O dear mothers, you have a very sacred trust reposed in you by God! He hath in effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages.” You are called to equip the future man of God, that he may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve Him. Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty

Spurgeon, C. H. (2005). Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-Thousand Illustrations Selected from the Works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (320). Oswego, IL: Fox River Press.

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Splendid was the courage of Alexander when they told him that there were hundreds of thousands of Persians. “Yet,” he said, “one butcher fears not myriads of sheep”.“Ah!” said another, “when the Persians draw their bows their arrows are so numerous that they darken the sun”.“It will be fine to fight in the shade,” cried the hero. O friends, we know whom we have believed, and we are sure of triumph!

Spurgeon, C. H. (2005). Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-Thousand Illustrations Selected from the Works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (487). Oswego, IL: Fox River Press.

How often I have felt humiliated by the fulsome laudation expressed of foreign missionaries by friends in the home land, and I have longed for the time when all Christian workers at home and abroad shall stand on a level as disciples of a common Master and equally engaged in His service. A soldier sent to the Philippines deserves no more credit than one on guard in the fort on Governor’s Island.

From Dr. Jessup, missionary to Syria died in 1910.

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I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit.

The habit of regular morning and evening prayer is one which is indispensable to a believer’s life, but the prescribing of the length of prayer, and the constrained remembrance of so many persons and subjects, may gender unto bondage, and strangle prayer rather than assist it.

To say I will humble myself at such a time, and rejoice at such another season, is nearly as much an affectation as when the preacher wrote in the margin of his sermon, “Cry here,” “Smile here.” Why, if the man preached from his heart, he would be sure to cry in the right place, and to smile at a suitable moment; and when the spiritual life is sound, it produces prayer at the right time, and humiliation of soul and sacred joy spring forth spontaneously, apart from rules and vows.

The kind of religion which makes itself to order by the Almanack, and turns out its emotions like bricks from a machine, weeping on Good Friday, and rejoicing two days afterwards, measuring its motions by the moon, is too artificial to be worthy of my imitation.

Spurgeon, C. H. (2009). C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from his diary, letters, and records, by his wife and his private secretary: Volume 1, 1834-1854 (161). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

He speaks of the “fire that never shall be quenched.” Now, do not begin telling me that that is metaphorical fire: who cares for that? If a man were to threaten to give me a metaphorical blow on the head, I should care very little about it; he would be welcome to give me as many as he pleased.

And what say the wicked? “We do not care about metaphorical fires.” But they are real, sir—yes, as real as yourself. There is a real fire in hell, as truly as you have now a real body—a fire exactly like that which we have on earth in everything except this—that it will not consume, though it will torture you. You have seen the asbestos lying in the fire red hot, but when you take it out it is unconsumed.

So your body will be prepared by God in such a way that it will burn for ever without being consumed; it will lie, not as you consider, in metaphorical fire, but in actual flame.

Spurgeon, C. H. (2005). Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-Thousand Illustrations Selected from the Works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (226). Oswego, IL: Fox River Press.