He said "which may have been a singular illusion." He does not venture to assert the supernatural. He might be mistaken as to the origin of the voice, But the same impression was received by his mind, which human language makes through vibration in the ear. It would require in order to truthfully deny that any real voice was heard, that the person denying it should have infinite knowledge. For he who says that such a thing could not occur, thereby claims to be acquainted with all the laws of nature, and above nature, and that he is so fully able to measure their powers and possible combinations as to mathematically figure out of all the infinite possibilities the impossibility of such an event. Any person could declare that he did not believe it, and might be truthful in his statement. But he who asserts that such a thing is actually impossible assumes a divinity of knowledge which is sublimely absurd. Yet, on the other hand, so many voices are said to have been heard by those who are wholly untrustworthy in other matters and so many of them have been used to prop up so many of the most silly superstitions that it is reasonably difficult for the superficial thinker to decide that any real voice of this kind is ever heard in modern years.

The sanctified common sense of Mr. Spurgeon is beautifully shown in his expression, given in his account, that the loud voice "may have been a singular illusion." Such illusions are not rare and certainly are to be most carefully investigated before being

accepted as established truth. But it is certain that Mr. Spurgeon evidently believed that it was the voice of God. At all events, he allowed it to guide him to the most important decision of his life and ever after kept the saying of that voice vividly before his mind to determine his actions in situations of great difficulty.

As Henry Ward Beecher said of Abraham Lincoln's belief in signs, "even if it was an illusion, it was still the voice of God." What difference does it make if the right impression is made upon the mind, whether it be the result of a trumpet blast, or of a still small voice whispering in the soul? God is not confined to any particular agency in making His chosen communications; and however weak may be our speculations concerning the channel through which God conveys His divine will, it is perhaps enough for us to know that He does communicate with His own in some way, and impresses upon them. His will in a manner akin to that which He used with the saints of old.

Impressions of great variety are continually being made upon the wicked, going into deeper wrong, which to the Christian are clearly warnings from a great and good spirit, which would turn them back from their evil ways, before their souls are utterly lost. And in the same way, spiritual voices, though perhaps using no mechanical instrument for expression, are continually encouraging the soul which is struggling after the truth, and are help

ing upward by mysterious suggestions the servant of God who would know more of Christ and be better fitted to perform His will.

If we were to surrender this position, we would suffer complete defeat as defenders of the Christian principles that God still saves and impels by His Holy Spirit.

We declare unhesitatingly our unshaken belief in the fact that the voice which Mr. Spurgeon heard at that time was the voice of the Holy Spirit of God. We also declare, that it must have been the same Divine agency which afterward followed him from that point on, and in the most miraculous ways answered his prayers and furthered his efforts for the salvation of men.

Only a few of the uncounted number of singular events in his history are probably known to any writer. And if they all could be known, it would be impossible to write the books which should contain their narration. We will gather here as many as we feel are perfectly trustworthy, being sadly conscious, however, of the fact that any collection of the Providential visitations of God to Mr. Spurgeon and his work will be but a hint to the great aggregation of unwritten events. We believe in the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit in connection with the conversion of every soul which he saw turn from the world unto God. No known natural law accounts for the revolution in disposition and the change in relation to God and Godly things, which comes to the

heart that surrenders itself to a belief in Jesus the Christ.

Accompanying this religious work he found, as many other servants of Christ have found, that there are ever at work mysterious, unaccountable, providential causes leading to the definite result. Our religious libraries are filled with books giving accounts of marvelous answers to prayer, of the most strange turning about in the lives of bad men, of the building of churches, the beginnings of missions, of power in revivals, healing of diseases and the hundred other transformations of human character or human circumstances. All of these help to confirm the idea that Mr. Spurgeon's life was one specially led by a supernatural spirit. Yet so interwoven with this record are the natural results of the wellunderstood human agencies that no one may hope to draw a clear line of division and say this was supernatural, and that was natural.

How difficult then is the task of the historian, working in human limitations, lacking the infallibility of divine inspiration. The writer can at the best, only touch upon the facts here and there, catching but occasional glimpses of the plan which Mr. Spurgeon lived out, the main features of which are hidden with God. Only when the books are opened beyond this present existence, can there be presented a true record of all the supernatural influences which worked with the natural ones in the making of his romantic career.

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CHAPTER IV.

EARLY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES.

We must tread again the border-land of the known and the unknown, as we try to present a truthful narration of Mr. Spurgeon's earliest religious life. It was as remarkable and startling as many of the other things in his strange career. Yet it may be that we ought not to regard his religious experiences as beginning at the time when he thought he was converted; for he was a child of religious parents and was ever under the influence of Biblical teachings, from the day he began to learn anything.

The Church and Sabbath-school were as familiar to him as was his grandfather's sitting-room. The Bible was a book which was kept in mind by continual quotation and by daily reading, both morning and evening. Thus he lived through all his early years in the atmosphere of a religious and holy home-life. A hatred of evil and a love for the good were inculcated by teachers and friends, both in precept and example, until it must have been a kind of second nature to him to be religious in an external sense.

He has told us how the Pilgrim's Progress and