Kitabı oku: «The London Pulpit», sayfa 8
THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON
I fear there is very little difference between the Church and the world. In both the tide seems strongly set in favour of ignorance, presumption, and charlatanism. In the case of Mr. Spurgeon, they have both agreed to worship the same idol. Nowhere more abound the vulgar, be they great or little, than at the Royal Music Hall on a Sunday morning. Mr. Spurgeon’s service commences at a quarter to eleven, but the doors are opened an hour and a half previously, and all the while there will be a continuous stream of men and women – some on foot, some in cabs, many in carriages – all drawn together by this world’s wonder. The motley crowd is worth a study. In that Hansom, now bearing a decent country deacon staying at the Milton, you and Rose dashed away to Cremorne. Last night, those lovely eyes were wet with tears as the Piccolomini edified the fashionable world with the representation of the Harlot’s career. That swell was drinking pale ale in questionable company in the Haymarket – that gay Lorette was sinning on a gorgeous scale. This man was paying his needlewomen a price for their labour, on which he knows it is impossible for them morally to live; and that was poisoning a whole neighbourhood by the sale of adulterated wares.
A very mixed congregation is this one at the Surrey Gardens. The real flock – the aborigines from Park Street Chapel – are a peculiar people, – very plain, much given to the wearing of clothes of an ancient cut – and easy of recognition. The men are narrow, hard, griping, to look at – the women stern and unlovely, yet they, and such as they alone, if we are to believe them, are to walk the pearly streets of the New Jerusalem, and to sit down with martyrs and prophets and saints – with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob – at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
‘The toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.’ Here is a peer, and there his tailor. Here Lady Clara de Vere kills a weary hour, and there is the poor girl who sat up all night to stitch her ladyship’s costly robe. Here is a blasphemer come to laugh, there a saint to pray. Can these dry bones live? Can the preacher touch the heart of this listening mass? Breathed on by a spell more potent than his own, will it in its anguish and agony exclaim, What must we do to be saved? You think how this multitude would have melted beneath the consecrated genius of a Chalmers, or a Parsons, or a Melville, or an Irving, – and look to see the same torrent of human emotions here. Ah, you are mistaken – Mr. Spurgeon has not the power to wield ‘all thoughts, all passions, all delights.’ It is not in him to ‘shake the arsenal, and fulmine over Greece.’ In the very midst of his fiercest declamation, you will find his audience untouched; so coarse is the colouring, and clumsy the description, you can sit calm and unmoved through it all – and all the while the haughty beauty by your side will fan herself with a languor Charles Matthews in ‘Used Up’ might envy. Look at the preacher; – the riddle is solved. You see at once that he is not the man to soar, and soaring bear his audience, trembling and enraptured, with him in his heavenward flight.
Isaiah, the son of Amos, when he received his divine commission, exclaimed, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips!’ but the popular minister of New Park Street Chapel has no such trembling forebodings; no thought of his own unworthiness, no fear that he is trespassing on sacred ground, or that he is attempting a task beyond his powers, impedes the utterance of his fluent tongue. Not a trace of the scholarship, or reading, or severe thought, or God-sent genius, or of that doubt in which there lives more faith than in half the creeds, will you find in the whole of his harangue.
On the pulpit, or rather the platform, Mr. Spurgeon imitates Gough, and walks up and down, and enlivens his sermons with dramatic representations. He is ‘hail fellow, well-met’ with his hearers. He has jokes and homely sayings and puns and proverbs for them. Nothing is too sacred for his self-complacent grasp; he is as free and unrestrained in God’s presence as in man’s. Eternity has unveiled its mysteries to him. In the agonies of the lost, in the joys of the redeemed, there is nothing for him to learn. His ‘sweet Saviour,’ as he irreverently exclaims, has told him all. Of course, at times there is a rude eloquence on his lips, or, rather, a fluent declamation, which the mob around takes for such. The orator always soars with his audience. With excited thousands waiting his lightest word, he cannot remain passionless and unmoved. Words and thoughts are borne to him from them. There is excitement in the hour; there is excitement in the theme; there is excitement in the living mass; and, it may be, as the preacher speaks of a physical hell and displays a physical heaven, some sensual nature is aroused, and a change may be effected in a man’s career. Little causes may produce great events; one chance word may be the beginning of a new and a better life; but the thoughtful hearer will learn nothing, will be induced to feel nothing, will find that as regards Christian edification he had much better have staid at home. At the best Mr. Spurgeon will seem to him a preacher of extraordinary volubility. Most probably he will return from one of Mr. Spurgeon’s services disgusted with the noisy crowding, reminding him of the Adelphi rather than the house of God; disgusted with the common-place prayer; disgusted with the questionable style of oratory; disgusted with the narrowness of the preacher’s creed, and its pitiful misrepresentations of the glorious gospel of the blessed God; disgusted with the stupidity that can take for a divine afflatus brazen impudence and leathern lungs. Most probably he will come back confessing that Mr. Spurgeon is the youngest, and the loudest, and the most notorious preacher in London – little more; the idol of people who dare not go to theatres, and yet pant for theatrical excitement.
When Mr. Whiteside finished his five hours’ oration on Kars, Lord Palmerston replied, that the honourable gentleman’s speech was highly creditable to his physical powers. A similar reply would be suitable to Mr. Spurgeon. You come away, having gained nothing except it may be a deeper disgust for the class of preachers of which Mr. Spurgeon is a type. We have heard somewhat too much of Negative Theology – it is time we protest against the Positive Theology of such men as Mr. Spurgeon. There are no doubts or difficulties in his path. The last time I heard the reverend gentleman, he had the audacity to assure us that the reason God allowed wicked men to live was, that as he knew they were to be damned, he thought they might have a little pleasure first. Mr. Spurgeon is one of the elect. His flock are in the same happy condition. God chooses them out of the ruins of the fall, and makes them heirs of everlasting life, while he suffers the rest of the world to continue in sin, and consummate their guilt by well-deserved punishment. If he sins, it matters little; ‘for that vengeance incurred by me has already fallen upon Christ my substitute, and only the chastisement shall remain for me.’ Mr. Spurgeon has heard people represent ‘God as the Father of the whole universe. It surprises me that any readers of the Bible should so talk.’ To the higher regions of thought Mr. Spurgeon seems an utter stranger – all his ideas are physical; when he speaks of the Master, it is not of his holy life or divine teaching, but his death. ‘Christians,’ he exclaims, ‘you have here your Saviour. See his Father’s vengeful sword sheathed in his heart – behold his death-agonies – see the clammy sweat upon his brow – mark his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth – hear his sighs and groans upon the cross.’ Again, he exclaims, ‘Make light of thee, sweet Jesus! Oh, when I see thee with thy shirt of gore, wrestling in Gethsemane – when I behold him with a river of blood rolling down his shoulders,’ &c. All his sermons abound with similar instances of exaggerated misconception.
Mr. Spurgeon steps on the very threshold of great and glorious thoughts, and stops there. Of God he speaks as irreverently as of Christ. ‘Oh!’ cries the sinner, ‘I will not have thee for a God.’ ‘Wilt thou not?’ says he, and he gives him over to the hand of Moses; Moses takes him a little and applies the club of the law, drags him to Sinai, where the mountain totters over his head, the lightnings flash, and thunders bellow, and then the sinner cries, ‘O God, save me!’ ‘Ah! I thought thou wouldst not have me for a God.’ ‘O Lord, thou shalt be my God,’ says the poor trembling sinner; ‘I have put away my ornaments from me. O Lord, what wilt thou do unto me? Save me! I will give myself to thee. Oh! take me!’ ‘Ay,’ says the Lord, ‘I knew it; I said that I will be their God; and I have made thee willing in the day of my power.’ ‘I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ Here is another passage. Preaching at Shipley, near Leeds, our young divine alluded to Dr. Dick’s wish, that he might spend an eternity in wandering from star to star. ‘For me,’ exclaims Mr. Spurgeon, ‘let it be my lot to pursue a more glorious study. My choice shall be this: I shall spend 5000 years in looking into the wound in the left foot of Christ, and 5000 years in looking into the wound in the right foot of Christ, and 10,000 years in looking into the wound in the right hand of Christ, and 10,000 years more in looking into the wound in the left hand of Christ, and 20,000 years in looking into the wound in his side.’ Is this religion? Are such representations, in an intellectual age, fitted to claim the homage of reflective men? Will not Mr. Spurgeon’s very converts, as they become older – as they understand Christianity better – as the excitement produced by dramatic dialogues in the midst of feverish audiences dies away – feel this themselves? And yet this man actually got nearly 24,000 to hear him on the Day of Humiliation. Such a thing seems marvellous. If popularity means anything, which, however, it does not, Mr. Spurgeon is one of our greatest orators.
It is true it is not difficult to collect a crowd in London. If I simply stand stock still in Cheapside in the middle of the day, a crowd is immediately collected. The upper class of society requires finer weapons than any Mr. Spurgeon wields; but he preaches to the people in a homely style – and they like it, for he is always plain, and never dull. Then his voice is wonderful, of itself a thing worth going to hear, and he has a readiness rare in the pulpit, and which is invaluable to an orator. Then, again, the matter of his discourses commends itself to uneducated hearers. We have done with the old miracle plays, wherein God the Father appears upon the stage in a blue coat, and wherein the devil has very visible hoofs and tail; but the principle to which they appealed – the love of man for dramatic representations rather than abstract truths – remains, and Mr. Spurgeon avails himself of it successfully. Another singular fact – Mr. Spurgeon would quote it as a proof of its truth – is that what is called high doctrine – the doctrine Mr. Spurgeon preaches – the doctrine which lays down all human pride – which teaches us we are villains by necessity, and fools by a divine thrusting on – is always popular, and, singular as it may seem, especially on the Surrey side of the water.
In conclusion, let me not be understood as blaming Mr. Spurgeon. We do not blame Stephani when Caliban falls at his feet and swears that he’s ‘a brave god and bears celestial liquor.’ Few ministers get people to hear them. Mr. Spurgeon has succeeded in doing so. It may be a pity that the people will not go and hear better preachers; but in the meanwhile no one can blame Mr. Spurgeon that he fearlessly and honestly preaches what he deems the truth.
The Presbyterian Body
THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D
A tale is told of a fashionable lady residing at a fashionable watering-place, at which a fashionable preacher preached. Of course the fashionable chapel was filled. It was difficult to get a seat: few could get more than standing-room. Our fashionable heroine, according to the tale, thither wended her way one Sabbath morning; but, alas! the ground was preoccupied. There was no room. Turning to her daughters with a well-bred smile, she exclaimed: ‘Well, my dears, at any rate we have done the genteel thing!’ and, self-satisfied, she departed home, her piety being of that not uncommon order, that requires a comfortable well-cushioned seat to itself. For some reason or other, it is now considered the genteel thing to go to Dr. Cumming, and the consequence is, that Crown Court Chapel overflows, and that pews are not to be had there on any terms. I should have said that nowhere was there such a crowd as that you see at Dr. Cumming’s, if I did not recollect that I had just suffered a similar squeeze over the way, when I went to see the eminent tragedian, Mr. Brooke.
I believe the principle of there being such a crowd is the same in both cases. The great mass of spectators see in Mr. Brooke a man of fine physical endowments, and a very powerful voice. They are not judges of good acting; they cannot see whether or not an actor understands his part; they have no opinion on the subject at all: but Mr. Brooke has a name, and they run to hear him. It is the same with Dr. Cumming. The intrepid females, the genteel young men, who go to hear him, are no more judges of learning and ability than any other miscellaneous London mob: but Dr. Cumming has a name. Carriages with strawberry leaves deposit high-born ladies at his chapel. Lord John Russell goes to hear him. Actually, he has preached before the Queen. So the chapel is crammed, as if there was something wonderful to see and hear.
I confess I am of a contrary opinion. I cannot – to quote the common phrase of religious society – ‘sit under’ Dr. Cumming. I weary of his Old Testament and his high-dried Scotch theology, and his Romanist antipathies, and his Millennial hopes. ‘You tell me, Doctor,’ I would say to him, ‘that I am a sinner – born in sin, and shapen in iniquity – that I am utterly and completely bad. Why not, then, speak to me so as to do me good? I care nothing for the Pope! Immured as I am in the business of the world – with difficulty earning my daily bread – I have little time to think of the Millennium, or to discuss whether the Jewish believer, some two thousand years ago, saw in his system anything beyond it and above it – anything brighter and better than itself. The student, in his cell, may discuss such questions – as the schoolmen of the middle ages sought to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle – but I, and men like me, need to be ministered to in another way. Men who preach to me must not wrestle with extinct devils, but with real ones. What I want is light upon the living present, not upon the dead and buried past. Around me are the glare and splendour of life – beauty’s smile – ambition’s dream – the gorgeousness of wealth – the pride of power. Are these things worth living for? Is there anything for man higher and better? and, if so, how can I drown the clamour of their seductive voices, and escape into a more serene and purer air?’ And how am I to know that these professing Christians, so well dressed, listening with such complacency while Dr. Cumming demolishes Cardinal Wiseman – are better than other men? As tradesmen, are they upright? As members of the commonwealth, are they patriotic? As religious men, are their lives pure and unspotted from the world? I want not theories of grace, but what shall make men practically do what they theoretically believe. It is a human world we live in. Every heart you meet is trembling with passion, or bursting with desire. On every tongue there is some tale of joy or woe. If, by mysterious ties, I am connected with the Infinite and Divine, by more palpable ties I am connected with what is finite and human: and I want the preacher to remember that fact. The Hebrew Christ did it, and the result was that his enemies were constrained to confess that ‘never man spake like this man,’ and that the ‘common people heard him gladly.’
Dr. Cumming preaches as if you had no father or mother, no sister or brother, no wife or child, no human struggles and hopes – as if the great object of preaching was to fill you with Biblical pedantry, and not to make the man better, wiser, stronger than before: perhaps it may be because this is the case that the church is so thronged. You need not tremble lest your heart be touched, and your darling sin withered up by the indignant oratory of the preacher. He is far away in Revelation or in Exodus, telling us what the first man did, or the last man will do; giving you, it may be, a creed that is scriptural and correct, but that does not interest you – that has neither life, nor love, nor power – as well adapted to empty space as to this gigantic Babel of competition, and crime, and wrong, in which I live and move.
The service at Crown Court Chapel is very long; the Scotch measure the goodness of their services by their length. You must be well drilled if you are not weary before it is over. The chapel itself is a singular place. You enter by an archway. The gallery steps are outside; the shape is broad and short; a galley runs on three sides, and in one is placed the pulpit, which boasts, what is now so rare, a sounding-board. As no space is left unoccupied, the chapel must contain a large number of persons. The singing is very beautiful – better, I think, than that of any other place of worship in London. There is some sense in that, for the Scottish version of the Psalms of King David is not one whit more refined, or less bald and repulsive, than that of our own Sternhold and Hopkins, or Tate. But, nevertheless, the singing is very beautiful. Dr. Cumming himself looks not a large man, but a sturdy determined man, with good intellectual power, and that power well cultivated, but all in the dry Scotch way; though so little does the Doctor’s speech betray him, that you would scarcely notice that his pronunciation was that of a native of the ‘Land of Cakes.’ He is young-looking, his hair is dark, and his complexion is brown. As he wears spectacles, of course, I can say nothing about his eyes; or, as he wears a gown and bands, as to the robustness of his frame. He looks agile and well set; strong in the faith, and master of texts innumerable wherewith to support that faith. A polished, graceful, self-contained, and self-satisfied man. He may be a man of large heart and sympathies; but he has not the appearance of one. He rather seems a man great in small things, tediously proper and scrupulously correct – a great gun, I imagine, at an Evangelical tea-table – and, with his ultra Protestantism (he is a countryman of Miss Cuninghame’s, and every Scotchman hates Popery as a certain personage does holy water), he is a tremendous favourite at Exeter Hall. Indeed, I do not know that there is at this time a more popular performer on those boards, and he is a favourite with people whose favour pecuniarily is worth something – with people who can afford to buy his books. Hence, also, he is one of the most copious religious writers of our day.
It is vain to attempt to give an account of the Doctor’s works, when ‘every month brings forth a new one:’ their name is Legion. There is only one man who can be compared with Dr. Cumming in this respect, and that is that notoriously hardened sinner, Mr. G. P. R. James.
I read in one place of Dr. Cumming that ‘he has everything in his favour; his singularly handsome person, his brilliant flow of poetic thoughts, his striking talents, and his burning Protestant zeal, combine to make him one of the most interesting speakers of the day; and when we add to all this, his modest simplicity and humility (qualities as becoming in one of his years, as they are rare in one of his powers), we need not wonder that he is generally admired and beloved.’ Another admirer writes: ‘When hearing Dr. Cumming, one is reminded of the description of “Silver-tongued Smith,” one of the celebrated preachers of Elizabeth’s time. But though the subject of our sketch is truly silver-tongued, the solemnity, at times, almost the severity, of his manner preserves him from anything like tameness. Perhaps there is not a firmer or more fearless preacher than the Doctor – a fact which has been proved over and over again of late, as his Romish antagonists have found to their cost. Dr. Cumming’s manner in the pulpit is pleasing. He seldom uses any other action than a gentle waving of the hand, or the turning from one part of his congregation to the other. He is no cushion-thumper, and depends for effect more upon what he says than on the graces of action. Not that he is ungraceful at all – far from that: what we mean is, that he is in this respect directly the opposite of those pulpit fops who flourish their bordered pieces of inspiration-lawn in the pulpit, and throw themselves into such attitudes as compels one to believe that the looking-glass is almost as essential a preparation for the pulpit as the Bible itself.’
Dr. Cumming is a warm supporter of Establishments, a sworn foe of liberalism, which he declares to have ‘charity on its mantle, and hell in its heart.’ He is a good hater. These things may fit him to be the idol of Crown Court, but do little more. The large vision which looks before and after, which makes man a philosopher, which teaches him to see the good in all human developments of thought and action, and calmly and lovingly to abide their legitimate results, has been denied him. The consequence is, he has sunk into the apostle of a coterie, and ‘gives up to party what was meant for mankind.’
