BY C. H.. SPURGEON
IT becomes more difficult every year to prepare a Report for our friends, because we have already said all that can be said, and said it in several ways. Our College is now in middle life, and this is at once the most laborious and the least romantic period of existence. We are quietly plodding on, doing nothing new, but persevering in downright hard work.
Very prosaic, but at the same time very fruitful, is the history which can be thus summarized. We have gone on now for twenty years, aiding our young brethren to preach the gospel more intelligently, and we are by no means weary of the work, or shaken in our conviction as to its extreme necessity; but, on the contrary, we are more than ever wedded to the service, and are resolved so long as we live to continue in it. Our plans and methods are the same as at the first, because we have not been shown any reason for altering them, but have accumulated proofs of their efficiency.
Instead of drawing back or changing our course, we are taking counsel for the continuance of the Pastors’ College when we shall have ended our own personal career; and there are indications that the Lord will enable us to place the institution upon a permanent footing for generations yet to come.
Although there is nothing in mere plodding perseverance which can furnish matter for a sensational report, yet there is sterling value in it. Many can start an institution (for we, have seen it done), but they lose their breath after a little running, and either let the work die, or turn it over to others, and try something newer and more dazzling. It has been our privilege to be associated with brethren who are not given to change, but are endowed with patient continuance in well doing, and so the College holds on its way without faltering. It is our duty to render praise to God for this, for
whoever the laborers may be, he only can establish the work of our hands upon us. He only could have raised us up so many generous and faithful friends by whose liberality we are enabled to carry on the work, and he only could have sent success to the men who have gone forth. To him be grateful praise.
During the year the number of students has been greater than ever; it constantly varies, but it has reached at one time as many as one hundred and ten, but the funds have increased in like proportion, and there has been
no lack. Men have been forthcoming in such large numbers as to enable us to make a very careful and jealous selection without fear of running short of accepted students. The men now with us are equal to any former body of brethren we have ever had, and many of them are preachers of great promise. Our brother and all the tutors have been spared to us in excellent health, and everything has worked as we could desire.
The Evening Classes, in which men who desire to serve the Lord can obtain a gratuitous education, have been very efficiently conducted, have gathered up large numbers of young men, and have been a great source of supply to the College, besides sending out colporteurs, city missionaries, lay preachers, Sabbath-school teachers, and workers of all sorts. Between two and three hundred names are, on the books of this Christian Working Men’s College, and a fine spirit prevails among them.
We have now been able to purchase the freehold of the College, which.
was before held upon lease for eighty years, of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and we have put the property in trust, together with a sufficient sum to pay the rates and keep it in repair. This is a very glad event to the President, and he begs his friends to unite with him in gratitude to God. No debt, no rent, and virtually no rates: the College is thus housed by the gracious Lord, who has removed all difficulties and sent all supplies in answer to prayer. Our trustees are the brethren who conduct the
Orphanage, and are at our side in every good work — in fact, the deacons of the church at the Tabernacle.
An old friend of the College sent us the other day the following remarks, which he thought should be incorporated in the Report, although he wished us to put them into other language. We shall not, however, hammer them on our anvil, but give them just as we received them, for we could not improve them.
“The wisdom and grace of God in the institution of this College are
increasingly manifested every year. Such a necessity for its existence could not be foreseen by its first promoters. That there was some need for its origin for a better provision for the plain preaching of a plain gospel was seen and felt, but little did they think that a departure from the true faith would have proceeded so rapidly as to render this College so needful for the preservation of the old gospel as it has now become. ‘This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes.’ It was the Lord’s doing that the
President was led to the idea of a Pastors’ College. It is the Lord’s doing
the Lord’s doing that they have zealously and unitedly acquiesced in the instructions that have been given them. It is the Lord’s doing that spheres of usefulness have been presented to them. It is the Lord’s doing that they have faithfully adhered, almost without exception to the doctrines for the maintenance of which this College was raised up both by God and man. It is the Lord’s doing that those doctrines have been preached by them with unexampled success, and in few, if in any, instances in vain. Some have ranked among the foremost for distinction and usefulness in the
denomination, the majority are increasingly influential and of solid worth, and the humblest of them are not less qualified for their own particular spheres. ‘This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.’
“It is wonderful indeed that such a gospel should have been provided for lost and helpless men, and that it should please God by the foolishness of preaching (not by foolish preaching, but, by what to wise men after the flesh may seem foolishness), to save them that believe; but having instituted this method of salvation it is not wonderful that this alone should receive the divine sanction and blessing. It is not wonderful that the plain and earnest preaching of a pure gospel should, have the greatest influence upon the minds and hearts of men, because it alone comes within the promise for that end. Effects there may be of a certain intellectual and moral worth from other preaching, but in proportion as they are the result of real gospel teaching, in that proportion only will they give real peace to the soul. It is by confining themselves almost exclusively to the fundamental doctrines of the gospel that the students from this College have awakened unusual interest, and have been favored with unusual success. They owe their prominence in no small degree to the omissions of others. With or without learning and eloquence, they have shown what are the truths that are most blessed for the conversion of sinners and the consolation of the saved.
Presented as living truths in their own experience, they have been received as such by others. Such, we are thankful to say, have been the results of the College, and such they continue to this day.
“Hitherto the College has been gradually increasing. Last month it was twenty years old, and it may now be considered to have nearly attained its full growth. There is a certain size for everything, in which it becomes most complete and most conducive to its own ends, It is so with flowers and trees, with animals and men, with families and nations, and communities of
every kind. It is not less so with colleges. Universities do not furnish the best examples for religious purposes. The amalgamation of dissenting colleges has not answered the expectations that led to its formation. The Pastors’ College is limited by its accommodation and its relation to a single pastorate, and, having come up to those limits, may be considered
providentially to have arrived at its full growth. No great advance of its funds will be henceforth required, but only that they be well sustained.
Already its supply of pastors is in excess of all the other Baptist colleges combined. It has outlived the jealousies and fears awakened by its first appearance, has gained the confidence of kindred institutions, and been recognized as an established power for great good both in the church and the world.
“If such have been the achievements of its youth, much more may be expected from its manhood. What if all that has hitherto been done by its instrumentality were undone! Where would the majority of the 380 men have been who have now successfully engaged, and some for many years, in the Christian ministry? No provision was made for them in other colleges, so that in all human probability they would have remained in the same private capacity, and upon the same level from which they came amongst us. Where would the many chapels have been that have been erected for their use, the new churches which have been formed, and the old churches which have been revived by their instrumentality? Where would the many souls have been if all that has been effected through their instrumentality were now to be undone? How many would have to quit their glorious high thrones in heaven, put off their spotless robes, lay down their golden harps, resign their crowns, and leave their blest abodes for regions of sorrow and despair? How many thousands of rejoicing pilgrims to the heavenly Jerusalem must go back to the world of sin and sorrow from whence they came? How many who have been comforted by their ministrations must resume their old burdens, and return to their perplexities and fears? How many awakened by their faithful appeals must return to their former indifference, without God and without Christ in the world?
The change would be felt by many in all lands, and when to these
considerations we add the saving benefits which these many thousands may have conveyed, or may hereafter convey, to others, the blessings resulting from the College are incalculable. It is not an unfair method of
argumentation thus to suppose all that has been done by the College to be undone. If we would know the benefit which the earth derives from the sun
withheld; or the benefit of refreshing showers in a time of drought:, we have only to suppose all their quickening and reviving influence to be withdrawn. To know the value of health, and outward mercies of any kind, we have only to think what we should have been, and where we should have been, without them. Why may we not judge in the same way of all spiritual good, with all the additional force it acquires from that good abiding for ever? Should the college now in its twenty-first year expire, it will not have lived in vain; but it has, we trust, a long life of a yet more vigorous and effective manhood before it, and its past benefits will prove but the dew of its youth in comparison with the showers of blessings which are stored up in it for many ages yet to come.”