1898 C. H. SPURGEON. Strange Artifact from Metropolitan Tabernacle Fire of 1898.

This is one of the oddest little curiosities we have ever handled. Its strangeness is not so much due to its mere existence. During the 19th century, an entire industry of "protestant icons" developed. One could buy Pilgrim's Progress bound in boards from the oak of the original Elstow church, a footstool made from the paneling from Jonathan Edwards' church in Northampton, slices of the tree in Africa under which David Livingstone was buried, etc,. In that light, our strange little fellow makes sense. No problem. But it is the oddity and, frankly, the sheer ineptitude of the execution that seems almost inexplicable.  In 1898, a fire broke out at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. It was devastating, taking the building right down to the foundation aside from the neo-classical columns and portico in front. But the classic interior, the hallowed space where Spurgeon preached for decades, was in cinders. And the cost to rebuild was no less staggering, especially in a church still trying to find