Charles Spurgeon’s Letters-Letter 74

MENTONE, 1877.

MY DEAR SON TOM, —

I am very sorry that you are feeling so weak, and as your dear Mother thinks a voyage would do you good I cannot but yield to the wish. I am rather afraid that it will be too severe a remedy, but I shall not demur to its being tried. If it ends in your going in for the college course and coming into the ministry I shall not regret it; indeed, I shall rejoice if you went round the world seven times if it ended so.

You will preach, I am sure, but without good training you cannot take the position which I want you to occupy. Theology is not to be learned in its amplitude and accuracy by one destined to be a public instructor without going thoroughly into it, and mastering its terms and details. Perhaps a voyage may give tone to your system and prepare you for two years of steady application. Only may the Lord make you a great soul-winner, and I shall be more than content.

We meet some awful donkeys when travelling, but a lady at San Remo is beyond all others. She said that she regretted that our Lord Jesus was a Jew. When asked if she would have preferred his being an Englishman she replied, “No, but you see it is such a pity that he was a Jew’ it would have been far better if he had been a Christian like ourselves!!”

Your loving father,

C. H. SPURGEON.