Charles Spurgeon
1834–1892. A Baptist preacher in London for nearly forty years, called the “Prince of Preachers.” His sermons were printed every week and read around the world.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Essex in 1834 and spent his early years with his grandfather, a country minister at Stambourne, where he first found the old Puritan books he would love all his life. At fifteen, sheltering from a snowstorm in a small chapel in Colchester, he heard a lay preacher take the text “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” and he looked.
He was preaching at sixteen, a village pastor at seventeen, and at nineteen was called to New Park Street Chapel in London. The crowds soon outgrew it. In 1861 his church opened the Metropolitan Tabernacle, with seats for some five thousand, and he preached there Sunday by Sunday until his last illness in 1891.
He was more than a pulpit. He trained young ministers at his Pastors’ College, opened an orphanage at Stockwell, sent out colporteurs with Bibles and books, and wrote a seven-volume commentary on the Psalms, The Treasury of David. He did it while suffering from gout, kidney disease and seasons of deep depression, which he spoke of openly. He died at Menton, in the south of France, on 31 January 1892.
His life
- 1834Born on 19 June at Kelvedon, Essex.
- 1850Converted on 6 January in a small chapel in Colchester; baptized in the River Lark that May.
- 1851Pastor of the Baptist chapel at Waterbeach, near Cambridge, at seventeen.
- 1854Called to New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, at nineteen.
- 1855His sermons begin to be printed every week.
- 1856Marries Susannah Thompson; their twin sons, Charles and Thomas, are born. Starts the Pastors’ College.
- 1857Preaches to 23,654 people at the Crystal Palace.
- 1861The Metropolitan Tabernacle opens.
- 1865Morning by Morning is published, and Evening by Evening in 1868.
- 1867Founds the Stockwell Orphanage.
- 1887Leaves the Baptist Union over the Down-Grade controversy.
- 1892Dies at Menton, France, on 31 January, aged 57; buried at West Norwood, London.
The sermons
From 1855 one of his sermons was printed every week, taken down in shorthand as he preached and corrected by his own hand. They sold by the tens of thousands and were translated into many languages. So many were still in hand when he died that the weekly sermon went on until 1917: 63 volumes in all, the New Park Street Pulpit and the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
Spurgeon HQ has 3,546 of them, every one rated by a scholar who has read them all.
More of his writing
He wrote as much as he preached. In the app you’ll find three of his books of daily readings: Morning and Evening, a reading for every morning and evening of the year; Faith’s Checkbook, a promise of Scripture for each day; and Gleanings Among the Sheaves, short passages from his sermons.
His other books include The Treasury of David; Lectures to My Students, for the men of his college; and John Ploughman’s Talk, plain wisdom in a ploughman’s voice.
Read and listen in the app
Every sermon, read aloud as the words follow along, with Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening and a calendar of the days you’ve read. Spurgeon HQ is coming soon to iPhone and Android.