Spurgeon on the comfort of Psalm 91:9-10

Here's another Spurgeon anecdote, which I made use of in Sunday's sermon on David's Despair (1 Samuel 26-27):

In the Treasury of David, C. H. Spurgeon tells of an incident that happened in 1854 when he had only been serving his church in London for about twelve months. There was a cholera epidemic and multiple people in the church died. He writes:

Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave. I gave myself up with youthful ardour to the visitation of the sick, and was sent for from all corners of the district by persons of all ranks and religions. I became weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me. A little more work and weeping would have laid me low among the rest; I felt that my burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it.

Then, one day as he was walking home, on Dover Street, he saw a placard that a shoemaker had put in his window, written in bold handwriting. It wasn’t a trade announcement but the words of Psalm 91:9-10:

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

Spurgeon then writes:

The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm.

JTR