Welcome back to Heavenly Springs! Today we will conclude our series on Susannah Thompson Spurgeon. In Part 1, we covered her early years, courtship, and marriage. In Part 2 we discussed some of her sacrifices and sufferings. Today we will cover her life of service. Please don’t forget to enter to win a free book. The drawing will close at 9pm EST on Friday night – details are at the end of the post!

From the start, Susannah proved an invaluable asset to her husband. While still engaged, Charles asked a young Miss. Thompson to help him compose “a little book of extracts” from the writings of one of his favorite Puritan authors, Thomas Brooks. He asked her to mark up “all the paragraphs and sentences that seemed particularly sweet, quaint or instructive.”^[1] So she did. And the result was a small book called “Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks” which may very well be in your library! While her name is nowhere to be found, Charles Spurgeon’s very first literary work bears the stamp of Miss. Susie Thompson!

In their first year of marriage, Charles founded the Pastor’s College, a school for young preachers who couldn’t afford an education. Susie was every bit invested in the work as he was. She writes, “I rejoice to remember how I shared my beloved’s joy when he founded the Institution, and that together we planned and pinched in order to carry out the purpose of his loving heart; it gave me quite a motherly interest in the College, and ‘our own men.’”^[2] The college trained nearly 900 students during his lifetime.^[3] Reflecting on those early days, Susie writes, “… we never had enough left over to ‘tie a bow and ends’; but I can see now that this was God’s way of preparing us to sympathize with and help poor pastors in the years which were to come.”^[4]

You may not know this, but Charles usually didn’t pick his theme for the Sunday sermon until Saturday night.^[5] Whenever he would struggle to find a text for Sunday he would say, “Wifey! What shall I do? God has not given me a text yet?”^[6] Often she would make a suggestion and if he used it, would give her credit after the sermon. “You gave me that text!” he would say. She also helped him by reading books out loud. Late Saturday night she would often join him in his office where “there was always an easy chair … drawn up to the table by Mr. Spurgeon’s side, and a number of open books piled one upon another from which she used to read as directed by her husband.”^[7]

On one Saturday evening Charles was struggling with a particular text. He consulted commentary after commentary but to no avail. His wife, observing his frustration, suggested he go to bed and revisit in the morning. He complied but asked that she wake him early in order to prepare. Susie tells what transpired that night.

“By-and-by a wonderful thing happened. During the first dawning hours of the Sabbath, I heard him talking in his sleep, and roused myself to listen attentively. Soon I realised that he was going over the subject of the verse which had been so obscure to him, and was giving a clear and distinct exposition of its meaning with much force and freshness. I set myself with almost trembling joy to understand and follow all that he was saying, for I knew that if I could but seize and remember the salient points of the discourse he would have no difficulty in developing and enlarging upon them. Never preacher had a more eager and anxious hearer! What if I should let the precious words slip? I had no means at hand of ‘taking notes,’ so, like Nehemiah, ‘I prayed to the God of Heaven,’ and asked that I might receive and retain the thoughts which He had given to His servant in his sleep, and which were so singularly entrusted to my keeping. As I lay repeating over and over again the chief points I wished to remember, my happiness was very great in anticipation of his surprise and delight on awaking; but I had kept vigil so long, cherishing my joy, that I must have been overcome with slumber just when the usual time for rising came, for he awoke with a frightened start, and seeing the tell-tale clock, said, ‘Oh, wifey, you said you would wake me very early, and now see the time! Oh, why did you let me sleep? What shall I do? What shall I do?’ ‘Listen, beloved,’ I answered; and I told him all I had heard. ‘Why! that’s just what I wanted,’ he exclaimed; ‘that is the true explanation of the whole verse! And you say I preached it in my sleep?’ ‘It is wonderful,’ he repeated again and again, and we both praised the Lord for so remarkable a manifestation of His power and love.”^[8]

Susie was also the founder of The Pastors Book Fund, one of her most important and visible ministries. The humble origins of the ministry show how God blesses small sacrifices offered in faith. In 1875, after having completed the first volume of “Lectures to My Students,” Charles asked his wife to read it and offer her thoughts. “I wish I could place it in the hands of every minister in England,” was the reply, and the preacher at once rejoined, “Then why not do so: how much will you give?”^[9] Susie took up the challenge and sold a valuable (but unnecessary) item she had stashed away. From the sale she generated exactly enough to buy one hundred copies of the work. She writes, “If a twinge of regret at parting from my cherished but unwieldy favourites passed over me, it was gone in an instant, and then they were given freely and thankfully to the Lord, and in that moment, though I knew it not, the Book Fund was inaugurated.”^[10] Her biographer writes, “Mrs. Spurgeon’s name deserves to live for ever in the annals of the Christian Church in connection with her fund for supplying theological books to clergymen and ministers too poor to buy them.”^[11] And if anyone understood the importance of books it was she! Her husband’s personal library contained 12,000 volumes! ^[12] She writes, “Books are as truly a minister’s needful tools as the plane and the hammer and the saw are the necessary adjuncts of a carpenter’s bench. We pity a poor mechanic, whom accident has deprived of his working gear, we straightway get up a subscription to restore it, and certainly never expect a stroke of work from him while it is lacking; why, I wonder, do we not bring the same commonsense help to our poor ministers, and furnish them liberally with the means of procuring the essentially important books?^[13]

Regarding his wife’s ministry, Charles wrote, “This good work of providing mental food for ministers ought never to cease till their incomes are doubled. May ‘Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund’ become a permanent source of blessing to ministers and churches!”^[14]

On January 31st, 1892, at age 57, Charles went home to Glory. After her beloved’s death, she devoted herself almost entirely to literary work, the most significant being, “C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography.” This monumental four-volume work was made possible only through the tireless efforts of a devoted wife who spent large quantities of time sifting through old correspondence, sermons and books. She also authored the chapters concerning home and marriage in which she expresses, in many places, her deep longing for her beloved. “Ah! my husband,” she says in one passage, “the blessed earthly ties which we welcomed so rapturously are dissolved now, and death has hidden thee from my mortal eyes; but not even death can divide thee from me or sever the love which united our hearts so closely. I feel it living and growing still, and I believe it will find its full and spiritual development only when we shall meet in the glory-land and worship together before the throne!”^[15]

Susannah went on to author several works of her own: “Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund,” and “Ten Years After.” She also authored three devotionals: “A Carillon of Bells to Ring out the Old Truths of ‘Free Grace and Dying Love’ ”; “A Cluster of Camphire; or, Words of Cheer and Comfort for Sick and Sorrowful Souls”; and “A Basket of Summer Fruit.”

In the summer of 1903, Susie was struck with a severe case of pneumonia she never recovered from. Even on her sick bed, her faith shined. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” she said feebly, and quoted the lines:

“His love in times past forbids me to think
He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink.”^[16]

On October 22nd, 1903, Mrs. Spurgeon joined her husband. Her biographer tells what happened during those last moments. “When very near the end she clasped her feeble hands together, and, her face aglow with a heavenly radiance, exclaimed: “Blessed Jesus! Blessed Jesus! I can see the King in His Glory!”^[17]

Mrs. Spurgeon is gone but her work, having been built on the foundation that is Christ, remains.   It is a testament to the power of God that a woman so weak and frail could accomplish so much. Her biographer writes, “If greatness depends upon the amount of good which one does in the world, if it is only another name for unselfish devotion in the service of others—and surely true greatness is all this—then Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon will go down to posterity as one of the greatest women of her time.”^[18]

As we bring our series to a close, I’d like to share one final thought. There is a temptation, when we study the great men and women of the faith, to measure ourselves according to their accomplishments. This is a mistake. We are not called to live Susie’s life – or anyone else’s. Susannah Thompson Spurgeon was born for her time and her place; we are born to ours. Instead, may her life challenge and inspire us to trust God and be faithful in our varied spheres for which the allotments of Divine Providence has fixed for us.

This concludes Part 3 of our 3-Part Series. As a reminder, I will be giving away two copies of Susannah Spurgeon: Free Grace and Dying Love (Morning Devotions with the Life of Susannah Spurgeon). If you are interested in participating, please leave a comment. You may increase your chances by sharing on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Just let me know what you have done, and I will add your name once for each share. The Giveaway will close on Friday, September 5th at 9pm EST. Winners will be notified via email.

Click here to read Part 1 of Susannah Spurgeon: A Life of Sacrifice, Suffering, and Service
Click here to read Part 2 of Susannah Spurgeon: A Life of Sacrifice Suffering and Service

^[1] Charles Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 113.
^[2] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 35.
^[3] Christian History Magazine-Issue 29: Charles Spurgeon: England’s “Prince of Preachers” (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1991).
^[4] Charles Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 35.
^[5] Christian History Magazine-Issue 29: Charles Spurgeon: England’s “Prince of Preachers” (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1991).
^[6] Charles Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 102.
^[7] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 102.
^[8] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 37–39.
^[9]Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 67.
^[10] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 68.
^[11] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 66.
^[12] Christian History Magazine-Issue 29: Charles Spurgeon: England’s “Prince of Preachers” (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1991).
^[13] Charles Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 73.
^[14] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 118.
^[15] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 112.
^[16] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 116.
^[17] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 117.
^[18] Ray, Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 119.