e Me no drink; destitute, and you told Me to go on the
parish.'"

He thought tracts were very good things in their way, but should not be
relied upon solely as a means of bringing poor people to the Lord. "I
believe a loaf of bread often contains the very essence of theology, and
the Church of God ought to look to it that there are at her gates no,
poor unfed, no sick untended." He was rather hard on "the clergy of all
denominations," regretting to say that "as fish always stunk first at
the head, so a Church when it goes wrong goes bad first among its
ministers." He concluded by an eloquent appeal to his hearers to lose no
time in seeking salvation, calling "heaven and earth, and this old tree,
under which the Gospel was preached five hundred years ago, to bear
witness that I have preached to you the word of God, in which alone
salvation is to be found."

The sermon occupied exactly an hour in the delivery, and was listened to
throughout with profound attention. When it was over, Mr. Spurgeon held
a sort of levee from the pulpit, the people pressing round to shake his
hand, and it was nearly nine o'clock before the last of the congregation
had passed away, leaving Wycliffe's Tree to its accustomed solitude.

The next time I heard Mr. Spurgeon preach was in his famous church. The
Tabernacle will hold six thousand people when full, and on this night it
was thronged from door to door, and from floor to ceiling, with a
congregation gathered together to "watch" whilst the Old Year died and
the New was born. At eleven o'clock when Mr. Spurgeon, gownless and
guiltless of white neck-tie, or other clerical insignia, unceremoniously
walked on to the platform which serves him for pulpit, there was not a
foot of vacant space in the vast area looked down upon from the
galleries, for even the aisles were thronged. The capacious galleries
that rise tier over tier to the roof were crowded in like manner, and
the preacher stood, faced and surrounded by a congregation, the sight of
which might well move to the utterance of words that burn a man who had
within him a fount of thoughts that breathe.

There was no other prelude to the service than the simply spoken
invitation, "Let us pray," and the six thousand, declaring themselves
"creatures of time," bent the knee with one accord to ask the "Lord of
Eternity" to bless them in the coming year. After this a hymn was sung,
Mr. Spurgeon reading out verse by verse, with occasional comment