Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Baptist preacher at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle and one of the most widely read Christians of the 19th century.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a Baptist preacher who served the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London from 1854 until his death in 1892, drawing congregations of six thousand and publishing sermons that sold in the millions. He was known as the "Prince of Preachers" in his own lifetime and remains one of the most widely read Christian authors after Augustine and C.S. Lewis. Spurgeon's prayers, recorded in his published sermons and devotional writings, are noted for their directness, their scriptural density, and their emotional honesty. He suffered severe depression throughout his ministry and wrote about it with unusual frankness for a Victorian preacher, which gives his prayers for trust and strength an authority rooted in actual suffering. His Sword and Trowel magazine and his Pastor's College trained a generation of Baptist ministers across the English-speaking world.