I am really excited about the forthcoming work of Dr. Christian George. He has discovered, compiled, edited and is publishing The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon in a ten volume set. These lost, and now discovered sermons, were from the first five years of Spurgeon’s ministry. I am one of the countless thousands who are excited at this discovery! It is likely that one of the sermons that Dr. George uncovered was the sermon Spurgeon preached in May of 1854. Consider this review by Dr. Sheridan Knowles, who was there that day.
“Already in the early months of Charles Spurgeon’s pastorate at New Park Street Chapel, several sensed the genus on the young preacher. Mr. James Sheridan Knowles, and Irish former playwright, actor, and medical doctor, had enjoyed great success as a man of the stage. Knowles was converted and baptized by Dr. Brock. He left the theater and entered the Baptist ministry, securing an appointment as tutor elocution at Stepany College. Dr. Kitson Clark described Knowles as “perhaps the best of the tragic dramatists” of his day. At one point in his career he became the lessee of the famous Drury Lane Theater in London. One Sunday in May of 1854 (Spurgoen was 19), Knowles visited the New Park Street Church. He returned to Stepany College and said to his class, “Boys, have you heard of the Cambridge lad?” None of them had heard of Spurgeon up to that time. Knowles went on:
“Go and hear him at once, his name is Charles Spurgeon. He is only a boy, but he is the most wonderful preacher in the world. He is absolutely perfect in 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 Theater; were I still in that position, I would offer him a fortune to play for a season the boards of that place. 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 equaled. Now, mark my word, boys, that young man will live to be the greatest preacher of this age 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 languages of the world.”
It took some years for the fulfillment of Knowles’s prophecy that Spurgeon would live to be the greatest preacher of the age and that his fame would spread worldwide. In Charles’s early days, even the Jewish writer said, “Spurgeon was a powerful instance of the difference scholastic attainment and genius.” Spurgeon’s Autobiography
Thank you Dr. George for your tireless efforts to get this fantastic work published. Thank you God for working through Charles Spurgeon. Thank you God that we can disagree with a least one aspect of Dr. Knowles review. It was not Spurgeon, who saved any man, but the Christ that Spurgeon preached.
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