What a satisfaction it is to know that during the last twelve years of his life, Mr. Spurgeon and his wife were able to enjoy such a delightful residence as that which they secured at Westwood.

In August of 1880 they moved to Beulah Hill, a suburb of London, and into a residence which Mr. Spurgeon had been enabled to purchase through the rise in value of his old home at Nightingale Lane, and which he called "Westwood." This beautiful country home, with its thirty acres of lawn, gardens, fields and woodland, came to Mr. Spurgeon as a result of some sensible advice given to him by one of his deacons nearly twenty-five years before. The house in Nightingale Lane had been for sale for some time when Mr. Spurgeon moved into it. The owner offered to sell it to him on very easy terms, but he discarded the idea entirely of owning any property himself until the deacons very decidedly assured him that it would be a sin not to provide for his own, saying, "He that provideth not for his own, and especially for them of his own

household, has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." So he purchased the residence.

Having a great horror of debt, and from the first receiving a reasonable income, he was able very soon to pay for the home, and enjoy it free of encumbrance. But the house was situated in that portion of London which was growing very fast, especially in business enterprises, and as they crowded around his little homestead they shut out the light, but increased the value of his possessions.

At last, in 1880, a growing fear that the locality was unhealthy, both for Mrs. Spurgeon and himself, led him to consider the possibility of moving to some other locality. An unexpected offer of a high price for the old homestead, combined with especially favorable opportunities to purchase the lands and house at Westwood, led him to believe that the hand of Providence was directing him for his wife's sake to a healthier and more beautiful locality.

Westwood has often been described by those who have visited it; and The Philadelphia Press, as late as 1892, gave us a bit of description worth inserting here:

"He (Mr. Spurgeon) was a man of taste, even of artistic and luxurious taste in some particulars. Many a millionaire might well have envied him his home. This was at Westwood, on what is known as Beulah Hill, in Sydenham, which is one of London's fairest suburbs. Here he had a large and

handsome mansion, situated in a spacious park; so that, although within a few minutes' ride of the teeming streets of London, it was as rural and as secluded as though in the heart of a wilderness. Passing the lodge gates, the visitor found himself amid an expanse of well-kept lawns, diversified with shrubbery and groves.

"A small lake was near the house, and elsewhere was a fountain containing many goldfish, of which pets Mr. Spurgeon was exceedingly fond. Bees were another of his fads, and a dozen or more hives were always humming and buzzing in the garden. There was a profusion of flowers also, mostly pinks and other familiar varieties. These were not grown for the bees, nor yet because Mr. Spurgeon himself was particularly fond of them, but to supply the floral mission of his church, for distribution among the sick and poor of the city.

"There were arbors and shaded seats in plenty about the grounds, and there were also plenty of open sunny spots. Of these latter Mr. Spurgeon was most fond. He had a waterproof mattress, which he would place on the sunniest spot he could find, and on which he would lie for hours, simply basking in the rays of the sun. This was the greatest physical luxury in the world to him, and his fondness for Mentone and the Riviera was 'because there was so much sunshine there.'

"Even indoors he sought to have as much sunlight as possible. His mansion was planned and

built with that end in view. No trees were allowed to shade it, and the windows were as large as possible. Perhaps the most interesting room was the library, the walls of which were lined with crowded bookshelves. Here were forty volumes of Mr. Spurgeon's own printed sermons, in English, and dozens of other volumes of his works translated into other tongues.

"Here were several volumes of collected tracts and pamphlets, written by others about him, and arranged chronologically. The earliest were nearly all abusive, many of them actually scandalous in tone. The latter were as generally eulogistic, and the gradual transition from the one extreme to the other presented a most interesting study. Some large scrapbooks contained copies of all the caricatures of the preacher published since he was in the ministry. There were thousands of them, of all possible shades of artistic merit, and of all imaginable spirits, from good-natured humor to sheer malevolence.

Other volumes contained thousands of clippings from newspapers about Mr. Spurgeon, presenting the same variety of tone. In all these Mr. Spurgeon took a philosophic interest. Praise did not tickle him, nor abuse annoy hin. And on the whole his observations led him to regard the world with increasing kindliness of spirit."

However, the best way to look in upon domestic scenes at Beulah Hill is to take the unique description

which Mrs. Spurgeon has herself given of their home experiences, under greatly varying circumstances. To read the extracts from her letters concerning their home life, and relating to her work at Westwood, is like passing by the windows of a home, with the invitation from the occupants to look in at each opening as we pass, and catch what glimpses we may of the arrangement and beauty within.

Mrs. Spurgeon continued her work with the BookFund with greater earnestness at Westwood, and there Mr. Spurgeon arranged his library, received his friends, and attended to his manifold correspondence. It was a charming ten years of domestic life. He was frequently called from it on missions in preaching the gospel, and sometimes was compelled to endure a prolonged absence at Mentone, in southern France, to which place the physician imperatively sent him.

Mrs. Spurgeon usually remained at Westwood during his absence and cared for the correspondence and managed the household, experiencing that loneliness, those fears, those anxieties, which come to every affectionate wife during the prolonged absence of her husband, especially if he be absent because of illness.

The glimpses into that home which we have gathered from her writings, not only show how they lived in comfort, peace and heavenly harmony, but also give us many hints as to their thoughts, feelings, perplexities and domestic arrangements.