Spurgeon read a lot

The Witenberg Door posted these facts about Charles Spurgeon. I am fascinated by them. I like to read and have a few books in my library. But 12,000? I know Preachers who don't read books and think they are capable of taking care of a congregation.

Spurgeon’s personal library contained 12,000 volumes—1,000 printed before 1700. (The library, 5,103 volumes at the time of its auction, is now housed at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.)

It's one thing to have this many books, what about reading them. The Wittenberg Door post goes on to say, Spurgeon read 6 books a week, and remembered what he read and where, years later.

But, if that weren't enough, Spurgeon also wrote books, lots of books:

The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit­—the collected sermons of Spurgeon during his ministry with that congregation—fill 63 volumes. The sermons’ 20-25 million words are equivalent to the 27 volumes of the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The series stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.

And I think I'm really doing something if I read 20 or 30 books a year. I wonder what American Christianity would be like if we had a Spurgeon around today.