Charles Spurgeon

===Early life===
{{Baptist| expanded=Figures}}
Born in [[Kelvedon]], Essex, he moved to Colchester at 10 months old.<ref>Fullerton, W. Y. Charles Haddon Spurgeon: A Biography. The Tyndale Series of Great Biographies. P. 5. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966.</ref> 

The missionary [[Richard Knill]] spent several days with Spurgeon while visiting his grandfather in 1844; he announced to him and his family that the child would one day preach the gospel to great multitudes.<ref>[https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/spurgeon-did-you-know  Christian History Institute website, ‘’Charles H. Spurgeon: Did you know?’’]</ref>  

Spurgeon's conversion from nominal [[Congregational church|Congregationalism]] came on 6 January 1850, at age 15. On his way to a scheduled appointment, a snowstorm forced him to cut short his intended journey and to turn into a [[Primitive Methodist Church|Primitive Methodist]] chapel in Artillery Street, Newtown, [[Colchester]], where he believed God opened his heart to the salvation message.<ref>''[https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/charles-spurgeons-conversion-in-a-primitive-methodist-chapel/ The Gospel Coalition]''</ref> 
The text that moved him was Isaiah 45:22 ("Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else"). Later that year, on 4 April, he was admitted to the church at Newmarket. His baptism followed on 3 May in the [[river Lark]], at [[Isleham]]. Later that same year he moved to Cambridge, where he later became a Sunday school teacher. Spurgeon preached his first sermon in the winter of 1850–51 in a cottage at [[Teversham]] while filling in for a friend. From the beginning of Spurgeon's ministry, his style and ability were considered to be far above average. In the same year, he was installed as pastor of the small [[Baptist]] church at [[Waterbeach]], Cambridgeshire, where he published his first literary work, a [[Gospel tract]] written in 1853.