The "May The Lord Be With You!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Had just finished a few framing jobs and took them upstairs to the gallery to be placed in a safe area until the customers come for them.  Amy, the young girl who was working today in the gallery told me she had something to show me that had just come in for matting and framing.  

Drawing of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

She pulled out a tinted etching of an older man and a piece of paper that had been hand-written with lines through much of the copy and notes placed over and under much of the copy.  Amy was extremely excited while showing me the corrected piece of paper.  Her eyes lit up when she told me she had taken a class at Lebanon Valley College that dealt with the English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  Her excitement was due to the fact that the hand written paper she was holding belonged to Spurgeon and was a hand corrected sermon that he had preached at one time.  

The certificate telling of the hand-corrected sermon notes.

She showed me the layout and and the mats and frame that the customer wanted to use and told me she had to place the paper it in a safe place until Keith, the owner of the gallery, returned from vacation in another day.  That evening I "Googled" Charles Haddon Spurgeon and never realized that he was the quintessential Victorian Englishman, yet his masterful preaching astonished his era, and lives long beyond it.  

The hand-corrected sermon notes.
Click to enlarge which may help you see it.

Page after page of stories told of Spurgeon's many sermons that he preached during his ministry.  Actually his sermons were collected in The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit and filled 63 volumes in these two collections.  The sermons' 20-25 million words are equivalent to the 27 volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  The series of sermons stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.  Charles Spurgeon was born in 1834, one of 17 children born to his mother, nine of whom died in infancy.  When Charles was only 10 years old, a visiting missionary, Richard Knill, said that the younger Spurgeon would one day preach the gospel to thousands and would preach in Rowland Hill's chapel, the largest Dissenting church in London, England.  

This is the certificate of validation and
authenticity from Spurgeon's College.

His words were fulfilled!  Spurgeon missed going to college due to being shown into the wrong interview room.  He later claimed that was because God spoke to him, "Seekest thou great things for thyself?  Seek them not!"  Before he was 20 he had preached over 600 times.  The more I read the more I realized that the items the customer had brought to the gallery were something very special.  Perhaps you may have heard of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, but if you haven't, you will be amazed as to how he spread the word of God during his lifetime.  His contributions were larger than his preaching, since he established alms houses and an orphanage as well as his Pastor's College which still is in operation today.  He preached his last sermon in June of 1891 and died six months later.  

The final work.  Very plain and unassuming, but when
you realize what it is, it is unbelievable!

While I worked on the collection of pieces today I was extremely careful of what I was handling.  The hand written manuscript, in cursive, is rather hard to read and understand and being that much has been crossed out with Charles' own handwriting above the crossed out wording makes for some confusion.  The customer who owns the manuscript wanted a very simple single brown mat with a plain frame.  They did request Conservation glass to help preserve the piece of history they had.  I took photographs with my iPhone throughout my work so I could share the work with everyone.  Just to touch the manuscript was special to me.  I learned so much by matting and framing this special piece, even though the final result wasn't as  impressive as many other pieces I have done in the last 19 years while working at Grebinger Gallery in Neffsville, PA.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.