MR. SPURGEON'S "SERMON SHOP."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11200, 21 October 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

MR. SPURGEON'S "SERMON SHOP."

Under the title "Spurgeon's Sermons," in the September number of the Puritan, Mr. Arthur Mee furnishes some remarkable statistics of the sale of these immensely popular discourses:— Sermons may be dull things, but Mr, Spurgeon's sermon-shop has been one of the busiest corners of the city for many a year gone by. From this shop, Spurgeon's sermons have been sent to the remotest parts of the earth. Over 2600 have been printed during the last 2600 weeks, and still the machines run on. They are the only sermons which are never out of print. In the stock-rooms upstairs are 2,000,000 copies, and the boxes are being constantly replenished. The demand is unceasing. ... I have been endeavouring to obtain an idea how many sermons have been printed, but it is an overwhelming task. Nobody knows. How many roses bloom in a summer? But it is possible to make an approximate estimate, and one or two figures on the subject will probably startle many readers, Something like 100,000,000 have been sold at a penny, and quite double that number have been circulated in newspapers and other ways. It may seem incredible, but I believe it is quite true, that the number of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons sold since 1855 exceeds the number of Bibles circulated since the beginning of the century. When it is borne in mind that the British and Foreign Bible Society print five tons of Bibles every day, it will be understood what this means. Assuming that Mr. Spurgeon preached '10,000 sermons to an -average audience of " 3000, he would have preached to 30,000,000 people; as a matter .of fact, - the; 2600 % printed s; sermons were preached to about 20,000,000. But, assuming that each printed sermon has been read :by two' persons— below the mark— has reached in this way 600,000,000 people.