Charles Haddon Spurgeon was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers", he was a strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day. Spurgeon was pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel in London for 38 years, he was part of several controversies with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and he left the denomination over doctrinal convictions. In 1867, he started a charity organisation, now called Spurgeon's and works globally, he founded Spurgeon's College, named after him posthumously. Spurgeon authored many types of works including sermons, one autobiography, books on prayer, magazines, poetry and more. Many sermons were transcribed as he spoke and were translated into many languages during his lifetime.

He is said to have produced powerful sermons of penetrating precise exposition. His oratory skills are said to have held his listeners spellbound in the Metropolitan Tabernacle and many Christians hold his writings in exceptionally high regard among devotional literature. Born in Kelvedon, Essex, he moved to Colchester at 10 months old. Spurgeon's conversion from nominal Anglicanism came on 6 January 1850, at age 15. On his way to a scheduled appointment, a snow storm forced him to cut short his intended journey and to turn into a Primitive Methodist chapel in Artillery Street, Colchester where God opened his heart to the salvation message; the text that moved him was Isaiah 45:22 – "Look unto me, be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, there is none else." That year on 4 April 1850, he was admitted to the church at Newmarket. His baptism followed at Isleham; that same year he moved to Cambridge, where he became a Sunday school teacher. Spurgeon preached his first sermon in the winter of 1850–51 in a cottage at Teversham while filling in for a friend.

From the beginning of Spurgeon's ministry, his style and ability were considered to be far above average. In the same year, he was installed as pastor of the small Baptist church at Waterbeach, where he published his first literary work, a Gospel tract written in 1853. In April 1854, after preaching three months on probation and just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon only 19, was called to the pastorate of London's famed New Park Street Chapel, Southwark; this was the largest Baptist congregation in London at the time, although it had dwindled in numbers for several years. Spurgeon found friends in London among his fellow pastors, such as William Garrett Lewis of Westbourne Grove Church, an older man who along with Spurgeon went on to found the London Baptist Association. Within a few months of Spurgeon's arrival at Park Street, his ability as a preacher made him famous; the following year the first of his sermons in the "New Park Street Pulpit" was published. Spurgeon's sermons had a high circulation.

By the time of his death in 1892, he had preached nearly 3,600 sermons and published 49 volumes of commentaries, anecdotes and devotions. Following his fame was criticism; the first attack in the press appeared in the Earthen Vessel in January 1855. His preaching, although not revolutionary in substance, was a plain-spoken and direct appeal to the people, using the Bible to provoke them to consider the teachings of Jesus Christ. Critical attacks from the media persisted throughout his life; the congregation outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues Spurgeon preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000. At 22, Spurgeon was the most popular preacher of the day. On 8 January 1856, Spurgeon married Susannah, daughter of Robert Thompson of Falcon Square, London, by whom he had twin sons and Thomas born on 20 September 1857. At the end of that year, tragedy struck on 19 October 1856, as Spurgeon was preaching at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall for the first time.

Someone in the crowd yelled, "Fire!" The ensuing panic and stampede left several dead. Spurgeon was devastated by the event and it had a sobering influence on his life. For many years he spoke of being moved to tears for no reason known to himself. Walter Thornbury wrote in "Old and New London" describing a subsequent meeting at Surrey: a congregation consisting of 10,000 souls, streaming into the hall, mounting the galleries, humming and swarming – a mighty hive of bees – eager to secure at first the best places, and, at last, any place at all. After waiting more than half an hour – for if you wish to have a seat you must be there at least that space of time in advance... Mr. Spurgeon ascended his tribune. To the hum, rush, trampling of men, succeeded a low, concentrated thrill and murmur of devotion, which seemed to run at once, like an electric current, through the breast of everyone present, by this magnetic chain the preacher held us fast bound for about two hours, it is not my purpose to give a summary of his discourse.

It is enough to say of his voice, that its power and volume are sufficient to reach every one in that vast assembly.

Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument: On bowed string instruments it is a method of playing by plucking the strings with the fingers, rather than using the bow; this produces a different sound from bowing and percussive rather than sustained. On keyboard string instruments, such as the piano, pizzicato may be employed as one of the variety of techniques involving direct manipulation of the strings known collectively as "string piano". On the guitar, it is a muted form of plucking, which bears an audible resemblance to pizzicato on a bowed string instrument with its shorter sustain, it is known as palm muting. When a string is struck or plucked, as with pizzicato, sound waves are generated that do not belong to a harmonic series as when a string is bowed; this complex timbre is called inharmonicity. The inharmonicity of a string depends on its physical characteristics, such as tension, composition and length.

The inharmonicity disappears when strings are bowed because the bow's stick-slip action is periodic, so it drives all of the resonances of the string at harmonic ratios if it has to drive them off their natural frequency. The first recognised use of pizzicato in classical music is found in Tobias Hume's Captain Humes Poeticall Musicke, wherein he instructs the viola da gamba player to use pizzicato. Another early use is found in Claudio Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, in which the players are instructed to use two fingers of their right hand to pluck the strings. In 1756, Leopold Mozart in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule instructs the player to use the index finger of the right hand; this has remained the most usual way to execute a pizzicato, though sometimes the middle finger is used. The bow is held in the hand at the same time unless there is enough time to put it down and pick it up again between bowed passages. In jazz and bluegrass, the few popular music styles which use double bass, pizzicato is the usual way to play the double bass.

This is unusual for a violin-family instrument, because regardless whether violin-family instruments are being used in jazz, traditional or Classical music, they are played with the bow for most of a performance. In classical double bass playing, pizzicato is performed with the bow held in the hand. In contrast, in jazz and other non-Classical styles, the player is not holding a bow, so they are free to use two or three fingers to pluck the string. In classical music, string instruments are most played with the bow, composers give specific indications to play pizzicato where required. Pieces in classical music that are played pizzicato include: J. S. Bach: the ninth movement of the Magnificat Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss: Pizzicato Polka Edvard Grieg: Act IV – Anitra's Dance in Peer Gynt Léo Delibes: the "Divertissement: Pizzicati" from Act 3 of the ballet Sylvia Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: the third movement of the 4th symphony Johann Strauss II: Neue Pizzicato Polka Helmer Alexandersson: the third movement of his second symphony Béla Bartók: the fourth movement of the String Quartet No. 4 Benjamin Britten: the second movement of the Simple Symphony Leroy Anderson: Jazz Pizzicato and Plink, Plunk!

Antonio Vivaldi, in the "Ah Ch'Infelice Sempre" section of his cantata Cessate, omai cessate, combined both pizzicato and bowed instruments to create a unique sound. He included pizzicato in the second movement of "Winter" from The Four Seasons. In music notation, a composer will indicate the performer should use pizzicato with the abbreviation pizz. A return to bowing is indicated by the Italian term arco. A left hand pizzicato is indicated by writing a small cross above the note, a Bartók pizzicato is indicated by a circle with a small vertical line through the top of it above the note in question or by writing Bartók pizz at the start of the relevant passage. In classical music, arco playing is the default assumption. If a string player has to play pizzicato for a long period of time, the performer may put down the bow. Violinists and violists may hold the instrument in the "banjo position", pluck the strings with the thumb of the right hand; this technique is used, only in movements which are pizzicato throughout.

A technique similar to this, where the strings are strummed like a guitar, is called for in the 4th movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, where the violins and cellos are instructed to play pizzicato "quasi guitara", the music here consists of three- and four-note chords, which are fingered and strummed much like the instrument being imitated. Another colorful pizzicato technique used in the same Rimsky-Korsakov piece mentioned above is two-handed pizzicato, indicated by the markings m.s. and m.d. (for mano sinistra, left han

Purisima Creek is a 2-mile-long eastward-flowing stream originating in Los Altos Hills in Santa Clara County, United States. It is a tributary of Adobe Creek. Purisima Creek runs through the historic Rancho La Purísima Concepción land grant, granted by Governor Alvarado in 1840 to Jose Gorgonio, an Indian living at Mission Santa Clara de Asís. In 1844 Gorgonio sold the one square league Rancho La Purísima Concepción to Juana Briones de Miranda, the daughter of Marcos Briones, who accompanied Junípero Serra in 1769. Gudde's "California Place Names" incorrectly asserted that there was no namesake for the land grant in Santa Clara County. Juana Briones sold about three quarters of her rancho in 1861 to Martin Murphy Jr. of Sunnyvale, who had come to California with the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party in 1844. One of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, David Packard, lived on the upper watershed of Purisima Creek on a large apricot orchard. Purisima Creek consists of two minor forks which embrace the apricot orchards now owned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The creek's source is at the top of the west fork between Altamount Road. The "Packard Pathway" is a public walking/riding path that descends the north fork from its origin below the Packards' Taafe House on Taafe Road. At the base of the property the two forks come together to form the creek mainstem which levels out as it passes through the remains of an old walnut grove crosses Elena Road, flowing along Josefa Lane and the northwestern edge of Foothill College to where it passes under I-280 along O'Keefe Lane and the O'Keefe Open Space Preserve to its confluence with Adobe Creek just inside Los Altos. There O'Keefe Open Space Preserve protects the riparian habitat along an 800-foot section of the creek below I-280, it is an 8.2-acre nature preserve. This section of the creek has been invaded by non-native species that compete with the native vegetation for its water, including Canary Island palm, common fig, blue gum eucalyptus, European olive and Siberian elm. List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area Adobe Creek Foothill College Adobe Creek Watershed maps page at Guide to San Francisco Bay Area Creeks