Charles Spurgeon

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a teenager when he started preaching and only nineteen when a London congregation called him as their pastor. Within a few years the crowds were so large that they built the Metropolitan Tabernacle, seating around five thousand people, and it was full week after week for the rest of his life.

His sermons were printed every week and sold by the million around the world. He also ran an orphanage, a college for training pastors, and wrote dozens of books. He suffered for much of his life with gout and with deep bouts of depression, and he wrote honestly about both.

People still read Spurgeon because he is warm, direct and easy to follow. He wrote for ordinary working people, not for scholars.