Generous Feeling Towards Brethren – Charles H Spurgeon

‘One incident gives high proof of the native generosity of Turner’s nature. He was one of the hanging committee, as the phrase goes, of the Royal Academy. The walls were full when Turner’s attention was attracted by a picture sent in by an unknown provincial artist by the name of Bird. ‘A good picture,’ he exclaimed. ‘It must be hung up and exhibited.’

‘Impossible!’ responded the committee of academicians. ‘The arrangement cannot be disturbed. Quite impossible!’

‘A good picture,’ iterated Turner, ‘it must be hung up;’ and, finding his colleagues to be as obstinate as himself, he hitched down one of his own pictures, and hung up Bird’s in its place.’

Would to God that in far more instances the like spirit ruled among servants of the Lord Jesus. The desire to honour others and to give others a fair opportunity to rise should lead ministers of distinction to give place to less eminent men to whom it may be of essential service to become better known. We are not to look every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.