T. De Witt Talmage Part 30

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LETTER.]

A great welcome was given Dr. Talmage in Brooklyn, in November, 1900, when he preached in the Central Presbyterian Church there. It was the Doctor's second appearance in a Brooklyn church after the burning of the Tabernacle in 1894.

It was urged in the newspapers that he might return to his old home. The invitation was tempting, judging by the thousands who crowded that Sunday to hear him. In my sc.r.a.pbook I read of this occasion:

"Women fainted, children were half-crushed, gowns were torn and strong men grew red in the face as they buffeted the crowds that had gathered to greet the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage at the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn."

In the autumn of 1900, an anniversary of East Hampton, N.Y., was held, and the Doctor entered energetically and happily into the celebration, preaching in the little village church which had echoed to his voice in the early days of his ministry. It was a far call backward over nearly five decades of his teeming life. And he, whose magic style, whether of word or pen, had enchanted millions over the broad world--how well he remembered the fears and misgivings that had accompanied those first efforts, with the warning of his late professors ringing in his ears: "You must change your style, otherwise no pulpit will ever be open to you."

Now he could look back over more than a quarter of a century during which his sermons had been published weekly; through syndicates they had been given to the world in 3,600 different papers, and reached, it was estimated, 30,000,000 people in the United States and other countries.

They were translated into most European and even into Asiatic languages.

His collected discourses were already printed in twenty volumes, while material remained for almost as many more. His style, too, in spite of his "original eccentricities," had attracted hundreds of thousands of readers to his books on miscellaneous subjects--all written with a moral purpose. Among a score of them I might mention: From Manger to Throne; The Pathway of Life; Crumbs Swept Up; Every-day Religion; The Marriage Ring; Woman: her Powers and Privileges.

Dr. Talmage edited several papers beginning with _The Christian at Work_; afterwards he took charge, successively, of the _Advance, Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine_, and finally _The Christian Herald_, of which he continued to be chief editor till the end of his life. He spoke and wrote earnestly of the civilising and educational power of the press, and felt that in availing himself of it and thereby furnis.h.i.+ng lessons of righteousness and good cheer to millions, he was multiplying beyond measure his short span of life and putting years into hours. He said: "My lecture tours seem but hand-shaking with the vast throngs whom I have been enabled to preach to through the press."

His editorials were often wrought out in the highest style of literary art. I am pleased to give the following estimate from an author who knew him well: "As an editorial writer, Dr. Talmage was versatile and prolific, and his weekly contributions on an immense variety of topics would fill many volumes. His writing was as entertaining and pungent as his preaching, and full of brilliant eccentricities--'Talmagisms,' as they were called. He coined new words and invented new phrases. If the topic was to his liking, the pen raced to keep time with the thought....

Still, with all this haste, nothing could exceed the scrupulous care he took with his finished ma.n.u.script. He once wired from Cincinnati to his publisher in New York instructions to change a comma in his current sermon to a semicolon. He had detected the error while reading proof on the train."

Dr. Talmage's personal mail was thought to be the largest of any man in the country, outside of some of the public officers. Thousands, men and women, appealed to him for advice in spiritual things, revealing to him intimate family affairs, laying their hearts bare before him as before a trusted physician of the soul. I have seen him moved to the depths of his nature by some of these white missives bearing news of conversion to faith in Christ wrought by his sermons; of families rent asunder united through his words of love and broadmindedness; of mothers whose broken hearts he had healed by leading back the prodigal son; of prisoners whose hope in life and trust in a loving Father had been awakened by a casual reading of some of his comforting paragraphs.

The life of Dr. Talmage was by no means the luxurious one of the man of wealth and ease it was sometimes represented to be. He could not endure that men should have this aspect of him. He was a plain man in his tastes and his habits; the impression that he was ambitious for wealth, I know, was a false one. I do not believe he ever knew the value of money. The possession of it gave him little gratification except for its use in helping to carry on the great work he had in hand; and, indeed, he never knew how little or how much he had. He never would own horses lest he should give people reason to accuse him of being arrogantly rich. We drove a great deal, but he always insisted on hiring his carriages. If he accepted remuneration for his brain and heart labour, Scripture tells us, "The labourer is worthy of his hire." He was foremost in helping in any time of public calamity, not only in our own country but more than once in foreign lands. And when volumes of his sermons were pirated over the country, and he was urged to take legal steps to stop the injustice, he said: "Let them alone; the sermons will go farther and do more good."

Dr. Talmage's opinions were sought eagerly, and upon all subjects of social, political, or international interest. He was a student of men, and kept ever in close touch with the progress of events. A voluminous and rapid reader, he was quick to grasp the aim and significance of what he read and apply it to his purpose. His library in Was.h.i.+ngton contained a large and valuable collection of cla.s.sics, ancient and modern; and his East Hampton library was almost a duplicate of this. He never travelled very far without a trunkful of books. I remember, in the first year of our marriage, his interest in some books I had brought from my home that were new to him. Many of them he had not had time to read, so, in the evenings, I used to read them aloud to him. Tolstoi's works were his first choice; together we read a life of the great Russian, which the Doctor enjoyed immensely.

The Bible was ever held by Dr. Talmage in extreme reverence, which grew with his continual study and meditation of the sacred pages. He repudiated the "higher criticism" with a vehemence that caused him to be sharply a.s.sailed by modern critics--p.r.o.nounced infidels or of infidel proclivities--who called him a "bibliolater." He a.s.serted and rea.s.serted his belief in its divine inspiration: "The Bible is right in its authenticity, right in its style, right in its doctrine, and right in its effects. There is less evidence that Shakespeare wrote 'Hamlet,'

that Milton wrote 'Paradise Lost,' or that Tennyson wrote 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' than that the Bible is G.o.d's Word, written under inspiration by evangelists and prophets. It has stood the bombardment of ages, but with the result of more and more proof of its being a book divinely written and protected." "Science and Revelation are the ba.s.s and soprano of the same tune," he said. He defied the attempts of the loud-mouthed orators to destroy belief in the Bible. "I compare such men as Ingersoll, in their attacks on the Bible, to a gra.s.shopper upon a railway-line with the express coming thundering along."

His living portraits of Jesus, the Saviour of men, his studies of that divine life, of the words, the actions of the Son of G.o.d, especially of His sufferings and death, merging into the glory of His resurrection and ascension, are all well known to those who were of his wide audience.

The sweetness, gentleness, and sympathy of the Saviour were favourite themes with him. In a sermon on tears, he says: "Jesus had enough trials to make him sympathetic with all sorrowful souls. The shortest verse in the Bible tells the story: 'Jesus wept.' The scar on the back of either hand, the scar in the arch of either foot, the row of scars along the line of the hair, _will keep all Heaven thinking_. Oh, that Great Weeper is the One to silence all earthly trouble, to wipe all the stains of earthly grief. Gentle! Why, His step is softer than the step of the dew.

It will not be a tyrant bidding you hush your crying. It will be a Father who will take you on His left arm, His face beaming into yours, while with the soft tips of the fingers of the right hand He shall wipe away all tears from your eyes." And here is a word of appeal to those gone astray: "The great heart of Christ _aches_ to have you come in; and Jesus this moment looks into your eyes and says: 'Other sheep I have that are not of this fold.'"

Dr. Talmage was at times acutely sensitive to the thrusts of sharp criticism dealt to him through envy or misunderstanding of his motives.

A great writer has said somewhere: "Accusations make wounds and leave scars"; but even the scars were soon worn off his outraged feelings by the remembrance of his divine Master's gentleness and forgiveness. How often have I seen the mandate, "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you," verified in Dr. Talmage. He could not bear detraction or uncharitableness. His heart was so broad and loving that he seemed to have room in it for the whole world; and his greeting of strangers on an Australian platform, amid the heathers of Scotland, or in the Golden Gate of California, was so free and cordial that each one might have thought himself a dear friend of the Doctor, and he would have been right in thinking so. Again, his sense of humour was so great that he could laugh and "poke fun" at his critics with such ease and good humour that their arrows pa.s.sed harmlessly over his head. "Men have a right to their opinions," he would genially say. "There are twenty tall pippin trees in the orchard to one crab apple tree. There are a million clover blooms to one thistle in the meadow."

His will power was extraordinary; it was endowed with a persistence that overcame every obstacle of his life; there was an air of supreme confidence, of overwhelming vitality, about his every act. Nothing seemed to me more wonderful in him than this; and it entered into all his actions, from those that were important and far-reaching in their consequences to the workings of his daily life in the home. Though his way through these last milestones, during which I travelled with him, was chiefly through the triumphal archways he had raised for himself upon the foundations of his work, there were indications that their cornerstone was the will power of his nature.

Many incidents of the years before I knew him justify this opinion. One in particular ill.u.s.trates the extraordinary perseverance of Dr.

Talmage's character. When his son DeWitt was a boy, in a sudden mood of adventure one day, he enlisted in the United States Navy. Shortly afterwards he regretted having done so. Some one went to his father and told him that the boy was on board a wars.h.i.+p at Hampton Roads, homesick and miserable. Dr. Talmage went directly to Was.h.i.+ngton, straight into the office of Mr. Thompson, the Secretary of the Navy. "I am Dr.

Talmage," he said promptly; "my son has enlisted in the Navy and is on a s.h.i.+p near Norfolk. I want to go to him and bring him home. He is homesick. Will you write me an order for his release?" The Secretary replied that it had become an impression among rich men's sons that they could take an oath of service to the U.S. Government, and break it as soon as their fathers were ready, through the influence of wealth, to secure their release. He was opposed to such an idea, he said; and, therefore, though he was very sorry, he could not grant Dr. Talmage's request. The Doctor immediately took a chair in the office, and said firmly: "I shall not leave this office, Mr. Secretary, until you write out an order releasing my son."

The hour for luncheon came. The Secretary invited the Doctor to lunch with him. "I shall not leave this office, Mr. Secretary, until I get that order," was the Doctor's reply. The Secretary of the Navy left the office; after an absence of an hour and a half, he returned and found Dr. Talmage still sitting in the same place. The afternoon pa.s.sed.

Dinner time came round. "Dr. Talmage, will you not honour me by coming up to my house to dine, and staying with us over night?" asked the Secretary. "I shall not leave this office until you write out that order releasing my son, Mr. Secretary," was the calm, persistent reply. The Secretary departed. The building was empty, save for a watchman, to whom the Secretary said in pa.s.sing, "There is a gentleman in my room. When he wishes to leave let him out of the building."

About nine o'clock at night the Secretary became anxious. Telephones were not common then, so he went down to the office to investigate; and sitting there in the place where he had been all day was Dr. Talmage.

The order was written that night. This incident was told me by a friend of the Doctor's. There can be no doubt that Dr. Talmage was justified in this demand of paternal love and sympathy, since numbers of such concessions had been made by the Secretary and his predecessors. His daring and his pertinacity were overwhelming forces of his genius.

In the winter months of this year I enjoyed another lecturing tour with him through Canada and the West. The lecture bureau that arranged his tours must have counted on his herculean strength, for frequently he had to travel twenty-four hours at a stretch to keep his engagements.

Occasionally he was paid in cash at the end of the lecture an amount fixed by the lecture bureau. I have seen him with perhaps $2,000 in bills and gold stuffed away carelessly in his pocket, as if money were merely some curious specimen of no special value. Sometimes he would receive his fee in a cheque, and, as happened once in a small Western town, he would have very little money with him. I remember an occasion of this kind, because it was amusing. The cheque had been given the Doctor as usual at the end of his lecture. It was about eleven at night, and we were compelled to take a midnight train out to reach his next place of engagement. At the hotel where we stayed they did not have money enough to cash the cheque. We walked up the street to the other hotel, but found there an equal lack of the circulating medium. It was a bitter cold night.

"Here we are out in the world without a roof over our heads, Eleanor,"

said the Doctor, merrily. "What a cold world it is to the unfortunate."

Finally Dr. Talmage went to the ticket office of the railroad and explained the situation to the young man in charge. "I can't give you tickets, but I will buy them for you, and you can send me the money,"

the clerk said promptly. As we had an all-day ride before us and a drawing room to secure, the amount was not inconsiderable. I think it was on this trip that William Jennings Bryan got on the train and enlivened the journey for us. The stories he and the Doctor hammered out of the long hours of travel were entertaining. We exchanged invitations to the dining car so as not to stop the flow of conversation between Mr.

Bryan and the Doctor. We would invite him to lunch, and Mr. Bryan would ask us to dinner, or _vice versa_, so that the social amenities were delightfully extended to keep us in mutual enjoyment of the trip. Dr.

Talmage and myself agreed that Mr. Bryan's success on the platform was much enhanced by his wonderful voice. The Doctor said he had never heard so exquisite a speaking voice in a man as Mr. Bryan's. He always spoke in eloquent support of the ma.s.ses, denouncing the trusts with vehemence.

Travelling was always a kind of luxury to me, when we were not obliged to stop over at some wretched hotel. The Pullman cars were palatial in comfort compared to the hotels we had to enter. But Dr. Talmage was always satisfied; no hotel, however poor, could alter the cheerfulness of his temperament.

In January, 1901, Queen Victoria died, and Dr. Talmage's eulogy went far and wide. I quote again from my sc.r.a.p-book a part of his comment on this world event:

"While Queen Victoria has been the friend of all art, all literature, all science, all invention, all reform, her reign will be most remembered for all time, all eternity, as the reign of Christianity.

Beginning with that scene at 5 o'clock in the morning in Kensington Palace, where she asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to pray for her, and they knelt down imploring Divine guidance until her last hour, not only in the sublime liturgy of her established Church, but on all occasions, she has directly or indirectly declared: 'I believe in G.o.d, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son.'

"The Queen's book, so much criticised at the time of its appearance, some saying that it was skilfully done, and some saying that the private affairs of a household ought not to have been exposed, was nevertheless a book of rare usefulness, from the fact that it showed that G.o.d was acknowledged in all her life, and that 'Rock of Ages' was not an unusual song at Windsor Castle.

"I believe that no throne since the throne of David and the throne of Hezekiah and the throne of Esther, has been in such constant touch with the throne of heaven as the throne of Victoria. Sixty-three years of womanhood enthroned!"

In March of 1901 Dr. Talmage inaugurated a series of Twentieth Century Revival Meetings in the Academy of Music, in New York. It was a great Gospel campaign in which thousands were powerfully impressed for life.

The Doctor seemed to have made a new start in a defined evangelical plan of saving the world. Indeed, _to save_ was his great watchword, to save sinners, but most of all to save men from becoming sinners. One of his famous themes--and thousands remember his burning words--was "The Three Greatest Things to Do--Save a Man, Save a Woman, Save a Child." There was a certain anxiety in my mind about Dr. Talmage in this sixty-eighth year of his life, and I used to tell him that he had reached the top of all religious obligations as he himself felt them, that there was nothing greater for him to do, and that he might now move with softer measure to the inspired impulses of his life. But he never delayed, he never tarried, he never waited. He marched eagerly ahead, as if the milestones of his life stretched many years beyond.

Our social life in Was.h.i.+ngton was subservient to Dr. Talmage's reign of preaching. We never accepted invitations without the privilege of qualifying our acceptance, making them subject to the Doctor's religious duties. The privilege was gracefully acknowledged by all our friends. We were away from Was.h.i.+ngton, too, a great deal. In the spring of this year, 1901, the Doctor made a lecturing tour through the South, that was full of oratorical triumphs for him, but no less marked by delightful social incidents. There was a series of dinners and receptions in his honour that I shall never forget, in those beautiful homes of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Because of his Gospel pilgrimage of many years in these places, Dr. Talmage had grown to be a household G.o.d among them.

When winter had shed his garland of snow over nature, or when we were knee deep in summer's verdure and flowers, East Hampton was the Doctor's headquarters. From there we made our summer trips. It was after a short season at East Hampton in the summer of 1901, that the Doctor went to Ocean Grove, where he delivered a Fourth of July oration, the enormous auditorium being crowded to its utmost capacity. A few days later we went to Buffalo, where, in a large tent standing in the Exposition ground, Dr. Talmage lectured, his powerful voice triumphing over the fireworks that, from a place near by, went booming up through the heavens. After a series of Chautauqua lectures through Michigan and Wisconsin, the Doctor finished his course at Lake Port, Maryland, near picturesque Deer Park. These are merely casual recollections, too brief to serve otherwise than as evidence of Dr. Talmage's tremendous industry and energy.

In September, 1901, came the a.s.sa.s.sination of President McKinley. Dr.

Talmage had an engagement to preach at Ocean Grove the day following the disaster. On our arrival at the West End Hotel, Long Branch, the Doctor went in to register while we remained in the carriage at the door.

Suddenly he came out, and I could see that he was very much agitated. He had just received the news of the tragedy.

"I cannot preach to-morrow," he said. "This is too horrible. McKinley has been shot. What shall I do?" And he stood there utterly stunned; unable to think. "Well, we will stop at the hotel to-night, at any rate," I said, "let us go in."

Later the Doctor tried to explain to those in charge at Ocean Grove that he could not preach, but they prevailed upon him to deliver the sermon he had with him, which he did, prefacing it with appropriate remarks about the national disaster of the hour.

The following telegram was immediately sent to the Chief of the Nation, cut off so ruthlessly in his career of honour and usefulness:--

"Long Branch, September 6th.

"President McKinley, Buffalo, N.Y.

"The Nation is in prayer for your recovery. You will be nearer and dearer to the people than ever before after you have pa.s.sed this crisis. Mrs. Talmage joins me in sympathy.

"T. DEWITT TALMAGE."

After the death of the President the Doctor preached his sermon "Our Dead President" for the first time in the little church at East Hampton, where it had been written in his study. In October the Doctor was called upon to preach at the obsequies of the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, for many years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Was.h.i.+ngton. What a long season of obsequies Dr. Talmage solemnised! And yet, with what supreme optimism he defied the unseen arrow in his own life that came to pierce him with such suddenness in April, 1902.

The Doctor had been a good traveller, and he was fond of travelling; but, toward the end of his life, there were moments when he felt its fatiguing influences. He never complained or appeared apprehensive, but I remember the first time he showed any weariness of spirit. I almost recall his words: "I have written so much about everything, that now it becomes difficult for me to write. I am tired." It frightened me to hear him say this, he was so wonderful in endurance and strength; and I could not shake off the effect that this first sign of his declining years made upon me. He was then sixty-nine years old, and the last of the twelve children, save his sister.

The last sermon he ever wrote was preached in February, 1902. The text of this was from Psalms x.x.xiii. 2: "Sing unto Him with the Psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings." This was David's harp of grat.i.tude and praise. After some introductory paragraphs on the harp, its age, the varieties of this "most consecrated of all instruments," its "tenderness," its place in "the richest symbolism of the Holy Scriptures," he writes: "David's harp had ten strings, and, when his great soul was afire with the theme, his sympathetic voice, accompanied by exquisite vibrations of the chords, must have been overpowering....

The simple fact is that the most of us, if we praise the Lord at all, play upon one string or two strings, or three strings, when we ought to take a harp fully chorded, and with glad fingers sweep all the strings.