This is an account of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) visiting the congregation pastored by that old curmudgeon Charles Spurgeon in 1879:
Sunday, August 17, ’79. Raw and Cold, and a drenching rain. Went to hear Mr. Spurgeon. House three-quarters full—say three thousand people. First hour, lacking one minute, taken up with two prayers, two ugly hymns, and Scripture-reading. Sermon three-quarters of an hour long. A fluent talker, good, sonorous voice. Topic treated in the unpleasant, old fashion: Man a rightly bad child, God working at him in forty ways and having a world of trouble with him.
A wooden-faced congregation; just the sort to see no incongruity in the majesty of Heaven stopping to plead and sentimentalize over such, and see in their salvation an important matter.
Notice that to Clemens the message preached is foolish. The American literary giant thinks the message is “old” about God “having a world of trouble” with man (which is a colossal theological misunderstanding), saying of the congregation that they are “wooden-faced” and confused.
Then compare when a Christian visits. Justin Fulton, a pastor from Boston, says this:
The first prayer was short and general in character, but very devout. No fooling here, we are met to worship God. The first hymn was sung with a will. No chanting or piping organ, no choir to attract attention, but one grand purpose to glorify our Christ. We sang out of “Our Own Hymn Book.” Everything has Spurgeon’s imprint. If you don’t like it you can leave it; here is a concern big enough to run without your help. Fall into the current or be swept away. I fell in with my whole heart, as happy as a seraph.
Then came the reading of the Scripture. Time enough. No hurry. How those old English people did enjoy the Word of God! The second prayer follows. That was my prayer, because it was everybody’s cry. His prayer was greater to me than his sermon. In his sermon he talked with men. In his prayer he communed with God. When he described the coming of Christ to the soul, it seemed to me I saw for the first time the King in his beauty. The suppliant was forgiven. With his face streaming with tears, and with tones so full and rich that they swept through every heart, as a breath of perfumed air floats through the halls of a palace, this divine atmosphere possessed our hearts when he cried: “We love thee. Thou knowest it. We love not because thou art great, but because of the inestimable gift of the only begotten Son. Lift us up O God. Take us out of the dust. Let us by faith come to the fountain and be washed. We come. We feel that thou has washed us. We are clean. Yes, we are clean. Blessed be the Lord our God. Make us young again. Wake us up. Let us not sleep. We thank thee for our troubles, for all that makes us conscious of our alienation from thee…
Fulton continues on, eventually describing the sermon from Ps. 42:1, “As the hart panteth..”:
The entire audience drank with the hart, and were refreshed. After this in love he portrayed the Christian’s thirst. How dry we became. Then he uncovered the fountain in Christ. It seemed to me that I had never seen my Christ before. There he was in his beauty. That morning all saw him and were refreshed. It was good to be there.**
Christ on display by a praying and preaching man who communes with him—some will understand and some won’t. We labor that all will understand (cf. 1 Cor. 14:25). But the important thing is Christ’s very presence. I imagine that Spurgeon would be disappointed to know that a visitor (Clemens) felt that the gospel wasn’t good news and that fellowship with God wasn’t all-satisfying. Let’s labor that visitors don’t sense this from us!
But pastors, if you’re reading this, let’s commit to not using Easter to pander to peoples’ fleshly needs. Let’s show Jesus as the fountain of life who alone can quench our thirst. Pray it, sing it, and then show from the Scriptures how it’s true. Our folks will drink deeply because we do.
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**Quoted from Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, a Biography, and from Justin Fulton, Spurgeon, Our Ally, in Geoffrey Chang, Spurgeon the Pastor, 53-57.
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