June 19, 1834 Birthdays

I was doing some browsing on the web for "June 19, 1834," to see who was born on that date. So far as I found, the foremost person in history born on this day seems to have been Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892).

Had Spurgeon not been born on this date, it seems this date would have "gone begging" for any significant birth, especially in Christian History.

Spurgeon is the only name mentioned on the Christian History web site, born on this date.

CHS is also the only name on the Encyclopedia Britannica web site.

Selected quotations from people born on this date are exclusively from Spurgeon:

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/top/born-on-year/1834/born-on-day/june_19/

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_spurgeon.html

In the Providence of God, it seems that this day in history as a birthdate of highly significant persons belongs to Spurgeon.

A small group of us are getting together in Pasadena today to remember the birthday of Spurgeon. All of our lives have been so impacted by the influence of Spurgeon that we have no idea where or what we would have been had we not come into contact with his Christ-exalting sermons and other works. We give thanks to the Lord for this birth which was 175 years ago and what the child born on that day has meant to us with respect to our faith in Christ and understanding the teachings of the Word of God.

He was born in the humble village of Kelvedon, Essex, England, several miles northeast of London. He would eventually be converted in 1850 in the city of Colchester a little further eastward, then soon thereafter be baptized on May 3 in the River Lark near Isleham, preach his first sermon at age 16 in a cottage at Teversham, pastor his first church in the village of Waterbeach in 1851, and be called in 1854 to pastor the church known as the New Park Street Chapel (later, Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London, a pastorate which lasted till his death in 1892. See the Biography page at this web site: http://www.pilgrimpublications.com/homepage.htm

Today, in this age of advanced technology in communications, Spurgeon's sermons and works are known worldwide and easily accessible on the Internet and in other forms. As D. L. Moody said of Spurgeon at a meeting at Spurgeon's church at a Jubilee Service on June 18, 1884:

"You are never going to die. John Wesley lives more today than when he was in the flesh; Whitefield lives more today than when he was on this earth; John Knox lives more today than at any other period of his life; and Martin Luther, who has been gone over 400 years, still lives. Bear in mind, friends, that our dear brother is to live for ever. We may never meet together again in the flesh, but by the blessing of God I will meet you up yonder" (Memorial Volume, Mr. Spurgeon's Jubilee, page 9).

"Ask not . . . "

Do You Suppose JFK's Speech-Writer Ever Read C. H. Spurgeon?

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 51, Year 1905, pages 246, 247:

I once heard a minister speak very grumblingly of the Baptist denomination. He said, “I do not know what the denomination ever did for me.”

I could not help thinking to myself, “Well now, that is a question which has never occurred to me and probably never will. The question that has occurred to me is, What can I do for the denomination?’”

And I think that is the kind of question which every Christian minister ought to ask, not only concerning the denomination, but concerning Christians in general. We ought not to ask, “What can these people do for me?” No, put the shoe on the other foot and say, “What can I do for these people?”

If you want to love a man, you must not get him to do you a kindness, but you must do a kindness to him and then you will love him. You cannot do good to another person without finding growing up in your heart some degree of interest in the person to whom you have done that good. It is possible that a child may forget its mother, forget that it drew its life, its nourishment and all the comforts of its infancy from its mother, but the mother does not forget that she reared it in its weakness and brought it up to strength.

If you want to love a person, do some loving thing for that person and love will spring up in your soul to that person. Our Lord Jesus Christ loved His disciples unselfishly—let us do the same.

Entire sermon is at http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols49-51/chs2936.pdf

Spurgeon makes Reader's Digest

"They never said that" --
Spurgeon said it.

Pastor Lennie Wilson of Rosedale Baptist Church, Beaumont, Texas, called my attention to an item in the June 2009 Reader's Digest, pages 158, 159.

In the article entitled, "They Never Said That," we find the following;

Just as an exercise, go to your computer's search engine and type in four words: lie, truth, boots, and world. You will get thousands of references to variations of the following quote: "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on."

Most will cite Mark Twain as the author of the aphorism. Al Gore has given Twain credit for it. So has Mississippi governor Haley Barbour.

But Twain didn't say it. Charles Haddon Spurgeon did, in 1855, and he attributed the wisdom to "an old proverb." Spurgeon was a mid-19th-century British pastor, as famous in his time as Rick Warren and Billy Graham are today in the United States. But that's the thing about fame: It can be fleeting. -- Carl M. Cannon.

While we appreciate Mr. Cannon's information about the quotation, his comment about fame might come in for some question in regard to Spurgeon's fame. If you enter Spurgeon's name in any form on your web search engine or on the image search, you will find that Spurgeon is still rather famous. There are thousands of links to Spurgeon, and there are many websites which feature his sermons and other writings.