C. H. Spurgeon, a famous Victorian preacher, was born at Kelvedon, Essex in 1834. As a teenager he was very aware of his faults and failings; he longed to put things right with God. The following account is in his own words.

I thought the sun was blotted out of my sky that I had so sinned against God that there was no hope for me. The secret of my distress was this: I did not know the Gospel. I was in a Christian land, I had Christian parents, but I did not fully understand the freeness and simplicity of the Gospel.

I attended all the places of worship in the town where I lived, but I honestly believe that I did not hear the Gospel fully preached. I do not blame the men, however. One man preached the divine sovereignty. I could hear him with pleasure; but what was that for a poor sinner who wished to know what he should do to be saved? There was another admirable man who always preached about the law; but what was the use of plowing up ground that wanted to be sown? Another was a great practical teacher. I heard him, but it was very much like a commanding officer teaching the manoeuvres of war to a set of men without feet. What could I do? All his exhortations were lost to me. I knew it was said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31), but I did not know what it was to believe in Christ.

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, when I was going to a place of worship. When I could go no farther, I turned down a court and came to a little chapel. In the chapel there were a dozen or fifteen people. The minister did not come that morning, snowed up, I suppose. A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort went up into the pulpit to preach.

He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason he had nothing else to say. The text was, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah. 45:22). He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.

There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text He began thus: "My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, 'Look'. Now, that does not take a great deal of effort. It isn't lifting your foot or your finger. It is just 'look'. Well a man need not go to college to learn to look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look. A child can look. This is what the text says, 'Look unto Me'.

"Aye," he said, "many of you are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You'll never find comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No: look to Him. By and by Jesus Christ says, 'Look unto Me'. Some of you say, 'I must wait the Spirit's working'. You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. It runs: 'Look unto Me"'.

Then he followed up his text in this way: "Look unto Me; I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hanging on the cross. Look! I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father's right hand. Oh, look unto Me! look unto Me!".

When he had spoken about ten minutes he looked at me under the gallery and I dare say, with a few present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said, "Young man, you look very miserable". Well I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. He continued: "And you will always be miserable in life, and miserable in death - if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment you will be saved."

Then he shouted, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ!". I did 'look'. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun: I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me that before.