Digital Logos Edition
Gleanings among the Sheaves, one of Spurgeon’s earliest publications, contains more than one hundred meditations and short reflections on diverse topics, including prayer, beauty, poverty, faith, and doubt. He also writes at length on religion as a personal matter. Some reflections are brief; others longer; but all have resulted from extended thought and reflection. The Logos Bible Software edition of Gleanings among the Sheaves was originally published in New York by Sheldon and Company in 1869.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England on June 19, 1834. He converted to Christianity in 1850 at a small Methodist chapel, to which he detoured during a snowstorm. While there, he heard a sermon on Isaiah 45:22 and was saved—“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.” He began his own ministry of preaching and teaching immediately, and preached more than 500 sermons by the age of twenty.
In 1854, at nineteen years of age, Spurgeon began preaching at the New Park Street Chapel in London. He was appointed to a six month trial position, which he requested be cut to three months should the congregation dislike his preaching. He gained instant fame, however, and the church grew from 232 members to more than five thousand at the end of his pastorate. Many of his sermons were published each week and regularly sold more than 25,000 copies in twenty languages. Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon estimated that he preached to more than 10,000,000 people. Dwight L. Moody was deeply influenced by Spurgeon’s preaching, and founded the Moody Bible Institute after seeing Spurgeon’s work at the Pastor’s College in London.
Spurgeon read six books per week during his adult life, and read Pilgrim’s Progress more than 100 times. In addition to his studying and preaching, Spurgeon also founded the Pastor’s College (now Spurgeon’s College), various orphanages and schools, mission chapels, and numerous other social institutions.
Charles Spurgeon suffered from poor health throughout his life. He died on January 31, 1892, and was buried in London.
“Humility is to feel that we have no power of ourselves, but that it all cometh from God. Humility is to lean on our Beloved, saying, ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.’ It is, in fact, to annihilate self, and to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ as All in All.” (Page 40)
“It is in our most desperate sorrows that we have our happiest experiences. You must go to Patmos to see the revelation. It is only on the barren, storm-girt rock, shut out from all the world’s light, that we can find a fitting darkness, in which we can view the light of heaven undistracted by the shadows of earth.” (Page 11)
“If we have sharpened our swords on the cross, we have nothing whatever to fear; for though we may be sometimes cast down and discomforted, we shall assuredly at last put to flight all our adversaries, for we are the sons of God even now.” (Page 9)
“If you think you can walk in holiness without keeping up perpetual fellowship with Christ, you have made a great mistake” (Pages 17–18)
“It is not humility to underrate your endowments: humility is to think of yourself, if you can, as God thinks of you” (Page 40)