TWO DOZEN REMARKABLE FACTS ABOUT SPURGEON

1. CHS read Pilgrims Progress at age six and reread it 100 times after that.

2. The printed collection of his sermons (63 volumes) have as many words as the Encyclopedia Britannica yet he preached his 140 words per minute from a single sheet of notes prepared the night before.

3. A woman was converted reading a single page from a Spurgeon sermon which she found rapped around some butter she had bought.

4. Before age 20, CHS preached 600 times.

5. At age 19, New Park Street church invited him for a six month trial. He would only accept a three month trial because "I do not want to become a hindrance." When he arrived in 1854 the congregation numbered 232. Thirty-eight years later the total was 5,317 with another 9,149 having been members (moved, passed away etc.) SOME HINDRANCE !!

6. CHS said of politics: "I have heard it said 'Do not bring religion into politics." This is precisely where it should be brought and set there in the faces of all men as on a candlestick."

7. CHS once addressed an audience of 23,654 without, of course, a microphone or mechanical amplification.

8. One day, to test the acoustics in a hall where he was going to speak he bellowed out: "Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.." A worker in the rafters heard and was converted.

9. Spurgeon's wife, Susannah, called him, "Your Excellency."

10. CHS spoke out so strongly against slavery that his American publishers edited him.

11. CHS refused to be ordained and refused the name "Reverend." (Yet, he founded a Pastor's college.)

12. CHS personally interviewed all 14,000 member applicants during his tenure to be sure of the genuineness of their conversion.

13. Spurgeon never told his congregation who to vote for but he denounced candidates by name from the pulpit and he passed out leaflets during the week for the office seekers whom he favored.

14. Each Christmas, CHS gave individual presents to the orphans at the orphanages he started, even when that number rose to over a thousand.

15. CHS read somewhere close to a book a day on the average. He once confessed to being aware of eight identifiable groups (trains) of thoughts in his mind at the same time.

16. Concerning the orphanages as social work, CHS declared: "Socialism is only words and theory, we care for both the bodies and the souls of the poor and try to show our love of truth by truthful love."

17. Spurgeon's preachers' college provided general education as well as theological and there were no set fees.

18. Headmaster George Rogers of the college was a paedobaptist, showing Spurgeon's tolerance and magnanimity, but all faculty had to "teach the doctrines of grace with dogmatism, enthusiasm and clarity."

19. CHS, by the best estimates available, was God's direct and personal instrument in over 12,000 conversions.

20. The college, directly through Spurgeon's efforts of placement based on his assessment of gifts, sent men out resulting in the planting of over 200 churches.

21. The first book published by Moody Press was CHS's All Of Grace. It is still their #1 all time bestseller.

22. CHS once preached a message in his sleep which his wife, who was awakened, took down on paper. He preached it that morning.

23. There was continual prayer for the work of the tabernacle held in the basement.

24. In one service in 1879, the regular congregation of 4850 left the tabernacle to allow new people waiting outside a chance to come in and hear.. The building immediately filled up again.