A Christmas Gift in Honour of Little Daisy Spurgeon, Born Christmas Day 1888

Christmas Day 1888 was an especially joyous occasion for Auckland’s esteemed Spurgeon household. It was on this day that London-born Thomas and Dunedin native Lila welcomed their firstborn child: “Our little one rejoices in the name of Daisy,” the proud father wrote, “her full title being Marguerite May…she is, of course, superlatively lovely in her parents’ eyes!”

THE SPURGEON LEGACY

Thomas came to New Zealand in 1881 as a missionary. His father was legendary evangelist, Charles Spurgeon, and Thomas clearly took after him. By 1884 he was packing out Auckland’s Choral Hall and soon embarked on a campaign to build a new house of worship in Auckland to be modelled on his father’s spectacular Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.

This of course is the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle located on the corner of Queen Street and Karanghape Road. Upon its completion in 1885, the city newspapers gushed that Thomas’ work was “an ornament to the city, and an enduring monument to the self-devotion and energy of the gifted young preacher who initiated the enterprise….”

Soon he married fellow-Baptist Lila Rutherford at Dunedin’s Hanover Street Church, and going from success to success, the much-praised preacher continued to minister to overflowing crowds, apparently set to carry on for many years to come.

SHORT LIVED JOY, LONG LIVED FAITH

Alas, it was not to be.

Just three months after her Christmas birth, little Daisy became ill and died.

“Have some of my readers lost their little ones?” Thomas wrote, “then hear me, for I too have walked that Via Dolorosa. I own no foot of land save a little plot in an Auckland cemetery…a little shell-strewn mound, and a simple stone with this inscription—DAISY SPURGEON, AGED 3 MONTHS. Even so, Father….”

It was a devastating blow that took its toll on the young minister’s health. “I did not feel able enough to do justice to the all the work,” he wrote his father and on November the third, he preached his farewell sermon.

RESTORATION

Today, owing to the initiative of retired Tabernacle Pastor Bruce Patrick, Purewa Cemetery has restored Daisy’s grave—Thomas Spurgeon’s shell-strewn mound. It serves as a reminder of Thomas and Lila’s faith in the face of death.

As Thomas later wrote, he could know comfort in grief because of an assurance of life beyond the temporary and material: “Did we do wrong to grieve ? Is weeping sin?” “No, no—for ‘Jesus wept…’ But we did not sorrow as those without hope; we did not refuse to be comforted….”

Purewa is always open to visitors who would like to visit Daisy’s memorial and reflect on hope.