"I don't say they ought to plough, but I do say that they ought to do
something for the state, besides being like the caterpillars on the
cabbage, eating up the good things; or like the butterflies, showing
themselves off, but making no honey....
"Let me drop on these Surrey Hills, worn out ... sooner than eat bread
and cheese and never earn it; better die an honorable death, than live a
good-for-nothing life.
"Rash vows are much better broken than kept. He who never changes,
never mends.... Learn to say 'No,' and it will be of more use to you
than to be able to read Latin.
"An open mouth shows an empty head. Still waters are the deepest, but
the shallowest brook brawls the most.... Beware of every one who swears;
he who would blaspheme his Maker would make no bones of lying or
stealing.... Commit all your secrets to no man ... seeing that men are
but men, and all men are frail."
In "John Ploughman's Pictures" he says, "He who cannot curb his temper
carries gunpowder in his bosom, and he is neither safe for himself nor
his neighbors.... Anger is a fire which cooks no victuals, and comforts
no households; it cuts and curses and kills, and no one knows what it
may lead to.... It takes a great deal out of a man to get in a towering
rage; it is almost as unhealthy as having a fit.... Shun a furious man
as you would a mad dog.... A man in a thorough passion is as sad a sight
as to see a neighbor's house on fire, and no water handy to put out the
flames." Mr. Spurgeon's books number about one hundred volumes.
Mr. Spurgeon was blest in his home-life. On Jan 8, 1856, he married
Susannah Thompson, daughter of Mr. Robert Thompson, of Falcon Square. He
was married in new Park Street Chapel, before the Tabernacle was built.
The church was full at the ceremony, while two thousand persons outside
were unable to enter.
Their twin sons, Charles and Thomas, their only children, have always
been a comfort to them. The wife has long been an invalid, but has been
enabled to do great good in her home and out of it.
Mr. Spurgeon once said of her, "My experience of my first wife, who
will, I hope, live to be my last, is much as follows: Matrimony came
from Paradise, and leads to it. I never was half so happy before I was a
married man as I am now.... I have no doubt that where there is much
love there will be much to love, and where love is scant, faults will be
plentiful. If there is only one good wife in England, I am the man who
put the ring on her finger, and long may she wear it. God bless the dear
soul! if she can put up _with_ me, she shall never be put down _by_ me."
From Hull he once wrote her a poem, beginning,--
"Over the space that parts us, my wife,
I'll cast me a bridge of song:
Our hearts shall meet, O joy of my life,
On its arch unseen, but strong."
"Unkind and domineering husbands," he said, "ought not to pretend to be
Christians, for they act clean contrary to Christ's commands."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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