p. 171 | Slander by Spurgeon

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 25, 1864

Slander.

By Spurgeon

It is not a very pleasant thing for a man honestly to serve God, and then to find his character taken from him; and yet, beloved, this has been the lot of all true men in every age. The world never does permit a man to rebuke her follies, without replying with a volley of mud. If she cannot stop the man's mouth, she blackens his character. If you will turn to the lives of any of the saints of God, you will discover that they were the victims of slanders of the grossest kind. To this very day it is asserted by Romanists, that Martin Luther was a drunkard. In his own day he was called the German beast, that for lust must needs marry Catherine. If you turn to the life of Whitefield—our great and mighty Whitefield—in more modern times, what was his character? Why, he was accused of every crime that even Sodom knew; and perjury stood up and swore that all was true. As for Wesley—I have heard that on one occasion he said that he had been charged with every crime in the calendar, except drunkenness; and when a woman in the crowd stood up and accused him of that, he then said, "Blessed be God, I have now had all manner of evil spoken against me falsely, for Christ's name sake." You remember in the life of John Bunyan that episode concerning Agnes Beaumont. The good man suffered this young woman to ride behind him on his horse to a meeting at Gamlingay, and for this his character was implicated in two charges, before a magistrate, which might have involved him in the crime of poisoning, and laid the foundation for villainous reports of uncleanness; yet John Bunyan was the purest, and most heavenly-minded man who ever put his hand to paper; and he did put his hand to the paper, as no other man ever did who was not inspired. Now, this is not pleasant, but if you are a true Christian, and you are called to occupy a prominent post in the service of God, set your account for this; expect to lose your character; expect to have only the good opinion of your God and the faithful ones, who like you are willing to bear contempt. But what joy it is for these holy men, to know that at last God will plead the cause of their souls!—Spurgeon.