So dropping in two half crowns ($1.25) I was enabled to pass in at this side door of the great Tabernacle, where a gentlemanly usher gave our party good seats. Already several hundred people had entered in this way, and before the doors were open the lower floor was about filled with these contributors. When the main doors were thrown open, there was a general rush of men and women in all directions, carrying umbrellas and jumping over the pews to get to the very nearest available seats, and almost immediately every seat in the church was occupied and great crowds were standing against the wall in the back galleries. I think I never witnessed such a squabble of people rushing into a building. They created a dust that was almost suffocating. Very soon the great preacher appeared on a plain platform with no rostrum or pulpit except a small table at his side, where lay a hymn book and a Bible. Mr. Spurgeon immediately pronounced the invocation and then read a hymn, which the congregation sang without organ accompaniment or any other music except their voices. As the congregation rose, clouds of dust seemed to rise with it, so that it was almost impossible to distinguish the people in the top gallery. It was a remarkable scene--a very devout crowd of worshippers who entered into the spirit of the occasion and did worship the Lord and Mr. Spurgeon with tremendous intensity. I saw a number of Plymouth Church people near where I sat. I remember asking one or two of them how this compared with Plymouth Church. They all expressed disappointment. For intelligence, the congregation was not to be compared with Plymouth; it was another class of people, of a much lower order than I supposed could possibly form the congregation to which Mr. Spurgeon had preached so many years. Passing out through the crowd I shook hands with Mr. Spurgeon. He didn’t recognize me. The following day I wrote him that before leaving England I should very much like to pay my respects to the man I had read and admired many years, making no reference whatever to my business. In reply I received the following strange letter, which showed that the great preacher really impugned my motives and thought I was bound to secure him for a lecture tour in America: * * * * * “NIGHTINGALE LANE, BALHAM, SURREY, June 6, 1879. “DEAR SIR: I am not at all afraid of anything you could say by way of temptation to preach or lecture for money, for the whole of the United States in bullion would not lead me to deliver one such lecture. It would only waste your time and mine for you to see me, though I feel sure you are one of the pleasantest men on earth. Your good-natured pertinacity is so admirable that I trust you will not waste it upon an impossible object, but be content to have my acknowledgment that if success could have been achieved, you would have achieved it. “Yours very truly, “C. H. SPURGEON. “Major J. B. Pond, Westminster Palace Hotel.”