We think it fitting to commence our array of Testimonies with that of one of the most eminent evangelists of the day, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, of London. This preacher has excited great curiosity among those who have never seen him, and over one hundred thousand volumes of his sermons have been sold in America. For the benefit of some who have never read any of his vigorous and startling discourses, we give the following paragraphs, regarding his conversion. They were uttered at different times, but refer to the same hour in which Christ awoke in him the hope of glory.

      "Six years ago to-day, as near as possible at this very hour of the day, I was 'in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity' [Acts 8:23], but had yet, by divine grace, been led to feel the bitterness of that bondage, and to cry out by reason of the soreness of its slavery. Seeking rest, and finding none, I stept within the house of God, and sat there, afraid to look upward, lest I should be utterly cut off, and lest His fierce wrath should consume me. The minister rose in his pulpit, and, as I have done this morning, read his text: 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and [18] there is none else' (Isaiah 45:22). I looked that moment; the grace of faith was vouchsafed to me in the self-same instant; and now I think I can say with truth,

'E'er since by faith I saw the stream       His flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme,       And shall be till I die.'

I shall never forget that day, while memory holds its place; nor can I help repeating this text whenever I remember that hour when first I knew the Lord. How strangely gracious! How wonderfully and marvelously kind, that he who heard these words so little time ago for his own soul's profit, should now address you this morning as his hearers from the same text, in the full and confident hope that some poor sinner within these walls may hear the glad tidings of salvation for himself also, and may to-day, on this 6th of January, 1856, be 'turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God' [Acts 26:18]."

      "I shall never forget the hour when I hope God's mercy first looked on me. It was in a place very different from this, among a despised people, in an insignificant little chapel, of a peculiar sect. I went there bowed down with guilt, laden with transgression. The minister walked up the pulpit stairs, opened his Bible, and read that precious text:-- [19] 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and beside me there is none else' [Isaiah 45:22]; and as I thought, fixing his eyes on me, before he began to preach to others, he said:--'Young man! look! look! look! You are one of the ends of the earth; you feel you are; you know your need of a Saviour; you are trembling because you think he will never save you. He says this morning, Look!' O how my soul was shaken within me then! What! thought I, does that man know me, and all about me? It seemed as if he did. And it made me 'look!' Well, I thought, lost or saved, I will try; sink or swim, I will run the risk of it; and in that moment I hope by His grace I looked upon Jesus, and though desponding, downcast, and ready to despair, and feeling that I could rather die than live as I had lived, at that very moment it seemed as if a young heaven had had its birth within my conscience. I went home, no more cast down; those about me, noticing the change, asked me why I was so glad, and I told them I had believed in Jesus, and that it was written: 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit' (Romans 8:1)."

      "Without faith it is impossible to please God."--Hebrews 11:6. [20]

[THW 18-20]