him that my catarrhal deafness was worse than ever, he replied:  “Well, brother, console yourself with the thought that in these days there is very little worth hearing.”  He took my brother Hall, and myself out into his garden and conservatory and down to a rustic arbor, where we sat down and told stories.  There were twelve acres of land attached to “Westwood,” and he had us into the meadow, where we laid down in the freshly mowed hay and inhaled its fragrance.  Mrs. Spurgeon, a most gifted and charming lady, had a dozen cows and the profits of her dairy then supported a missionary in London; and the milk was sent around the neighborhood in a wagon labeled, “Charles H. Spurgeon, Milk Dealer.”  After our return, the great preacher showed us a portfolio of caricatures of himself from Punch and other publications.  At six o’clock we took supper and then came family worship—­all the servants being present Mr. Spurgeon followed my prayer with the most wonderful prayer that perhaps I have ever heard from human lips, and I said afterwards to my friend Hall, “To-night we got into ’the hidings of his power,’ for a man who can pray like that can outpreach the world.”  In the soft hour of the gloaming we took our leave, and he went off to prepare his sermon for the morrow.

Spurgeon’s power lay in a combination of half a dozen great qualities.  He was the master of a vigorous Saxon English style, the style of Cobbett and Bunyan and the old English Bible.  He possessed a most marvelous memory—­it held the whole Bible in solution; it retained all the valuable truth he had acquired during his immensely wide readings and it enabled him to recognize any person whom he ever met before.  Once, however, he met for the second time a Mr. Partridge and called him “Partridge.”  Quick as a flash he said:  “Pardon me, sir, I did not intend to make game of you,” He was a man of one Book, and had the most implicit faith in every jot and tittle of God’s Word.  He preached it without defalcation or discount, and this prodigious faith made his preaching immensely tonic.  His sympathies with all mankind were unbounded, and the juices of his nature were enough to float an ark full of living creatures.  Joined to these gifts was a marvelous voice of great sweetness, and a homely mother-wit that bubbled out in all his talk and often in his sermons.  Mightiest of all was his power of prayer, and his inner life was hid with Christ in God.  As an organizer he had great executive abilities.  His Orphanage, dozen missionary schools and theological training school will be among his enduring monuments.  The last sermon I ever heard him deliver was in Dr. Newman Hall’s church on a week evening.  He came hobbling into the study, his face the picture of suffering.  He said to me, “Brother Cuyler, if I break down, won’t you take up the service and go on with it?” I told him that he would forget his pains the moment he got under way, and so it was, for he delivered a most nutritious discourse to us.  When the service was over, he limped off to his carriage, wrapped himself in the huge cushions, and drove away seven miles to his home at Upper Norwood.  That was the last time I ever saw my beloved friend.