In Spurgeon’s Forgotten College Addresses, there are clues to the kind of education that produced the prince of preachers. (All page numbers refer to this work.) He pulls out these sources as if they just came to him at the moment. On page 97, he exhorts young men, “Yours is a more classical type of mind; very well, then, study the classics diligently.”
In “The Faculty of Impromptu Speech” recorded in Lectures to My Students, Spurgeon writes,
I know of no better exercise than to translate with as much rapidity as possible a portion of Virgil [author of the epic poem, The Aeneid] or Tacitus [author of ancient history], and then with deliberation to amend one’s mistakes. Persons who know no better, think all the time thrown away which is spent upon the classics, but if it were only for the usefulness of such studies to the sacred orator, they ought to be retained in all our collegiate institutions.
Languages
Spurgeon referenced Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755, 101
Greek, 157
I hope you will all learn as much Greek tongue as you possibly can.
Latin, 157
I trust that you will go on learning both languages, and especially the Latin, for Latin lies at the very root of our own language, and we cannot thoroughly understand English unless we know at least a good deal of Latin.
Poets
Milton, Shakespeare, Cowper, Watts, Lord Tennyson, and Pope, 100-101
Spurgeon references 6 different English poets stretching back hundreds of years, and quotes lines from two of them.
They seem to say by their action, like Tennyson’s ‘Brook’,
Men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
There is nothing in what they say; but they can talk on, and on, and on, and on.
On the next page, Alexander Pope, 101
Words are like leaves, and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 197.
Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’ cast a strange spell over the wedding-guest, and held him while he told his wondrous tale. And there must have been a far stranger spell about the Lord Jesus Christ when he came back from the dead.
He compares the Mariner to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he knows the tale well enough to use specific details. Also, the poem is “wondrous.” Spurgeon quotes from this poem also on page 105.
Painting and Sculpture
An unknown painter named Weiss who painted the resurrection, 105
I once saw a picture, painted by that quaint artist Weiss, in which he had represented the resurrection, and people gradually getting alive.
History
He has many, many references to church history.
The Greek historian Herodotus, 114
Even Xerxes, who was one of those men of war whose bowels seem to be made of stone, and who drove myriads into the battle-field without regret, yet even he, when he saw his armies pass before him, wept when he thought that, out of all those thousands, so few would be alive in a short time.
Mythology
Hercules and Cerberus, 120
There is an old story about Hercules trying to drag Cerberus, the three-headed dog, out of the pit. He seized him by his huge dog collar, and for a time the cur came out with him; but when they reached the gates, the dog pulled so hard, and the ground was so slippery, that Hercules had to let go, or the dog would very soon have dragged him down with him. Men of the world are very like that dog.
“A winged Pegasus”, 101
Ancient Epics
Homer’s Odyssey, 123
Others are like Penelope with her web, undoing in the dark night of forgetfulness and sin what they had woven in the light of day.
Architecture
The Pantheon, a famous temple in ancient Rome, 182
We have all heard about the Pantheon which was erected in the form of a circle in order that all the gods of the heathen might stand looking towards one another, each one having an equal place of honour.
Fiction
Though Spurgeon says critical things about novels, he also spoke positively about fiction. Presumably, he was critical of wasting time, worldliness, and lust in novels which, as now, was probably so prevalent that he could denounce the entire industry regardless of the small minority of profitable fiction. 135
I would be willing to be a fool at everything else if I knew everything about the gospel; at the same time, I would try to know a little about everything that was worth knowing, so that I should not be a fool at anything. Still, the main for you and me, brethren, is to know all about Christ and his salvation. There are many ministers who are very great tale-writers. Well, a man may very properly write much, as it will assist him to speak correctly and easily; but when his whole mind goes into the tales he is writing, I am persuaded that his preaching cannot be up to the mark.
Conclusion
Since Spurgeon did not have formal education, he must have read these works on his own as part of his self-improvement. And his preaching shows the perfect balance. Though there are a few references to classical writings, his work is obviously, overwhelmingly Scriptural. The pagans offer a few little helps, and he takes them when he can. But the Bible is always the center, always the foundation, always the cement, always the staple food.
