August 17 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook about hearing the great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892):

Raw & cold, & a drenching rain. Went over to the Tabernacle & heard Mr. Spurgeon. House ¾ full—say 3000 people. 1st hour, lacking 1 minute, taken up with two prayers, two ugly hymns, & Scripture-reading. Sermon ¾ of an hour long. A fluent talk. Good sonorous voice. Topic treated in the unpleasant old fashion—man a mighty bad child, God working at him in forty ways & having a world of trouble about him.

A wooden-faced congregation—just the sort to see no incongruity in the Majesty of Heaven stooping to beg & plead & sentimentalize over such, & see in their salvation an important matter [MTNJ 2: 338].