Wanted: Saucy, barking dogs

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon




The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from C.H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, volume one, pages 271-272, Pilgrim Publications.

Another singular character with whom I became acquainted early in my ministry, was old Mr. Sutton, of Cottenham. He had never seen me, but he heard that I was a popular young minister, so he invited me over to preach his anniversary sermons. 

I was in the vestry of the chapel before the morning service, and when the aged man came in, and saw me, he seemed greatly surprised to find that I was so young. After gruffly exchanging the usual greetings, he remarked, “I shouldn’t have asked you here, had I known you were such a bit of a boy. Why, the people have been pouring into the place all the morning in waggons, and dickey-carts, and all kinds of vehicles! More fools they!” he added. 

I said, “Well, sir, I suppose it will be so much the better for your anniversary; still, I can go back as easily as I came, and my people at Waterbeach will be very glad to see me.” “No, no,” said the old pastor; “now you are here, you must do the best you can. There is a young fellow over from Cambridge, who will help you; and we shan’t expect much from you;” and thereupon he paced the room, moaning out, “Oh, dear! what a pass the world is coming to when we get as preachers a parcel of boys who have not got their mother’s milk out of their mouths!”

I was in due time conducted to the pulpit, and the old minister sat upon the stairs,—I suppose, ready to go on with the service in case I should break down. After prayer and singing, I read, from the Book of Proverbs, the chapter containing the words, “The hoary head is a crown of glory.” 

When I had gone so far, I stopped, and remarked, “I doubt it, for, this very morning, I met with a man who has a hoary head, yet he has not learnt common civility to his fellow-men.” Proceeding with the reading, I finished the verse,—“if it be found in the way of righteousness.” “Ah!” I said, “that’s another thing; a hoary head would then be a crown of glory, and, for the matter of that, so would a red head, or a head of any other colour.” 

I went on with the service, and preached as best I could, and as I came down from the pulpit, Mr. Sutton slapped me on the back, and exclaimed, “Bless your heart! I have been a minister nearly forty years, and I was never better pleased with a sermon in all my life; but you are the sauciest dog that ever barked in a pulpit.” 

All the way home from the chapel, he kept on going across the road to speak to little groups of people who were discussing the service. I heard him say, “I never knew anything like it in all my life; and to think that I should have talked to him as I did!” We had a good time for the rest of the day, the Lord blessed the Word, and Mr. Sutton and I were ever afterwards the best of friends. 

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