is absolutely perfect in his oratory, and besides that, a master in the art of acting. He has nothing to learn from me or anyone else. He is simply perfect. He knows everything. He can do anything. I was once lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, and were I still in that position, I would offer him a fortune to play for one season on the boards of that house. Why, boys, he can do anything he pleases with his audience! He can make them laugh and cry and laugh again in five minutes. His power was never equalled. Now mark my words, boys, that young man will live to be the greatest preacher of this or any other age. He will bring more souls to Christ than any man who ever proclaimed the Gospel, not excepting the Apostle Paul. His name will be known everywhere, and his sermons will be translated into many of the languages of the world."

There appeared to be no pride in Spurgeon; he attributed all his success to God. He wrote that his success appalled him! It was not all praise and success - within a year there was a cholera outbreak. He had invitations to speak from all over the country, but he felt he had to stay close to minister to his people who were afraid or who were dying. He had calls to help the dying almost every day from all over the district.

The crowds were so great that hundreds could not get into the building on Sundays, so they decided to expand the building, which took a little over three months, opening in May 1855. A year later, the chapel was again not big enough, so they moved Sunday services to the Exeter Hall in the Strand. An hour before the opening of the doors, crowds would line up down the Strand and traffic would have to be diverted. Ninety percent of the congregation was men. The strain of giving out so much took its toll on Spurgeon; he gave everything of himself in his preaching. By the end of 1856 the church had 860 members.

Notable figures came to the church to hear Spurgeon, but he did not care about that. Whenever and wherever he preached, the building could not contain the crowds. They said that there had not been crowds like this since Wesley and Whitfield. In June 1855, he spoke to 10,000 in a field in Hackney, but he could not find his way back out of the crowds, amidst cheers, prayers and shouts. Finally, he found an open carriage that took him away. He stood up, waving his hat, crying, "The blessing of God be with you!" The people waved their hats in the air and cheered and cheered!