A Daily Dose of Spurgeon

Written in the 1850's concerning the state of the church in England, yet it eerily fits the state of the church in America today!

Any man, who has his eyes open to the world at large, will acknowledge that there are many clouds brooding over England, and over the world. I received lately a letter from a gentleman at Hull, in which he tells me that he sympathizes with my views concerning the condition of the Church at large. I do not know whether Christendom was ever worse off than it is now. At any rate, I pray God it never may be. Read the account of the condition of the Suffolk churches, where the gospel is somewhat flourishing, and you will be surprised to learn that they have had hardly any increase at all in the year. So you may go from church to church, and find scarcely any that are growing. Here and there, a chapel is filled with people; here and there, you see an earnest minister; here and there, an increasing church; here and there, a good prayer- meeting; but these are only like green spots in a great desert. Wherever I have gone through England, I have always been grieved to see how the Church of Christ is under a cloud,-- how "the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter." It is not for me to set myself up as universal censor of the Church; but I must be honest, and say that spiritual life, and fire, and zeal, and piety seem to be absent in ten thousand instances. We have abundance of agencies, we have good mechanism, but the Church, nowadays, is very much like a large steam engine without any fire, and, therefore, without any steam. There is everything but steam, everything but life. England is veiled in clouds;-- not clouds of infidelity; I care not one fig for all the infidels in England, and I do not think it is worth Mr. Grant's trouble to go after them. Nor am I afraid of Popery for old England; I do not think she will go back to that, nay, I am sure she never will; but I am afraid of this deadness, this sloth, this indifference, that has come over our churches. The Church wants shaking, like the man on the mountain- top does when the cold benumbs him into a deadly slumber. The churches are gone to sleep for want of zeal, for want of fire. Even those that hold sound doctrine are beginning to slumber. Oh, may God stir the Church up! (from Spurgeon's Autobiography)