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OST men born to be great preachers have, at the age of twenty-one, not yet attempted their first sermon. Four years before that age Mr. Spurgeon. "the boy preacher," was speaking every Sunday to a crowd which overflowed the chapel doors and mobbed the very windows. Before 1855—the date of our first portrait—he had been called to London, and was drawing such a throng to the chapel in New Park-street, that the building had speedily to be enlarged. That year was also memorable for another reason; in January Mr. Spurgeon issued the first sermon of the unexampled series which was to run without an interruption, week by week, for five-and-thirty years. Long before the date of our second portrait, the New Park-street chapel, in spite of its enlargement, had become too small to hold the congregation. The Metropolitan Tabernacle was erected, and from that time down to this has been crowded every Sunday to the doors.

For leave to reproduce the portraits above given, our thanks are due alike to Mr. Spurgeon, and to Messrs. Passmore & Alabaster, to whom the copyright belongs.