Book Review: Memories of Stambourne
Summer 2021
“All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children” (Isaiah 54:13).
This wonderful promise was graciously fulfilled in the Spurgeon family. For four generations, God used them in sowing the seed of the gospel while maintaining faithful and Spirit-filled orthodoxy. Rev. James Spurgeon and his dear wife faithfully served Christ in Essex for 58 years. Their lives made a tremendous impact on their young grandson Charles Haddon Spurgeon as he lived with them in the village of Stambourne during several years of his childhood.
Rev. John Spurgeon and his wife Eliza were the parents of Charles and his sixteen siblings. As a Congregational minister serving in various chapels, John found difficulty in providing for his growing family. For this reason, Charles' grandparents were glad to have him stay in their home during some of his formative years.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon pastored in London for 38 years, regularly preaching to thousands and on one occasion to over 23,000 people. His published sermons and books have won countless souls to Christ. He also established homes for orphans, the poor, and the aged, as well as founded a college for training new generations of ministers and missionaries. The life and ministry of C. H. Spurgeon has touched every corner of the globe.
The Lord blessed Charles and his wife Susannah with twin sons, Charles and Thomas. They trained these boys to be godly young men. Eventually, both sons became pastors. Thomas succeeded his father as pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, while his brother Charles built and pastored the great Gospel Tabernacle in Auckland, New Zealand. That meeting house comfortably seated a congregation of 2000.
The final book that Spurgeon authored was Memories of Stambourne. This little book of 144 pages delightfully displays Spurgeon’s sense of humor in describing the village of Stambourne and his cherished childhood experiences. One of those accounts is astoundingly prophetic. As a small boy in his grandparents’ huge manse, Charles loved to explore. One little room upstairs proved to be a special delight: it was the minister’s study and prayer closet. The window- panes had all been painted to darken the room. That was because of the “wretched window-duty,” a tax that the government levied upon the British citizens for the use of God’s sunshine. If you darkened some of the windows, you paid less since the tax was calculated by the number of glass panes that let light into your home!
Spurgeon described it this way: “In my time it was a dark den; but it contained books, and this made it a gold-mine to me. Therein was fulfilled the promise, ‘I will give thee the treasures of darkness.’ Some of these were enormous folios, such as a boy could hardly lift. Here I struck up acquaintance with the martyrs, and specially with ‘Old Bonner,’ who burned them; next, with Bunyan and his ‘Pilgrim,’ and further on with the great masters of Scriptural theology, with whom no moderns are worthy to be named in the same day. Even the old editions of their works, with their margins and old-fashioned notes, are precious to me. It is easy to tell a real Puritan book… I confess… a preference for the originals, even though they wander about in sheepskins and goatskins… It made my eyes water a short time ago to see a number of these old books in the new manse: I wonder whether some other boy will love them and live to revive that grand old divinity which will yet be to England her balm and benison.
“Out of that darkened room I fetched those authors… Out of the present contempt into which Puritanism has fallen, many brave hearts and true will fetch it, by the help of God, 'ere many years have passed. Those who have daubed up the windows will yet be surprised to see heaven’s light beaming on the old truth.”
Oh, that the Lord will use His church to declare that old truth in these days!
Memories of Stambourne is available online: Kindle $1.00 and paperback $4.00-$10.00.
Myron Mooney | Minister of Trinity FPC, Trinity, AL