People, Triumph of the Gospel among the – Charles Spurgeon

IN the old days of persecution and of burning, who were the men that played the man most nobly at the stake? Here and there a bishop and a noble did so, but the rank and file of the heroes were from the poor or the middle class. There was one great man, with an unworthy right hand that recanted, and yet did well at the last; but the poor weavers of Colchester, and the cobblers of Bow, never recanted at all, but gloried in being made a burnt-offering for the truth. Wherever the gospel has been mainly upheld by the great ones of the earth it has had little success. Take, for instance, Spain and Italy, the converts of the Reformation there nearly all belonged to the higher ranks, and before long its doctrines became extinct, but it lived among German peasants and British artisans. The valiant of Israel still come from the loom, the smithy, the plough, and the bench. Wherever the gospel entrenches itself among the common people, the devil himself cannot destroy it; it is then like a lion in its own forest, and none can drive it forth.