I have been reading the second volume of C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography. When I ran across this section in which Spurgeon reflects on the various converts under his ministry, I thought of the task that many of us are set upon this week of completing our CRBC membership applications/petitions including some testimony of our conversion. Here are Spurgeon’s observations:
Some who come to see me, with the view of joining the church, cannot say much, and they think that I shall be very dissatisfied with them because they make a great muddle of their narrative, but the people with whom I am least satisfied are those who reel off their yarn by the yard; they have it all ready to repeat, and everything is arranged as prettily as possible. As I listen to it, I know that someone has told them what to say, and they have learned it all for me to hear. I like far better the testimony that I have to pick out in little bits, but which I know comes fresh from the heart of the trembling convert. Sometimes, it costs the poor soul a tear or a real good cry, and I have to go round about in all manner of ways to get hold of the story at all; but that shows that it is true, and that the man never borrowed it.
From C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, Volume 2: The Full Harvest (Banner ed., 1973): p. 234.
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