You spoke a potent word In the World's ear and listening thousands heard. Spurgeon stirred the throng, not fastidious or sensitive souls. He was honest, robust, Puritan but not ascetic:-- Crudeness may chill, and confidence offend, But manhood, mother-wit and selfless zeal, Speech clear as light and courage true as steel, Must win the many. Honest soul and brave, The greatest drop their garlands on your grave. [Illustration: FICTION--PRESENT STYLE GERTRUDE: "You never do anything now, Margaret, but go to all sorts of Churches, and read those old Books of Theology. You never used to be like that." MARGARET: "How can I help it, Gerty? I'm writing a Popular Novel!"] At all points Spurgeon was poles apart from the "Adulated Clergyman," one of _Punch's_ "Modern Types" held up to contempt in the previous year, and noted in another section--who develops out of a mincing effeminate boy into an unconventional emotional preacher, ferocious in pulpit denunciations, but full of honeyed sweetness in fashionable drawing-rooms; adored by weak women, distrusted and despised by normal men. A new rival to the pulpit, it may be noted in conclusion, had sprung up in the "theological romance." Mrs. Humphry Ward, whose _Robert Elsmere_ appeared in 1888, was its most widely read representative. But perhaps her greatest title to our gratitude in this context is the fact that it was her recommendation which induced Messrs. Macmillan to publish Mr. Shorthouse's remarkable novel _John Inglesant_. LONDON AND ITS GOVERNMENT