"Yes," replied Spurgeon, "I told them that if it were possible for an ungodly man to go to heaven without having his nature changed, he would be none the better for being there; and then, by way of illustration, I said that were a thief to get in he would remain a thief still, and go round the place picking the angels' pockets." "But, my dear young friend, don't you know that the angels have no pockets?" "No, sir," answered the youthful preacher; but added, with ready wit, "but I am glad to be assured of the fact from a gentleman who does know. I will set it all right." Being urged by his father and some others to take a college course, he agreed to meet Dr. Angus, the tutor of Stepney College, now Regents Park, at the house of Macmillan, the publisher, at Cambridge. Spurgeon went at the time appointed, and was shown into a room, where he waited for two hours for the tutor. Meantime, Dr. Angus had waited in another room, each not having been informed of the presence of the other by the servant; and, unable to wait longer, had taken the train for London. The result was that Spurgeon never went to College. At Cambridge, on the anniversary of the Sunday-school Union in 1853, Spurgeon, then nineteen, was asked to make an address. Mr. Gould, a Baptist deacon, liked the address so much, that he spoke of it to Mr. Thomas Olney, one of the deacons in New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, which had been one of the largest and richest of the Baptist churches in London. Mr. Gould thought the Waterbeach youth might put new life into the deteriorating church. Spurgeon was invited to London to preach a sermon in December, 1853. Scarcely two hundred were in the chapel, which would seat twelve hundred. He preached earnestly from the words, "Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above." He was invited to come again for three Sundays in January, and soon asked to preach six months on probation. He would not promise for more than three months. At the end of that time the church had filled so rapidly, that he was called to the pastorate; and before he was twenty, in 1854, was installed over the Baptist Church, with a salary of £150 a year. He came, as he says, to the great city of London, "a country lad," "wondering, praying, fearing, hoping, believing, ... all alone, and yet not alone; expectant of Divine help, and inwardly borne down by our sense of the need of it."