The popular appeal of Spurgeon's preaching could be traced, in part, to his unique method of preaching messages which were at once both rich in substance and clear in presentation. Spurgeon rejected the high-brow elegance of the aristocratic Victorians and preached using popular language and directness. He used illustrations from everyday life and current events, rather than the literary allusions common in Victorian sermons.

This approach had an immediate impact in London, starved for relevant preaching. "Not for a long time," one observer noted, "had a prominent preacher condescended to preach the simple gospel in plain English, free from classicial quotations and over-burdened rhetoric."6 Long before Karl Barth, Spurgeon instructed his student preachers to read the Bible and the newspaper side-by-side. Current events, he urged, illustrated timeless truths.

Spurgeon's popular style won him both friends and enemies. Much of the response fell along class lines. Spurgeon came to prominence in London as the industrial revolution was in full sway. A new middle class of entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, and managers was emerging, and those persons found Spurgeon's preaching compelling and understanding. They flocked to his services, joined by representatives of both the poor and the aristocratic.

After observing the young Spurgeon, James Grant wrote in the Morning Advertiser that Spurgeon "has evidently made George Whitefield his model, and, like that unparalleled preacher, that prince of pulpit orators, is very fond of striking apostrophes."

Others were less taken with Spurgeon's approach. Older, more established ministers found the young upstart uncultured, at least in terms of current literature and classical references. Cartoons in the popular press portrayed Spurgeon as a young dynamo upsetting the comfort of the ensconced pulpit orators.

Spurgeon was, in fact, accused of theatrical tactics and manipulation. But no less than Helmut Thielicke, who observed Nazi propaganda and manipulation first-hand, absolved Spurgeon of such methods. "Charles Haddon Spurgeon ... was still unaware of the wiles of propaganda .... He worked only through the power of the Word which created its own hearers and changed souls."7

Spurgeon spoke with unusual directness and used references to everyday life. The Ipswich Express described Spurgeon's preaching as "redolent of bad taste, vulgar, and theatrical." But Spurgeon's style was vulgar only by the standards of Victorian aristocrats. For the remainder of Londoners, what the aristocracy described as "vulgar" was the stuff of everyday life.

Spurgeon was undeterred: "I am perhaps vulgar, but it is not intentional, save that I must and I will make the people listen. My firm conviction is that we have had quite enough polite preachers, and many require a change. God has owned me among the most degraded and off casts. Let others serve their class; these are mine, and to them I must keep."8

Thielicke noted the "worldliness" of Spurgeon's sermons, even as he acknowledged the "homiletical risks" Spurgeon chose to take. "The dogmatician, the exegete, and also the professor of practical theology may often be impelled to wield their blue pencils; the aesthete may often see red and the liturgiologist turn purple when they read his sermons and hear what he did. For the priests and the Levites always have the hardest time listening with simplicity and without bias."9