Extract from a letter by John A Broadus while in London, to Mrs. Broadus, Sept. 26, 1870:
I was greatly delighted with Spurgeon, especially with his conduct of public worship. The congregational singing has often been described, and is as good as can well be conceived. Spurgeon is an excellent reader of Scripture, and remarkably impressive in reading hymns, and the prayers were quite what they ought to have been. The sermon was hardly up to his average in freshness, but was exceedingly well delivered, without affectation or apparent effort, but with singular earnestness, and directness. The whole thing – house, congregation, order, worship, preaching, was as nearly up to my ideal as I ever expect to see in this life. Of course Spurgeon has his faults and deficiencies, but he is a wonderful man. Then he preaches the real gospel, and God blesses him.
Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, by Archibald Thomas Robertson, 1901, reprint by Gano Books, p. 243.
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2 comments:
"The sermon was hardly up to his average in freshness..."? Is this a compliment?
In Broadus' judgment, something was missing from the sermon. Preachers are not always at their best, and the members of the congregation can tell it. Spurgeon must not have hit a homerun that day, but I venture to say it was a double!
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