The letter quoted at the close of the preceding chapter partially tells of the cause of Mr. Spoor's break-down. He had been engaged in a series of services, labouring with all his might, till outraged nature could endure no more. A blood-vessel in the lungs was ruptured. The internal hemorrhage was so great and the expectoration of blood so profuse, that serious apprehension filled the minds of his friends lest his life should be sacrificed. A diagnosis is not attempted here. It was concluded, however, that he could not survive very long, and a premature grave was looked for as certain. Having these impressions himself, he resigned his place in the ministry. This was to him a grief of the extremest kind; but the dicta of his medical man left him no option in the matter. They little knew the elasticity and recuperative resources of his constitution, for in a few months he rallied amazingly and though it is too much to say that he became absolutely as strong as he was before his break-down, yet, frequently enough to the close of his life, he would subject his frame to such a strain as few men could have endured.
Fortunately we have a letter from Mr. Spoor, put into our hands by the Rev. Thomas Southron, being one of the very few letters which remain from his pen, in which he describes the many hardships and labours connected with pioneer and mission work in Primitive Methodism thirty or forty years ago. This is the extract:
"Durham, March 28, 1867.
"Dear Bro. Southron, — * * * The predisposing cause of my affliction, in my judgment, was the way in which young preachers had to do in Ripon circuit at that time. We had no regular home, having to seek our food — or go without, — we were allowed no meat bill. I have been for a long time with only half food, or not that, — travelling long journeys, and preaching every night, mostly in the open air, when forming the Thirsk and Knaresborough circuits. After three years of this kind of suffering and labour, I was sent to the Middleham Mission. On my arrival I was in poor health, lacking my old vigour, and ill-prepared for my arduous toils. One night after preaching held at Carlton, in Coverdale, I began to expectorate blood. As I have stated elsewhere, the medical man ordered me not to preach again, placing me under interdict. I got down for want of food, and through excessive labour."
This letter gives us a glimpse of the toil, distress, and want, endured by numbers of our early preachers. Had not the writer himself shared some of these hard experiences, he would wonder how the men bore with all they had to suffer. It is well that better days have dawned, — for scores of good men, as we most sincerely believe, under the old regime, went prematurely into their graves.
On his return to health several business schemes were tried,
but none of them succeeded, partly because his heart
was not in them. The honour and money for which multitudes live
and strive were to him
The Primitive Methodist Society at Darlington made him an offer, with which he at once closed, to engage him as a Town Missionary. The record of his twelve months' labour in this capacity is truly a wonderful document, — we, see in it how much one good man can accomplish and endure in a good cause. We have also brought to view terrible scenes of human degradation, together with some glorious instances of drunkards throwing off the thrall of the demon drink, — of wretched women giving up the wages of iniquity, leaving their haunts and dens, and coming to Him who saved "the woman who was a sinner," — and of improved homes and reformed characters.
Darlington at this time was the hot-bed and headquarters of a combination of blatant atheists — called Owenites or Socialists — which to the masses of its victims meant utter lawlessness, and abandonment to any and every hurtful and base propensity. When Mr. Spoor went to visit persons of this class in his mission rounds, they frequently, and in the rudest manner, ordered him out of their house, and, on several occasions, violently ejected him. But his good humour with them was imperturbable. He was never offended, and he never failed to return again when thus repulsed. One of them, whom he had persistently visited four or five times in his sickness, said to him, "You are the most impudent man I ever knew." Yet he persisted with this very man till he was brought a penitent to the feet of Jesus. For a sample of his work in Darlington, we refer the reader to the extract from his speech at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, appended to this volume.
The following excerpts and facts will show the kind of work in which he was engaged. In one month he visited six hundred and sixty families, distributed six hundred and eighty tracts, children were got to the Sabbath-school, numbers of persons were induced to attend the house of God and become total abstainers from all intoxicants. Here is one excerpt: "I was roughly received by one man to-day. He was a socialist and infidel — for they mean one thing — he would not take my tracts, would not reason with me. All he had to do, he said, was to get plenty to eat and drink, denied that he was responsible, and therefore could not do wrong any more than a dog. I could not get him to converse with me. Among the devils which possessed him there must been a dumb devil. As I talked the woman wept; but when I would pray, he ran out of the house. I tried to stop him, but he escaped me. He is a poor miserable drunkard. He had a good situation on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, but his dissipation caused his dismissal, and now he and his family are plunged in misery of the most abject kind. Found another family in the same yard, the man and his wife and seven children, as ignorant as heathens. They have no Bible, children go to no school, and none of them ever go to a place of worship. While I spake and prayed, they wept. Got the promise of the children for school, and the adults for chapel, and left them a Bible."
On another day he writes: "I have met with some awful cases of profligacy. In one family I found several young women living on prostitution. I told them of the enormity and certain consequences of their crime. They shouted and raved, saying, they would fell me unless I left them. I stood still and said I was not afraid, for they could not hurt a hair of my head. They still raved, but I stood unflinchingly, and entreated them to give up their ways. My reasoning and God's Spirit over-mastered them, and they had not a word to say. I prayed and left them, telling them I should call again."
Another scene of violence is thus described: "I have had much conflict inside and outside to-day. But on the whole I have had a blessed day. One person abused me tearfully, and would not allow me to pray, but I mean to to pray. She then got a knife and rushed at me, but I stood perfectly still and unmoved. I told her of her sin, and of Jesus the sinner's Saviour. While I spoke, God came down and laid the rebel low. I prayed with power, and left her in deep concern."
In another place he says: "I had a severe struggle with two backsliders from the Wesleyans. They were long in yielding. While I was praying the woman sprang into liberty. They are both coming to my class.
A further success is thus spoken of: "I have spent a happy day. The Lord got hold of one woman while I was speaking, who had often violently abused me and ordered me rudely out of her house. But to-day she wept and asked me to be seated, and God saved her soul. The Lord is smiling upon our mission."
Another case: "A woman sent for me to-day who on every previous visit treated me very roughly, and would never let me pray with her; I found her ill and very penitent, and God healed her broken heart. Truly the Lord is at work. Three or four families, which three months ago would not suffer me to enter their houses, have to-day welcomed me and begged of me to be seated, and heard my message, and some of them wept. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I have visited thirty-two families to-day."
As an instance of his success in his missioning, we cite the following remarkable fact, which he frequently related with marvellous point and effect. In his visits he entered a wretched hovel, inhabited by a man and his wife, both thorough drunkards. The windows were broken in every pane, and rags were stuffed in to keep some of the inclement winds and blasts out; there were two chairs, on which it was hardly safe to sit; a wreck of a table, that, as Spoor used to say, ""would almost be sure to kick the dinner off, when there was any put on;" a handful of embers smouldering in the fire-grate, and heaps of filth, made the room a scene of pollution, — and an old bed of straw on the ground in the corner, completed the inventory of the furniture. The inhabitants answered to their dwelling. The utmost wretchedness of appearance was combined with absolute recklessness in sin. The spectacle of such degradation appalled his stout heart, and roused all his pity and resolution to bring the great remedy to bear upon them. By dint of earnest and importunate exertion, he succeeded in getting the woman to hear him preach. Having had one of his "good times," the Word had penetrated the thick encrustation of sin, and got at her heart and broke it. The penitent and contrite one found mercy. Now she became the subject of unrelenting persecution on the part of her husband, but she had "the root of the matter" in her, and no threats nor suffering could move her. Her persecution was likely to have taken a tragic turn, while it displayed her heroic fortitude. When in the meetings, and her soul was moved with the revelation of Divine glory, she could not restrain herself from outbursts of rapture; or, as Spoor used to put it, in his expressive though not refined Saxon, "when she got happy she gave mouth." It happened on one occasion in a class meeting, she was in her happy mood and as the fire burned, she spoke with her lips. At the instant her husband and two of his boon-companions were passing the chapel, and one of the men hearing her voice, said tauntingly to him, "Why, there's your Nan shouting." He hearkened, and found it was, and was filled with demoniac rage; he prepared a knife, and waited with the deadly purpose of taking her life as soon as she came home. When she entered the house, the enraged man, like a beast of prey, ran up to her with the knife, and with a bitter oath was about to commit the murder he was intent upon. Mr. Spoor used to say in giving the narration, she showed me the flagstone on which she stood when he came to her; and she said — "I stood on that flag and felt myself unmoveable: God's grace filled my soul; all I did was, I threw my arms round his neck and kissed him." Her mingled firmness and affection disarmed the ruffian. The knife fell from his grasp, and getting away from her embraces he ran out of the house "as though she had thrown fire upon him-it was fire that burned him as he ran." He returned a penitent man, and afterwards found forgiveness and salvation through the blood which cleanses from all sin. The sequel of this "miracle of grace" must be given in Mr. Spoor's homely but effective words. "When," he says, 'I was in that neighbourhood last, I thought I should like to call and see them again. When I went into the house, he was sitting in his arm-chair; he sprang to his feet and spread his arms, and said, "Bless me, are you in this neighbourhood, sir?' 'Yes, and I thought I should like to come and see you, and hear how you were getting on for the better world,' said I. 'Oh,' said he, 'come into the parlour; we have a parlour now, sir.' There was a beautiful Brussels carpet, a beautiful set of hair-seated chairs, there was a beautiful eight-day clock, while in the middle was a beautiful centre table with a splendid cloth on it. He took me into a corner of the room, and lifted a piece of green baize, and there was a beautiful collection of books. 'And now,' he said, 'you knew me when I was a poor drunkard and wretched sinner; I had neither hat to my head nor shoe to my foot, nor coat to my back that was worth sixpence; but since I have given my heart to Jesus, I have all the comforts I need in this world, and have a good hope of glory in the next."
After twelve months' labour in Darlington, Mr. Spoor was induced to remove to Newcastle, on the understanding that efforts would be made, by the officials of that circuit to open his way again into the regular ministry. In the meantime he laboured as an evangelist, with his wonted power and with much acceptability and usefulness.
While engaged in Newcastle circuit as a hired local preacher, the following incident occurred. He, in company with his brother-in-law, Mr. R. Cook, went out one day to preach at the village of Swalwell. On entering the place he saw standing at a street corner a group of men, evidently of the class called "roughs" — characters who abounded in the locality at the time. Fearlessly going into their midst, he began in his characteristic way to talk to them about the claims and blessings of religion; informing them also that he was going to preach that night, and inviting them to hear him. They listened respectfully to all he said, but when he asked them to go to the preaching, one of them said, "Man, it'll na' dee for us at a'."
"Why?" said Mr. Spoor in reply, "religion is good for any person."
"Aye, aye," said the rough, "but it'll dee nout at a' for hus, ye ken; we a' on us mak wor leeving wi' theevin, ye see."
"Well, well," rejoined Mr. Spoor, "but Christ can save the worst of sinners, thieves among the rest."
"Hoot, man," repeated the rough, "di ye think we'll giv owr theevin when we mak oor leevin b't."
Mr. Spoor turned away disheartened, remarking to his friend
that he had never met with an instance of such avowed wickedness
and profligacy. We may add this moral wilderness was made shortly
afterwards to blossom as the rose under the influence of religion.