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Charles Haddon SpurgeonCH Spurgeon According to him, "There is a general kind of prayer which fails for lack of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all fire their guns anywhere. Possibly somebody would be killed, but the majority of the enemy would be missed." Our prayers may be very beautiful in appearance and might appear to be the very paragon of devotion, but unless there is a secret spiritual force in them, they are vain things.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the most popular English preacher in the nineteenth century. He was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England in 1834. Though he grew up in the knowledge and understanding of Christianity, as both his father and grandfather were pastors, he was not converted until 1850. He preached his first sermon to a small gathering of farmers in August of the same year and a year later was called to pastor a village church. In 1854 in his nineteenth year, he was installed as shepherd over the flock of the New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, London, which was later to become the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
He published his first sermon in January 1855, a practice which continued until 1916, twenty-four years after his death. During his pastorate at London, Spurgeon ministered to a congregation of almost 6,000 people each Sunday. It is said that he published his sermons weekly, wrote a monthly magazine, and founded a college for pastors, two orphanages, an old-folks home, a colportage society, and several mission stations. He continued to preach the gospel until his death in January,1892. History has it that over 100,000,000 copies of his sermons have been sold and more than 150 years after his death his sermons continue to gain popularity.
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