1892-1895

I had only one fault to find with the world in my sixty years of travel over it and that was it had treated me too well. In the ordinary course of events, and by the law of the Psalmist, I still had ten more years before me; but, according to my own calculations, life stretched brilliantly ahead of me as far as heart and mind could wish. There were many things to take into consideration. There was the purpose of the future, its obligations, its opportunities to adjust. My whole life had been a series of questions. My course had been the issue of problems, a choice of many ways.

Shortly after the dawn of 1893 the financial difficulties in which the New Tabernacle had been reared confronted us. It had arisen from the ashes of its predecessor by sheer force of energy and pluck. It had taken a vast amount of negotiation. A loan of $125,000, made to us by Russell Sage, payable in one year at 6 per cent., was one of the means employed. This loan was arranged by Mr. A.L. Soulard, the president of the German-American Title and Guarantee Company. Mr. Sage was a friend of mine, of my church, and that was some inducement. The loan was made upon the guarantee of the Title Company. It was reported to me that Mr. Sage had said at this time:

“It all depends upon whether Dr. Talmage lives or not. If he should happen to die the Brooklyn Tabernacle wouldn’t be worth much.”

The German-American Title and Guarantee Company then secured an insurance on my life for $25,000 and insisted that the Board of Trustees of the church give their individual bonds for the fulfillment of the mortgage. The trustees were W.D. Mead, F.H. Branch, John Wood, C.S. Darling, F.M. Lawrence, and James B. Ferguson. In this way Mr. Sage satisfied both his religious sympathies and his business nature. For more reasons than one, therefore, I kept myself in perfect health. This was only one of the incidents involved in the building of the New Tabernacle. For two years I had donated my salary of $12,000 a year to the church, and had worked hard incessantly to infuse it with life and success. This information may serve to contradict some scattered impressions made by our friendly critics, that my personal aim in life was mercenary and selfish. My income from my lectures, and the earnings from my books and published sermons, were sufficient for all my needs.

During the year 1893 I did my best to stem the tide of debt and embarrassment in which the business elements of the church was involved. I find an entry in my accounts of a check dated March 27, 1893, in Brooklyn, for $10,000, which I donated to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Emergency Fund. There is a spiritual warning in almost every practical event of our lives, and it seemed that in that year, so discomforting to the New Tabernacle, there was a spiritual warning to me which grew into a certainty of feeling that my work called me elsewhere. I said nothing of this to anyone, but quietly thought the situation over without haste or undue prejudice. My Gospel field was a big one. The whole world accepted the Gospel as I preached it, and I concluded that it did not make much difference where the pulpit was in which I preached.

After a full year’s consideration of the entire outlook, in January, 1894, I announced my resignation as pastor of the Tabernacle, to take effect in the spring of that year. I gave no other cause than that I felt that I had been in one place long enough. An attempt was made by the Press to interpret my action into a private difference of opinion with the trustees of the church but this was not true. All sorts of plans were proposed for raising the required sum of our expensive church management, in which I concurred and laboured heartily. It was said that I resigned because the trustees were about to decide in favour of charging a nominal fee of ten cents to attend our services. I made no objection to this. My resignation was a surprise to the congregation because I had not indicated my plans or intimated to them my own private expectations of the remaining years of my life.

On Sunday, January 22, 1894, among the usual church announcements made from the pulpit, I read the following statement, which I had written on a slip of paper:

“This coming spring I will have been pastor of this church twenty-five years a quarter of a century long enough for any minister to preach in one place. At that anniversary I will resign this pulpit, and it will be occupied by such person as you may select.

“Though the work has been arduous, because of the unparalleled necessity of building three great churches, two of them destroyed by fire, the field has been delightful and blessed by God. No other congregation has ever been called to build three churches, and I hope no other pastor will ever be called to such an undertaking.

“My plans after resignation have not been developed, but I shall preach both by voice and newspaper press, as long as my life and health are continued.

“From first to last we have been a united people, and my fervent thanks are to all the Boards of Trustees and Elders, whether of the present or past, and to all the congregation, and to New York and Brooklyn.

“I have no vocabulary intense enough to express my gratitude to the newspaper press of these cities for the generous manner in which they have treated me and augmented my work for this quarter of a century.

“After such a long pastorate it is a painful thing to break the ties of affection, but I hope our friendship will be renewed in Heaven.”

There was a sorrowful silence when I stopped reading, which made me realise that I had tasted another bitter draft of life in the prospect of farewell between pastor and flock. I left the church alone and went quietly to my study where I closed the door to all inquirers.

If my decision had been made upon any other ground than those of spiritual obligation to the purpose of my whole life I should have said so. My decision had been made because I had been thinking of my share in the evangelism of the world, and how mercifully I had been spared and instructed and forwarded in my Gospel mission. I wanted a more neighbourly relation with the human race than the prescribed limitations of a single pulpit.

In February, 1893, I lost an evangelical neighbour of many years Bishop Brooks. He was a giant, but he died. My mind goes back to the time when Bishop Brooks and myself were neighbours in Philadelphia. He had already achieved a great reputation as a pulpit orator in 1870. The first time I saw him was on a stormy night as he walked majestically up the aisle of the church to which I administered. He had come to hear his neighbour, as afterward I often went to hear him. What a great and genial soul he was! He was a man that people in the streets stopped to look at, and strangers would say as he passed, “I wonder who that man is?” Of unusual height and stature, with a face beaming in kindness, once seeing him he was always remembered, but the pulpit was his throne. With a velocity of utterance that was the despair of the swiftest stenographers, he poured forth his impassioned soul, making every theme he touched luminous and radiant.

Putting no emphasis on the mere technicalities of religion, he made his pulpit flame with its power. He was the special inspiration of young men, and the disheartened took courage under the touch of his words and rose up healed. It will take all time and all eternity to tell the results of his Christian utterances. There were some who thought that there was here and there an unsafe spot in his theology. As for ourselves we never found anything in the man or in his utterances that we did not like.

Although fully realising that I was approaching a crisis of some sort in my own career, it was with definite thankfulness for the mercies that had upheld me so long that I forged ahead. My state of mind at this time was peaceful and contented. I find in a note-book of this period of my life the following entry, which betrays the trend of my heart and mind during the last milestone of my ministry in Brooklyn:

“Here I am in Madison, Wisconsin, July 23, 1893. I have been attending Monona Lake Chautauqua, lecturing yesterday, preaching this morning. This Sabbath afternoon I have been thinking of the goodness of God to me. It began many years before I was born; for as far back as I can find anything concerning my ancestry, both on my father’s and mother’s sides, they were virtuous and Christian people. Who shall estimate the value of such a pedigree? The old cradle, as I remember it, was made out of plain boards, but it was a Christian cradle. God has been good in letting us be born in a fair climate, neither in the rigours of frigidity nor in the scorching air of tropical regions. Fortunate was I in being started in a home neither rich nor poor, so that I had the temptations of neither luxury nor poverty. Fortunate in good health sixty years of it. I say sixty rather than sixty-one, for I believe the first year or two of my life compassed all styles of infantile ailments, from mumps to scarlet fever.

“A quarter of a century ago, looking at a pile of manuscript sermons, I said again and again to my wife: ’Those sermons were not made only for the people who have already heard them. They must have a wider field.’ The prophecy came true, and every one of those sermons through the press has come to the attention of at least twenty-five million people. I have no reason to be morose or splenetic. ’Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.’ Here I am at 61 years of age without an ache, a pain, or a physical infirmity. Now closing a preaching and lecturing tour from Georgia to Minnesota and Wisconsin, I am to-morrow morning to start for my residence at the seaside where my family are awaiting me, and notwithstanding all the journeying and addressing of great audiences, and shaking hands with thousands of people, after a couple of days’ rest will be no more weary than when I left home. ’Bless the Lord, O my soul!’”

My ordinary mode of passing vacations has been to go to East Hampton, Long Island, and thence to go out for two or three preaching and lecturing excursions to points all the way between New York and San Francisco, or from Texas to Maine. I find that I cannot rest more than two weeks at a time. More than that wearies me. Of all the places I have ever known East Hampton is the best place for quiet and recuperation.

I became acquainted with it through my brother-in-law, Rev. S.L. Mershon. The Presbyterian church here was his first pastoral settlement. When a boy in grammar school and college I visited him and his wife, my sister Mary. The place is gradually submitting to modern notions, but East Hampton, whether in its antiquated shape or epauletted and frilled and decorated by the hand of modern enterprise, has always been to me a semi-Paradise.

As I approach it my pulse is slackened and a delicious somnolence comes over me. I dream out the work for another year.

My most useful sermons have been born here. My most successful books were planned here. In this place, between the hours of somnolence, there come hours of illumination and ecstasy. It seems far off from the heated and busy world. East Hampton has been a great blessing to my family. It has been a mercy to have them here, free from all summer heats. When nearly grown, the place is not lively enough for them, but an occasional diversion to White Sulphur, or Alum Springs, or a summer in Europe, has given them abundant opportunity. All my children have been with us in Europe, except my departed son, DeWitt, who was at a most important period in school at the time of our going, or he would have been with us on one of our foreign tours.

I have crossed the ocean twelve times, that is six each way, and like it less and less. It is to me a stomachic horror. But the frequent visits have given educational opportunity to my children. Foreign travel, and lecturing and preaching excursions in our own country have been to me a stimulus, while East Hampton has been to me a sedative and anodyne. For this beautiful medicament I am profoundly thankful.

But I am writing this in the new house that we have builded in place of our old one. It is far more beautiful and convenient and valuable than the old one, but I doubt if it will be any more useful. And a railroad has been laid out, and before summer is passed the shriek of a locomotive will awaken all the Rip Van Winkles that have been slumbering here since before the first almanac was printed.

The task of remembering the best of one’s life is a pleasant one. Under date of December 20, 1893, I find another recollection in my note-book that is worth amplifying.

“This morning, passing through Frankfort, Kentucky, on my way from Lexington, at the close of a preaching and lecturing tour of nearly three weeks, I am reminded of a most royal visit that I had here at Frankfort as the guest of Governor Blackburn, at the gubernatorial mansion about ten years ago.

“I had made an engagement to preach twice at High Bridge, Ky., a famous camp meeting. Governor Blackburn telegraphed me to Brooklyn asking when and where I would enter Kentucky, as he wished to meet me on the border of the State and conduct me to the High Bridge services. We met at Cincinnati. Crossing the Ohio River, we found the Governor’s especial car with its luxurious appointments and group of servants to spread the table and wait on every want. The Governor, a most fascinating and splendid man, with a warmth of cordiality that glows in me every time I recall his memory, entertained me with the story of his life which had been a romance of mercy in the healing art, he having been elected to his high office in appreciation of his heroic services as physician in time of yellow fever.

“At Lexington a brusque man got on our car, and we entered with him into vigorous conversation. I did not hear his name on introduction, and I felt rather sorry that the Governor should have invited him into our charming seclusion. But the stranger became such an entertainer as a colloquialist, and demonstrated such extraordinary intellectuality, I began to wonder who he was, and I addressed him, saying, “Sir, I did not hear your name when you were introduced.” He replied, ’My name is Beck Senator Beck.’ Then and there began one of the most entertaining friendships of my life. Great Scotch soul! Beck came a poor boy from Scotland to America, hired himself out for farm work in Kentucky, discovered to his employer a fondness for reading, was offered free access to his employer’s large library, and marched right up into education and the legal profession and the Senate of the United States.”

That day we got out of the train at High Bridge. My sermon was on “The Divinity of the Scriptures.” Directly in front of me, and with most intense look, whether of disapprobation or approval I knew not, sat the Senator. On the train back to Lexington, where he took me in his carriage on a long ride amid the scenes of Clayiana, he told me the sermon had re-established his faith in Christianity, for he had been brought up to believe the Bible as most of the people in Scotland believe it. But I did not know all that transpired that day at High Bridge until after the Senator was dead, and I was in Lexington, and visited his grave at the cemetery where he sleeps amid the mighty Kentuckians who have adorned their State.

On this last visit that I speak of, a young man connected with the Phoenix Hotel, Lexington, where Senator Beck lived much of the time, and where he entertained me, told me that on the morning of the day that Senator Beck went with me to High Bridge he had been standing in that hotel among a group of men who were assailing Christianity, and expressing surprise that Senator Beck was going to High Bridge to hear a sermon. When we got to the hotel that afternoon the same group of men were standing together, and were waiting to hear the Senator’s report of the service, and hoping to get something to the disadvantage of religion. My informant heard them say to him, “Well, how was it?” The Senator replied, “Doctor Talmage proved the truth of the Bible as by a mathematical demonstration. Now talk to me no more on that subject.”

On Sunday morning I returned to High Bridge for another preaching service. Governor Blackburn again took us in his especial car. The word “immensity” may give adequate idea of the audience present. Then the Governor insisted that I go with him to Frankfort and spend a few days. They were memorable days to me. At breakfast, lunch and dinner the prominent people of Kentucky were invited to meet me. Mrs. Blackburn took me to preach to her Bible Class in the State Prison. I think there were about 800 convicts in that class. Paul would have called her “The elect lady,” “Thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Heaven only can tell the story of her usefulness. What days and nights they were at the Governor’s Mansion. No one will ever understand the heartiness and generosity and warmth of Kentucky hospitality until he experiences it.

President Arthur was coming through Lexington on his way to open an Exposition at Louisville. Governor Blackburn was to go to Lexington to receive him and make a speech. The Governor read me the speech in the State House before leaving Frankfort, and asked for my criticism. It was an excellent speech about which I made only one criticism, and that concerning a sentence in which he praised the beautiful women and the fine horses of Kentucky. I suggested that he put the human and the equine subjects of his admiration in different sentences, and this suggestion he adopted.

We started for Lexington and arrived at the hotel. Soon the throngs in the streets showed that the President of the United States was coming. The President was escorted into the parlour to receive the address of welcome, and seeing me in the throng, he exclaimed, “Dr. Talmage! Are you here? It makes me feel at home to see you.” The Governor put on his spectacles and began to read his speech, but the light was poor, and he halted once or twice for a word, when I was tempted to prompt him, for I remembered his speech better than he did himself.

That day I bade good-bye to Governor Blackburn, and I saw him two or three times after that, once in my church in Brooklyn and once in Louisville lecture hall, where he stood at the door to welcome me as I came in from New Orleans on a belated train at half-past nine o’clock at night when I ought to have begun my lecture at 8 o’clock; and the last time I saw him he was sick and in sad decadence and near the terminus of an eventful life. One of my brightest anticipations of Heaven is that of seeing my illustrious Kentucky friend.

That experience at Frankfort was one of the many courtesies I have received from all the leading men of all the States. I have known many of the Governors, and Legislatures, when I have looked in upon them, have adjourned to give me reception, a speech has always been called for, and then a general hand-shaking has followed. It was markedly so with the Legislatures of Ohio and Missouri. At Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, both Houses of Legislature adjourned and met together in the Assembly Room, which was the larger place, and then the Governor introduced me for an address.

It is a satisfaction to be kindly treated by the prominent characters of your own time. I confess to a feeling of pleasure when General Grant, at the Memorial Services at Greenwood I think the last public meeting he ever attended, and where I delivered the Memorial Address on Decoration Day said that he had read with interest everything that appeared connected with my name. President Arthur, at the White House one day, told me the same thing.

Whenever by the mysterious laws of destiny I found myself in the cave of the winds of displeasure, there always came to me encouraging echoes from somewhere. I find among my papers at this time a telegram from the Russian Ambassador in Washington, which illustrates this idea.

This message read as follows:

“Washington, D.C., May 20, 1893.

“To Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, Bible House, New York.

“I would be very glad to see you on the 27th of May in Philadelphia on board the Russian flagship ‘Dimitry Donskoy’ at eleven o’clock, to tender to you in presence of our brilliant sailors and on Russian soil, a souvenir His Majesty the Emperor ordered me to give in his name to the American gentleman who visited Russia during the trying year 1892.

“CANTACUZENE.”

Gladly I obeyed this request, and was presented, amid imperial ceremonies, with a magnificent solid gold tea service from the Emperor Alexander iii. These were the sort of appreciative incidents so often happening in my life that infused my work with encouragements.

The months preceding the close of my ministry in Brooklyn developed a remarkable interest shown among those to whom my name had become a symbol of the Gospel message. There was a universal, world-wide recognition of my work. Many regretted my decision to leave the Brooklyn Tabernacle, some doubted that I actually intended to do so, others foretold a more brilliant future for me in the open trail of Gospel service they expected me to follow.

All this enthusiasm expressed by my friends of the world culminated in a celebration festival given in honour of the twenty-fifth anniversary of my pastorate in Brooklyn. The movement spread all over the country and to Europe. It was decided to make the occasion a sort of International reception, to be held in the Tabernacle on May 10 and 11, 1894.

I had made my plans for a wide glimpse of the earth and the people on it who knew me, but whom I had never seen. I had made preparations to start on May 14, and the dates set for this jubilee were arranged on the eve of my farewell. I was about to make a complete circuit of the globe, and whatever my friends expected me to do otherwise I approached this occasion with a very definite conclusion that it would be my farewell to Brooklyn.

I recall this event in my life with keen contrasts of feeling, for it is mingled in my heart with swift impressions of extraordinary joy and tragic import. All of it was God’s will the blessing and the chastening.

The church had been decorated with the stars and stripes, with gold and purple. In front of the great organ, under a huge picture of the pastor, was the motto that briefly described my evangelical career:

“Tabernacle his pulpit; the world his audience.”

The reception began at eight o’clock in the evening with a selection on the great organ, by Henry Eyre Brown, our organist, of an original composition written by him and called, in compliment to the occasion, “The Talmage Silver Anniversary March.” On the speaker’s platform with me were Mayor Schieren, of Brooklyn, Mr. Barnard Peters, Rev. Father Sylvester Malone, Rev. Dr. John F. Carson, ex-Mayor David A. Boody, Rev. Dr. Gregg, Rabbi F. De Sol Mendes, Rev. Dr. Louis Albert Banks, Hon. John Winslow, Rev. Spencer F. Roche, and Rev. A.C. Dixon an undenominational gathering of good men. There is, perhaps, no better way to record my own impressions of this event than to quote the words with which I replied to the complimentary speeches of this oration. They recall, more closely and positively, the sensibilities, the emotions, and the inspiration of that hour:

“Dear Mr. Mayor, and friends before me, and friends behind me, and friends all around me, and friends hovering over me, and friends in this room, and the adjoining rooms, and friends indoors and outdoors forever photographed upon my mind and heart is this scene of May 10, 1894. The lights, the flags, the decorations, the flowers, the music, the illumined faces will remain with me while earthly life lasts, and be a cause of thanksgiving after I have passed into the Great Beyond. Two feelings dominate me to-night gratitude and unworthiness; gratitude first to God, and next, to all who have complimented me.

“My twenty-five years in Brooklyn have been happy years hard work, of course. This is the fourth church in which I have preached since coming to Brooklyn, and how much of the difficult work of church building that implies you can appreciate. This church had its mother and its grandmother, and its great-grandmother. I could not tell the story of disasters without telling the story of heroes and heroines, and around me in all these years have stood men and women of whom the world was not worthy. But for the most part the twenty-five years have been to me a great happiness. With all good people here present the wonder is, although they may not express it, ’What will be the effect upon the pastor of this church; of all this scene?’ Only one effect, I assure you, and that an inspiration for better work for God and humanity. And the question is already absorbing my entire nature, ’What can I do to repay Brooklyn for this great uprising?’ Here is my hand and heart for a campaign of harder work for God and righteousness than I have ever yet accomplished. I have been told that sometimes in the Alps there are great avalanches called down by a shepherd’s voice. The pure white snows pile up higher and higher like a great white throne, mountains of snow on mountains of snow, and all this is so delicately and evenly poised that the touch of a hand or the vibration of air caused by the human voice will send down the avalanche into the valleys with all-compassing and overwhelming power. Well, to-night I think that the heavens above us are full of pure white blessings, mountains of mercy on mountains of mercy, and it will not take much to bring down the avalanche of benediction, and so I put up my right hand to reach it and lift my voice, to start it. And now let the avalanche of blessing come upon your bodies, your minds, your souls, your homes, your churches, and your city. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory! Amen and Amen!”

On the next day, May 11, the reception was continued. Among the speakers was the Hon. William M. Evarts, ex-Secretary of State, who, though advanced in years, honoured us with his presence and an address. Senator Walsh, of Georgia, spoke for the South; ex-Congressman Joseph C. Hendrix of Brooklyn, Rev. Charles L. Thompson, Murat Halstead, Rev. Dr. I.J. Lansing, General Tracey, were among the other speakers of the evening.

From St. Petersburg came a cable, signed by Count Bobrinsky, saying: “Heartfelt congratulations from remembering friends.”

Messages from Senator John Sherman, from Governor McKinley (before he became President), from Mr. Gladstone, from Rev. Joseph Parker, and among others from London, the following cable, which I shall always prize among the greatest testimonials of the broad Gospel purpose in England

“Cordial congratulations; grateful acknowledgment of splendid
services in ministry during last twenty-five years. Warm wishes for
future prosperity.

“(Signed)
archdeacon of London,
Canon Wilberforce.
Thomas Davidson.
Professor Simpson.
John Lobb.
Bishop of London.”

Appreciation, good cheer, encouragement swept around and about me, as I was to start on what Dr. Gregg described as “A walk among the people of my congregation” around the world.

The following Sunday, May 13, 1894, just after the morning service, the Tabernacle was burned to the ground.