Christ’s mercy is to be had for nothing, bribe or purchase is out of the question. I have heard of a woman whose child was in a fever and needed grapes; and there was a prince who lived near, in whose hothouse there were some of the rarest grapes that had ever been grown. She scraped together the little money she could earn, and went to the gardener and offered to buy a bunch of the royal fruit. Of course he repulsed her, and said they were not to be sold. Did she imagine that the prince grew grapes to sell like a market-gardener? And he sent her on her way, much grieved. She came again; she came several times, for a mother’s importunity is great; but no offer of hers would be accepted.
At last the princess heard of it and wished to see the woman; and when she came the princess said, “The prince does not sell the fruit of his garden:” but, snipping off a bunch of grapes and dropping them into a little bag, she said, “He is always ready to give it away to the poor.” Now, here is the rich cluster of gospel salvation from the true vine. My Lord will not sell it, but he is always ready to give it away to all who humbly ask for it and if you want it come and take it, and take it now by believing in Jesus.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Aeneas," delivered July 16, 1876.
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He was converted to Christ at the age of 16 and immediately began preaching. He preached in the streets and in the fields before he was 21. In his first church, he began with 100 members. It grew until he was preaching to 10,000 people in the Surrey Music Hall. His church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, seated 6,000 people. He withdrew from every movement among English Baptists which tended to criticize the Authorized Version 1611 in any way.
Before his death, he published more than 2,000 sermons and 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations, and devotions.