"Dear Sir,--I don't know how to describe my joy and my feelings in this
present moment. We never did see each other face to face, but still
there is something between you and me which guided me to make these few
lines for you. One day, as I was going to my daily work, I met a friend
of mine in the street. We spoke about the word of God, and he asked me
whether I had ever seen one of Mr. Spurgeon's books....
"He said he bought it from a bookseller. I asked the name of the book,
and he said it was 'The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit;' and I went
straight to the shop and bought one. I have read a good bit of it. On my
reading it, I arrived on a place where Job said, 'Though he slay me, yet
will I trust in Him.'
"I am sure I can't tell how to describe the goodness you have done to
us, we black people of South Africa. We are black not only outside, even
inside; I wouldn't mind to be a black man only in color. It is a
terrible thing to be a black man from the soul to the skin; but still I
am very glad to say your sermons have done something good to me." ...
David Livingstone carried one of these sermons with him, No. 408,
entitled "Accidents not Punishments," in his last sad journey to Africa.
Yellow and travel-stained it was found by his daughter Mrs. Bruce in his
boxes after his death. He had written across the top, "_Very good._ D.
L."
His son Thomas writes his mother from Auckland, New Zealand, concerning
sermon No. 735, "Loving Advice for Anxious Seekers," copied into the
_Melbourne Argus_, "This scrap of newspaper has been given to me by a
town missionary here, who regards it as a very precious relic. It came
to him from a man who died in the hospital, and bequeathed it to his
visitor as a great treasure. The man found it on the floor of a hut in
Australia, and was brought by its perusal to a knowledge of the truth as
it is in Jesus. He kept it carefully while he lived (for it was
discolored and torn when he found it), and on his death-bed gave it to
the missionary as the only treasure he had to leave behind him."
In writing "The Treasury of David," seven volumes, Mr. Spurgeon spent a
considerable part of twenty years. "During the whole of that period,"
says the Rev. Robert Shindler, in his valuable life of Spurgeon, "Mr. J.
L. Keys, one of Mr. Spurgeon's secretaries, continued to search the
library of the British Museum, and other libraries, and to cull from
every available source everything worthy of quotation upon the book of
Psalms." Over one hundred and twenty thousand volumes have been sold.
Dr. Philip Schaff thought it "the most important homiletical and
practical work of the age on the Psalter."
Of Spurgeon's "Morning by Morning" and "Evening by Evening," for home
reading and devotions, over two hundred thousand copies have been sold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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