Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/229

Rh Livy was handed to a comfortable seat with a haggard Magdalen on one side, and a palsy-stricken old man on the other. Staring about her, she saw an immense building with two galleries extending round three sides, and a double sort of platform behind and below the pulpit, which was a little pen lifted high that all might see and hear.

Every seat, aisle, window-ledge, step, and door-way was packed with a strange congregation; all nations, all colors, all ages, and nearly all bearing the sad marks of poverty or sin. They all sung, cried out if any thing affected or pleased them in the sermon, and listened with intensest interest to the plain yet fervent words of the man who has gathered together this flock of black sheep and is so faithful a shepherd to them.

Every one knows how Spurgeon looks in pictures, but in the pulpit he reminded Livy of Martin Luther. A square, florid face, stout figure, a fine keen eye, and a natural, decided manner, very impressive. A strong, clear voice of much dramatic power, and a way of walking the pulpit like Father Taylor.

His sermon was on "Small Temptations," and he illustrated it by facts and examples taken from real