THE SECOND MILESTONE
1899-1900
In his study no wasted hours ever entered. With the exception of the stenographer and his immediate family no one was admitted there. It was his eventful laboratory where he conceived the greatest sermons of his period. I merely quote the opinions of others, far more important than my own, when I say this. It is a sort of haunted room to-day which I enter not with any fear, but I can never stay in it very long. It has no ghostly associations, it is too full of vital memories for that; but it is a room that mystifies and silences me, not with mere regrets, for that is sorrow, and there is nothing sad about the place to me. I can scarcely convey the impression; it is as though I expected to see him come in at the door at any moment and hear him call my name. The room is empty, but it makes me feel that he has only just stepped out for a little while. The study is at the top of the house, a long, wide, high-ceilinged room with many windows, from which the tops of trees sway gently in the breeze against the sky above and beyond. I spent a great deal of time with him in it. Sometimes he would talk with me there about the themes of his sermons which were always drawn from some need in modern life.
With the Bible open before him he would seek for a text.
"After forty years of preaching about all the wonders of this great Book," he would say, "I am often puzzled where to choose the text most fitting to my sermon."
His habits were methodical in the extreme; his time punctually divided by a fixed system of invaluable character. His inspirations were part of his eternal spirit, but he lived face to face with time, obedient to the law of its precision. I think of him always as of one whose genius was unknown to himself.
We could always tell the time of day by the Doctor's habits. They were as regular as a clock that never varies. At 7.30 to the second he was at the breakfast table. It was exactly one o'clock when he sat down to dinner. At 6.30 his supper was before him. Some of our household would have preferred dining in the evening, but in that case the Doctor would have dined alone, which was out of the question.
Every day of his life, excepting Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Doctor walked five miles. In bad weather he went out muffled and booted like a sailor on a stormy sea. His favourite walk was always from our house to the Capitol, around the Library of Congress and back. He never varied this walk for he had no bump of locality, and he was afraid of losing his way. If he strayed from the beaten path into any one of the beautiful squares in Washington he was sure to have to ask a policeman how to get home.
Fridays and Saturdays Dr. Talmage spent entirely in his study, dictating his sermons. How many miles he walked these days he himself never knew, but all day long he tramped back and forth the length of his study, composing and expounding in a loud voice the sermon of the week. He could be heard all over the house. We had a new servant once who came rushing downstairs to my room one morning in great fear.
"Mrs. Talmage, ma'am, there is a crazy man in that room on the top floor," she cried. She had not seen nor heard the Doctor, and did not know that that room was his study. On these weekend days we always drove after dark. An open carriage was at the door by 8 o'clock, and no matter what the weather might be we had our drive. In the dead of winter, wrapped in furs and rugs, we have driven in an open carriage just as if it were summer. Usually we went up on Capitol Hill because the Doctor was fond of the view from that height.
My share in the Doctor's labours were those of a watchful companion, who appreciated his genius, but could give it no greater light than sympathy and admiration. Occasionally he would ask me to select the hymns for the services, and this I did as well as I could. Sunday was the great day of the week to me. It has never been the same since the Doctor died. Our friendships were always mutual, and we shared them with equal pleasure. The Doctor's friendship with President McKinley was an intimate mutual association that ended only with the great national disaster of the President's assassination. Very often, we walked over in the morning to the White House to call on the President for an informal chat. A little school friend, who was visiting my daughter that winter, told my husband how anxious she was to see a President.
"Come on with me, I will show you a real President," said Dr. Talmage one morning, and over we went to the White House. While we were talking with the President, Mrs. McKinley came in from a drive and sent word that she wished to see us.
"I want to show you the President's library and bedroom," she said, "that you may see how a President lives." Then she took us upstairs and showed us their home.
While we did not keep open house, there was always someone dropping in to take dinner or supper informally, and I was somewhat surprised when Dr. Talmage told me one day that he thought we ought to give some sort of entertainment in return for our social obligations. It was not quite like him to remember or think of such things. On January 23, 1899, we gave an evening reception, to which over 300 people came. It was the first social affair of consequence the Doctor had ever given in his house in Washington.
My husband's memory for names was so uncertain that when he introduced me to people he tactfully mumbled. On this occasion Senator Gorman very kindly stood near me to identify the people for me. I remember a very dapper, very little man in evening clothes, who was passed on to me by the Doctor, with the usual unintelligible introduction, and I had just begun to make myself agreeable when, pointing to a medal on his coat, the little man said:
"I am the only woman in the United States who has been honoured with one of these medals."
I was very much mystified and looked up helplessly at Senator Gorman, who relieved me at once by saying, "Mrs. Talmage, this is the celebrated Dr. Mary Walker, of whom you have heard so often."
It was difficult for Dr. Talmage to assimilate the social obligations of life with the broader demands of his life mission, which seemed to constantly extend and increase in scope into the far distances of the world. More and more evident it became that the candlestick of his religious doctrine could no longer be maintained in one church, or in one pulpit. The necessity of breaking engagements out of town so as to be in Washington every Sunday became irksome to him. He felt that he could do better in the purposes of his usefulness as a preacher if he were to bear the candle of his Gospel in a candlestick he could carry everywhere himself. I confess that I was not sorry when he reached this decision and submitted his resignation to the First Presbyterian Church in the spring of 1899, after our return from a short vacation in Florida.
On our trip South I remember Admiral Schley was on the train with us part of the way. The Admiral told the Doctor the whole story of the Santiago victory, and commented upon the official investigation of the affair. My husband was very fond of him, and his comment was summed up in his reassuring answer to the Admiral—"But you were there."
It was during our stay in Florida that Dr. Talmage and Joseph Jefferson, the actor, renewed their acquaintance. The Doctor never saw him act because he had made it a rule after he entered the ministry in his youth never to go to the theatre to see a play. In crossing the ocean he had frequently appeared with stage celebrities, at the usual entertainments given on board ship for the benefit of seamen, and in this way had made some friends among actors. He was particularly fond of Madame Modjeska, whom he had met on the steamer, and whose character and spirit he greatly admired.
Jefferson was a great fisherman, and most of his day was spent on the water or on the pier. There we used to meet him, and he and Dr. Talmage would exchange reminiscences, serious and ludicrous. One of the Doctor's favourite stories was an account of a terrific fight he saw in India, between a mongoose and a cobra. Mr. Jefferson also had a story, a sort of parody of this, which described a man in delirium tremens watching in imaginary terror a similar fight. Years before this, when the Doctor had delivered his famous sermon in Brooklyn against the stage, Jefferson was among the actors who went to hear him. Recalling this incident, Mr. Jefferson said:—
"When I entered that church to hear your sermon, Doctor, I hated you. When I left the church, I loved you." He talked very little of the theatre, and seemed to regard his stage career with less importance than he did his love of painting. He never grew tired of this subject.
When we were leaving Palm Beach, Mr. Jefferson said to me, "I know Dr. Talmage won't come and see me act, but when I am in Washington I will send you a box, and I hope the Doctor will let you come."
Dr. Talmage's resignation from his church in Washington took place in March, 1899. I quote his address to the Presbytery because it was a momentous event occurring in the gloaming of what seemed to us all, then, the prime of his life:
"March 3, 1899.
"To the Session of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington.
"Dear Friends—
"The increasing demands made upon me by religious journalism, and the continuous calls for more general work in the cities, have of late years caused frequent interruption of my pastoral work. It is not right that this condition of affairs should further continue. Besides that, it is desirable that I have more opportunity to meet face to face, in religious assemblies, those in this country and in other countries to whom I have, through the kindness of the printing press, been permitted to preach week by week, and without the exception of a week, for about thirty years. Therefore, though very reluctantly, I have concluded, after serving you nearly four years in the pastoral relation, to send this letter of resignation....
"T. DeWitt Talmage."
I had rather expected that the Doctor's release from his church would have had the desired effect of reducing his labours, but he never accomplished less than the allotment of his utmost strength. Rest was a problem he never solved, and he did not know what it meant. My life had not been idle by any means, but it seemed to me that the Doctor's working hours were without end. When I told him this, he would say:—
"Why, Eleanor, I am not working hard at all now. This is very tame compared to what I have done in the years gone by."
His weekly sermon was always put in the mail on Saturday night, as also his weekly editorials. Sunday the sermon was preached, and on Monday morning the syndicate of newspapers in this country printed it. He made always two copies of his sermon. One he sent to his editorial offices in New York, the other was delivered to the Washington Post. I was told a little while ago that a prominent preacher called on the editor of this newspaper and asked him to publish one of his own sermons. This was refused, even when the aforesaid preacher offered to pay for the privilege.
"But you print Talmage's sermons!" said the preacher.
"We do," replied the editor, "because we find that our readers demand them. We tried to do without them, but we could not."
Dr. Talmage's acquaintance with men of national reputation was very wide, but he never seemed to consider their friendship greater than any others. He was a great hero worshipper himself, always impressed by a man who had done something in the world. There was a great deal of praise being bestowed about this time on Mr. Carnegie's library gifts. Dr. Talmage admired the Scottish-American immensely, having formed his acquaintance while crossing the ocean. Five or six years later, during the winter of 1899, the Doctor met him in one of the rooms of the White House. He tells this anecdote in his own words, as follows:—
"I was glad I was present that day, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie decided upon the gift of a library to the city of Washington. I was in one of the rooms of the White House talking with Governor Lowndes, of Maryland, and Mr. B.H. Warner, of Washington, who was especially interested in city libraries. Mr. Carnegie entered at the opposite end of the room. We greeted each other with heartiness, not having met since we crossed the ocean together some time before. I asked Mr. Carnegie to permit me to introduce him to some friends. After each introduction the conversation immediately turned upon libraries, as Mr. Carnegie was then constantly presenting them in this and other lands. Before the conversation ended that day, Mr. Carnegie offered $250,000 for a Washington library. I have always felt very happy at having had anything to do with that interview, which resulted so gloriously."
Dr. Talmage's opinions upon the aftermath of the Spanish war were widely quoted at this time.
"The fact is this war ought never to have occurred," he said. "We have had the greatest naval officer of this century, Admiral Schley, assailed for disobeying orders, and General Shatter denounced for being too fat and wanting to retreat, and General Wheeler attacked because of something else. We are all tired of this investigating business. I never knew a man in Church or State to move for an investigating committee who was not himself somewhat of a hypocrite. The question is what to do with the bad job we have on hand. I say, educate and evangelise those islands."
As he wrote he usually talked, and these words are recollections of the subjects he talked over with me in his quieter study hours. They were virile talks, abreast of the century hurrying to its close, full of cheerfulness, faith, and courage for the future.
He was particularly distressed and moved by the death of Chief Justice Field, in April, 1899. It was his custom to read his sermons to me in his study before preaching. He chose for his sermon on April 16, the decease of the great jurist, and his text was Zachariah xi, 2: "Howl fir tree, for the cedar has fallen." Many no doubt remember this sermon, but no one can realise the depths of feeling with which the Doctor read it to me in the secret corner of his workroom at home. But his heart was in every sermon. He said when he resigned from his church:—
"The preaching of the Gospel has always been my chosen work, I believe I was called to it, and I shall never abandon it."
During this season in Washington we gave a few formal dinners. My husband wished it, and he was a cheerful, magnetic host, though he accepted few invitations to dinner himself. No wine was served at these dinners, and yet they were by no means dull or tiresome. Our guests were men of ideas, men like Justice Brewer, Speaker Reed, Senator Burrows, Justice Harlan, Vice-President Fairbanks, Governor Stone, and Senators who have since become members of the old guard. It was said in Washington at the time that Dr. Talmage's dinner parties were delightful, because they were ostensible opportunities to hear men talk who had something to say. The Doctor was liberal-minded about everything, but his standards of conduct were the laws of his life that no one could jeopardise or deny.
A very prominent society woman came to Dr. Talmage one day to ask the favour that he preach a temperance sermon for the benefit of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whom she wanted to interest in temperance legislation. She promised to bring him to the Doctor's church for that purpose.
"Madame, I shall be very glad to have Sir Wilfrid Laurier attend my church," said the Doctor, "but I never preach at anybody. Your request is something I cannot agree to." The lady was a personal friend, and she persisted. Finally the Doctor said to her:
"Mrs. G——, my wife and I are invited to meet Sir Wilfrid Laurier at a dinner in your house next week. Will you omit the wines at that dinner?" The lady admitted that that would be impossible.
"Then you see, Madame, how difficult it would be for me to alter my principles as a preacher." In May, 1899, Dr. Talmage and I left Washington and went to East Hampton—alone. Contrary to his usual custom of closing his summer home between seasons, the Doctor had allowed a minister and his family to live there for three months. Diphtheria had developed in the family during that time and the Doctor ordered everything in the house to be burned, and the walls scraped. So the whole house had to be refurnished, and the Doctor and I together selected the furniture. It was a joyous time, it was like redecorating our lives with a new charm and sentiment that was intimately beautiful and refreshing. I remember the tenderness with which the Doctor showed me a place on the door of the barn where his son DeWitt, who died, had carved his initials. He would never allow that spot to be touched, it was sacred to the memory of what was perhaps the most absorbing affection of his life. He always called East Hampton his earthly paradise, which to him meant a busy Utopia. He was very fond of the sea bathing, and his chief recreation was running on the beach. He was 65 years old, yet he could run like a young man. These few weeks were a memorable vacation.
In June, Dr. Talmage made an engagement to attend the 60th commencement exercises of the Erskine Theological College in Due West, South Carolina. This is the place where secession was first planned, as it is also the oldest Presbyterian centre in the United States. We were the guests of Dr. Grier, the president of the college. It was known that Rev. David P. Pressly, Presbyterian patriarch and graduate of this college, had been my father's pastor in Pittsburg, and this association added some interest to my presence in Due West with the Doctor. The Rev. E.P. Lindsay, my brother's pastor in Pittsburg, had also been born there, and his mother, when I met her in 1899, was still a vigorous Secessionist. Her greatest disappointment was the fact that her son had abandoned the sentiments of Secession and had gone to preach in a Northern church. She told us that she had once hidden Jefferson Davis in her house for three days. Due West was a quiet little village inhabited by some rich people who lived comfortably on their plantations. The graduating class of the college were entertained at dinner by Dr. Grier and the Doctor. There was a great deal of comment upon the physical vigour and strength of Dr. Talmage's address, most of which reached me. A gentleman who was present was reminded of the remarkable energy of the Rev. Dr. Pressly, who preached for over fifty years, and was married three times. When asked about his health, Dr. Pressly always throughout his life made the same reply, "Never better; never better." After he had won his third wife, however, he used to reply to this question with greater enthusiasm than before, saying, "Better than ever; better than ever." Another resident of Due West, who had heard both the Booths in their prime, said, "Talmage has more dramatic power than I ever saw in Booth." This visit to Due West will always remain in my memory as full of sunshine and warmth as the days were themselves.
We returned to East Hampton for a few days, and on July 4, 1899, the Doctor delivered an oration to an immense crowd in the auditorium at Ocean Grove. This was the beginning of a summer tour of Chautauquas, first in Michigan, then up the lakes near Mackinaw Island, and later to Jamestown, New York.
In the Fall of 1899 we made a trip South, including Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Birmingham, and New Orleans. One remarkable feature of Dr. Talmage's public life was the way in which he was sought as the man of useful opinions upon subjects that were not related to the pulpit. He was always being interviewed upon political and local issues, and his views were scattered broadcast, as if he were himself an official of national affairs. He never failed to be ahead of the hour. He regarded the affairs of men as the basis of his evangelical purpose. The Spanish war ended, and his views were sought about the future policy in the East. The Boer war came, and his opinions of that issue were published. Nothing moved in or out of the world of import, during these last milestones of his life, that he was not asked about its coming and its going. His readiness to penetrate the course of events, to wrap them in the sacred veil of his own philosophy and spiritual fabric, combined to make him one of the foremost living characters of his time.
Dr. Talmage was the most eager human being I ever knew, eager to see, to feel the heart of all humanity. I remember we arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, the day following the disaster that visited that city after the great cyclone. The first thing the Doctor did on our arrival was to get a carriage and drive through those sections of the city that had suffered the most. It was a gruesome sight, with so many bodies lying about the streets awaiting burial. But that was his grasp of life, his indomitable energy, always alert to see and hear the laws of nature at close range.
We were entertained a great deal through the South, where I believe my husband had the warmest friends and a more cordial appreciation than in any other part of the country. There was no lack of excitement in this life that I was leading at the elbow of the great preacher, and sometimes he would ask me if the big crowds did not tire me. To him they were the habit of his daily life, a natural consequence of his industry. However, I think he always found me equal to them, always happy to be near him where I could see and hear all.
In October of this year we returned to Washington, when the Pan-Presbyterian Council was in session, and we entertained them at a reception in our house till late in the evening. The International Union of Women's Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches were also meeting in Washington at this time, and they came. At one of the meetings of the Council Dr. Talmage invited them all to his house from the platform in his characteristic way.
"Come all," he said, "and bring your wives with you. God gave Eve to Adam so that when he lost Paradise he might be able to stand it. She was taken out of man's side that she might be near the door of his heart, and have easy access to his pockets. Therefore, come, bringing the ladies with you. My wife and I shall not be entertaining angels unawares, but knowing it all the while. To have so much piety and brain under one roof at once, even for an hour or two, will be a benediction to us all the rest of our lives. I believe in the communion of saints as much as I believe in the life everlasting."
In November, 1899, Dr. Talmage installed the Rev. Donald McLeod as succeeding pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, and delivered the installation address, the subject of which was, "Invitation to Outsiders." There had been some effort to inspire the people of Washington to build an independent Tabernacle for the Doctor after his resignation, but he himself was not in sympathy with the movement because of the additional labour and strain it would have put upon him.
As the winter grew into long, gray days, we were already planning a trip to Europe for the following year of 1900, and we were anticipating this event with eager expectancy as the time grew near.
THE THIRD MILESTONE
1900-1901
So much has been written about Dr. Talmage the world over, that I am tempted to tell those things about him that have not been written, but it is difficult to do. He stood always before the people a sort of radiant mystery to them. He was never really understood by those whom he most influenced. A writer in an English newspaper has given the best description of his appearance in 1900 I ever saw. It is so much better than any I could make that I quote it, regretting that I do not know the author's name:—
"A big man, erect and masterful in spite of advancing years, with an expressive and mobile mouth that seems ever smiling, and with great and speaking eyes which proclaim the fervent soul beneath."
This portrait is very true, with a suggestion of his nature that makes it a faithful transcript of his presence. It is a picture of him at 66 years of age. His strength overwhelmed people, and yet he was very simple, easily affected by the misfortunes of others, direct in all his impressions; but no one could take him by surprise, because his faith in the eternal redemption of all trials was beyond the ways of the world. His optimism was simple Christianity. He always said he believed there was as great a number out of the Church as there was in it that followed the teaching of Christianity. He was among the believers, with his utmost energy alert to save and comfort the unbelievers. He believed in everything and everyone. The ingenuousness of his nature was childlike in its unchallenged faith and its tender instincts. His unworldliness was almost legendary in its belief of human nature. I remember he was asked once whether he believed in Santa Claus, and in his own beautiful imagery he said:
"I believe in Santa Claus. Haven't I listened when I was a boy and almost heard those bells on the reindeer; haven't I seen the marks in the snow where the sleigh stopped at the door and old Santa jumped out? I believed in him then and I believe in him now—believe that children should be allowed to believe in the beautiful mythical tale. It never hurt anyone, and I think one of the saddest memories of my childhood is of a day when an older brother told me there was no Santa Claus. I didn't believe him at first, and afterwards when I saw those delightful mysterious bundles being sneaked into the house, way down deep in my heart I believed that Santa Claus as well as my father and mother had something to do with it."
In the last years of his life music became the greatest pleasure to Dr. Talmage. An accumulation of work made it necessary for me to engage a secretary. We were fortunate in securing a young lady who was an exquisite pianist. In the evening she would play Liszt's rhapsodies for the Doctor, who enjoyed the Hungarian composer most of all. He said to me once that he felt as if music in his study, when he was at work, would be a great inspiration. So my Christmas present to him that year was a musical box, which he kept in his study.
The three months preceding our trip to Europe were spent in the usual busy turmoil of social and public life. In truth we were very full of our plans for the European tour, which was to be devoted to preaching by Dr. Talmage, and to show me the places he had seen and people he had met on previous visits. There was something significant in the welcome and the ovations which my husband received over there. Neither the Doctor nor myself ever dreamed that it would be his farewell visit. And yet it seems to me now that he was received everywhere in Europe as if they expected it to be his last.
I must confess that we looked forward to our jaunt across the water so eagerly that the events of the preceding months did not seem very important. With Dr. Talmage I went on his usual lecture trip West, stopping in Chicago, where the Doctor preached in his son's church. Everywhere we were invited to be the guests of some prominent resident of the town we were in. It had been so with Dr. Talmage for years. He always refused, however, because he felt that his time was too imperative a taskmaster. For thirty years he had never visited anyone over night, until he went to my brother's house in Pittsburg. But we were constantly meeting old friends of his, friends of many years, in every stopping place of our journeys. I remember particularly one of these characteristic meetings which took place in New York, where the Doctor, had gone to preach one Sunday. We had just entered the Waldorf Hotel, where we were stopping, when a little man stepped up to the Doctor and began picking money off his coat. He seemed to find it all over him. Dr. Talmage laughed, and introduced me to Marshall P. Wilder.
"Dr. Talmage started me in life," said Mr. Wilder, and proceeded to tell me how the Doctor had filled him with optimism and success. He was always doing this, gripping young men by the shoulders and shaking them into healthful life. And then men of political or national prominence were always seeking him out, to gain a little dynamic energy and balance from the Doctor's storehouse of experience and philosophy. He was a giant of helpfulness and inspiration, to everyone who came into contact with him.
In January we dined with Governor Stone at the executive mansion in Harrisburg, where Dr. Talmage went to preach, and on our return from Europe Governor Stone insisted upon giving us a great reception and welcome. Of course, those years were stirring and enjoyable, and never to be forgotten. The reflected glory is a personal pleasure after all.
In April, 1900, we sailed on the "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" bound for London. The two points of interest the Doctor insisted upon making in Europe were the North Cape, to see the Midnight Sun, and the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau. Hundreds of invitations had been sent to him to preach abroad, many of which he accepted, but he could not be persuaded to lecture.
There was never a jollier, more electric companion de voyage than Dr. Talmage during the whole of his trip. He was the life of the party, which included his daughter, Miss Maud Talmage, and my daughter, Miss Rebekah Collier.
On a very stormy Sunday, on board ship going over, Dr. Talmage preached, holding on to a pillar in the cabin. There were some who wondered how he escaped the tortures of mal-de-mer, from which he had always suffered. It was a family secret. Once, when crossing with Mrs. Vanderbilt, she had given Dr. Talmage an opium plaster, which was absolute proof against the disagreeable consequences of ocean travel. With the aid of this plaster the Doctor's poise was perfect. Disembarking at Southampton we did not reach London until 3 a.m., going to the hotel somewhat the worse for wear. Temporarily we stopped at the Langham, moving later to the Metropole. Before lunch the same day the Doctor drove to Westminster Abbey to see the grave of Gladstone. It was his first thought, his first duty. It had been his custom for many years to visit the graves of his friends whenever he could be near them. It was a characteristic impulse of Dr. Talmage's to follow to the edge of eternity those whom he had known and liked. When he was asked in England what he had come to do there, he said:
"I am visiting Europe with the hope of reviving old friendships and stimulating those who have helped me in the old gospel of kindness."
His range of vision was always from the Gospel point of view, not necessarily denominational. I remember he was asked, while in England, if there was an organisation in America akin to the Evangelical Council of Free Churches, and he said, while there was no such body, "there was a common platform in the United States upon almost every subject."
The principal topic in England then was the Boer War, which aroused so much hostility in our country. The Doctor's sympathies were with the Boers, but he tactfully evaded any public expression of them in England, although he was interviewed widely on the subject. He never believed in rumours that were current, that the United States would interfere in the Transvaal, and prophesied that the American Government would not do so—"remembering their common origin."
"The great need in America," he said, "is of accurate information about the Transvaal affairs. A great many Democratic politicians are trying to make Presidential capital out of the Boer disturbances, but it is doubtful how far these politicians will be permitted to dictate the policy of even their own party."
I remember the candidature for President of Admiral Dewey was discussed with Dr. Talmage, who had no very emphatic views about the matter, except to declare Admiral Dewey's tremendous popularity, and to acknowledge his support by the good Democrats of the country. The Doctor was convinced however that Mr. McKinley would be the next President at this time.
The first service in England which Dr. Talmage conducted was in Cavendish Chapel at Manchester. The next was at Albert Hall in Nottingham, under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. He was described in the Nottingham newspapers as the "most alive man in the United States." A great crowd filled the hall at Nottingham, and as usual he was compelled to hold an open-air meeting afterwards. The first lecture he ever delivered in England was given in this place twenty-one years before.
Nothing interfered with the routine of the Doctor's habits of industry during all this European trip. He had taken over with him the proofs of about 20 volumes of his selected sermons for correction, and all his spare moments were spent in perfecting and revising these books for the printer. His sermons were the only monument he wished to leave to posterity. It has caused me the deepest regret that these books have not been perpetuated as he so earnestly wished. In addition to this work he wrote his weekly sermon for the syndicate, employing stenographers wherever he might be in Europe two days every week for that purpose. And yet he never lost interest in the opportunities of travel, eagerly planning trips to the old historic places near by.
Near Nottingham is the famous Byron country which Dr. Talmage had never found time to visit when he was in Europe before. We were told, at the hotel in Nottingham, that no visitors were allowed inside Newstead Abbey, so that when we ordered a carriage to drive there the hotel people shrugged their shoulders at what they regarded as our American irreverence. The rain was coming down in torrents when we started, the Doctor more than ever determined to overthrow British custom in his quiet, positive way. Through slush and mud, under dripping trees, across country landscapes veiled in the tender mist of clouds, we finally arrived at the Abbey. The huge outer gates were open, but the driver, with proper British respect for the law, stopped his horses. The Doctor leaned his head out of the carriage window and told him to drive into the grounds. Obediently he did so, and at last we reached the great heavy doors of the entrance. Dr. Talmage jumped out and boldly rang the bell. A sentry appeared to inform us that no one was allowed inside the Abbey.
"But we have come all the way from America to see this place," the Doctor urged. The sentry, with wooden militarism, was adamant.
"Is there no one inside in authority?" the Doctor finally asked. Then the housekeeper was called. She told us that the Abbey belonged to an Army officer and his wife, that her master was away at the war in South Africa where his wife had gone with him, and that her orders were imperative.
"Look here, just let us see the lower floor," said Dr. Talmage; "we have come all the way from New York to see this place," and he slipped two sovereigns into her hand. Still she was unmoved. My daughter, who was then about 14, was visibly disappointed. England was to her hallowed ground, and she was keenly anxious to walk in the footsteps of all its romance, which she had eagerly absorbed in history. Turning to the Doctor, she said, almost tearfully:
"Why, Doctor Talmage, how can they refuse you?"
The housekeeper caught the name.
"Who did you say this was?" she asked.
"Doctor Talmage," said my daughter.
"Dr. Talmage, I was just reading the sermon you preached on Sunday in the Nottingham newspaper, I am sure if my mistress were at home she would be glad to receive you. Come in, come in!"
So we saw Newstead Abbey. The housekeeper insisted that we should stay to tea, and made us enter our names in the visitors' book, and asked the Doctor to write his name on a card, saying, "I will send this to my mistress in South Africa."
In the effort to remember many of the details of our stay in England and Scotland, I find it necessary to take refuge for information in my daughter's diary. It amused Dr. Talmage very much as he read it page by page. I find this entry made in Manchester, where she was not well enough to attend church:—
"Sunday, A.M.—Doctor Talmage preached and I was disappointed that I could not go. The people went wild about the Doctor, and he had to make an address after church out-of-doors for those who could not get inside. Several policemen stood around the church door to keep away the crowd. I saw the High Sheriff driving home from church. He was inside a coach that looked as though it had been drawn out of a fairy tale—a huge coach painted red and gold, with crowns or something like them at each of the four corners. Two footmen dressed in George III. liveries were hanging behind by ribbons, and two on the box, all wearing powdered wigs. To be sure, I didn't see much of the Sheriff, but then the coach was the real show after all."
Many of the details of the side trips which we made through England and Scotland have escaped my memory. In looking over my daughter's diary I find them amplified in the manner of girlhood, now lightly touched with fancy, now solemn with historical responsibility, now charmed with the glamour of romance. Dr. Talmage thought so well of them that they will serve to show the trail of his footsteps through the gateways of ancestral England.
We went to Haddon Hall with Dr. Wrench, physician to the Duke of Devonshire. We drove from Bakewell. In this part of my daughter's diary I read:—
"It was a most beautiful drive. Derbyshire is called the Switzerland of England. The hills were quite high and beautifully wooded, and our drive lay along the river's edge—a brook we would call it in the States, but it is a river here—and winds in and out and through the fields and around the foot of the highest hill of all, called the Peak of Derbyshire. We passed picturesque little farmhouses, built of square blocks of rough, grey stone covered with ivy. We drove between hawthorn hedges, through beautiful green fields and orchards. From the midst of a little forest of grand old trees we caught sight of the highest tower of the castle, then we crossed over a little stone bridge and passed through the gates. Another short drive across the meadow and we stopped at the foot of a little hill, looking up at Haddon Hall.
"We walked up to the castle and stood before the great iron-studded oak door, which has been there since the days of Queen Elizabeth. It had not been opened for years, but a smaller one had been cut in it through which visitors passed. For over 200 years no one had lived in the castle. It was built by the Normans and given by William the Conqueror to one of his Norman Barons. Finally by marriage it became the property of Sir George Vernon, who had two daughters, famous for their beauty. Margaret Vernon married a Stanley, and on the night of the wedding Dorothy Vernon eloped with Mr. John Manners. The story is very romantic. The ballroom from which Dorothy stole away when the wedding party was at its height is still just as it was then, excepting for the furniture. From the windows you can see the little stone bridge where Manners waited for her with the horses. Haddon Hall became the property of Dorothy Manners and has remained in the hands of the Rutland family, being now owned by the Duke of Rutland.
"That is the romance of Haddon Hall, but one could make up a hundred to oneself when one walks through the different rooms. What a queer feeling it gives me to go through the old doorways, to stop and look through the queer little windows, and on the courtyard, wondering who used, long ago, to look out of the same windows. I wonder what they saw going on in the courtyard?
"We climbed to the top of the highest tower. The stairway wound upward with stone steps about three feet high cut out of the wall. At intervals we found little square rooms, very possibly where the men at arms slept. What a view at the top! The towers and roofs and courtyards of the castle lay before us. All around us the lovely English country, and as far as the eye could see, hills, woodland, and the winding river. It was glorious. Maud and I danced a two-step in the ballroom.
"If stones could only talk! Well, if they could I should want a long confab with each one in the old courtyard of Haddon Hall. Who can tell, William the Conqueror himself may have stepped on some of them."
We drove from Haddon Hall to the Peacock Inn for luncheon, going over to Chatsworth for the afternoon. Again I turn a few leaves of the diary:
"Chatsworth is one of the homes of the Duke of Devonshire. The park is fourteen miles across and I don't know how big it is, but Dr. Wrench told me the number of acres, and I think it was three or four thousand. We drove five miles through the park before reaching the gates of Chatsworth—shall I call it house or castle? I have pictures of it, and it is a good thing for I could not describe it. Dr. Wrench, being the Duke's physician, was able to take us through the private rooms. On entering the Hall, a broad marble staircase leads to the corridors above, from which others branch out through different parts of the house. We walked miles, it seems, until we got to the Duke's private library. When you are once in the room the doors are shut. You cannot tell how you got in or how you will get out. On every wall the bookcases are built in and there is not an opening of any kind; not a break in the rows and rows of books. The explanation is simply this: the doors themselves are made to look like book shelves, painted on.
"Chatsworth is so large that were I living there I should want a Cook's guide every time I moved. One picture gallery is full of sketches by Hogarth, and pictures of almost every old master you ever heard of, and some you never heard of. Opening out of this gallery are great glass doors leading into halls into which the different bedrooms open. In one bedroom the walls and ceiling were covered with oil paintings, not hanging but literally painted on them. The bed was a huge four-poster. The curtains were of heavy brocaded satin. The windows looked out on terraces, garden and fountains. I like this room best of all. We were taken through the state apartments where I saw on a throne a huge chair of state on a platform, with canopy over it, with the Duke's crest in gold woven upon it. In one of the drawing-rooms we saw a life-size portrait of Henry VIII., a real true one painted from life, and one of Philip II. of Spain, and of Charles V., and of Anne of Austria. The Duke had sent special word from London to have the fountains in the park play for us, and we watched them from the window. They are beautiful. Such nice shower baths for the marble statues on the terrace!
"The Prince of Wales has often visited Chatsworth, and a funny story was told about one of his visits. It was after dinner and the drawing-room was full of people. Whenever Royalty is present it is expected that the men will wear all their decorations. Well, the Earl of Something-or-other had forgotten one of his, and someone reported this fact to the Prince who sent for the culprit to be brought before him. At the time the Prince was seated on one of the huge lounges, on which only a giant could sit and keep his feet on the floor. The Prince was sitting far back and his feet stuck straight out in the air. When the guilty man was brought up to be reprimanded the attitude of the Prince was far from dignified. His Royal Highness was not really angry, but he told the poor Earl of Something-or-other that he must write out the oath of the Order that he had forgotten to wear. It was a long oath and the Earl's memory was not so long."
We went from Nottingham to Glasgow. The date, I find, is May 1, 1900. It was always Dr. Talmage's custom to visit the cemetery first, so we drove out to the grave of John Knox. In Glasgow the Doctor preached at the Cowcaddens Free Church to the usual crowded congregation, and he was compelled to address an overflow meeting from the steps of the church after the regular service. The best part of Dr. Talmage's holiday moods, which were as scarce as he could make them because of the amount of work he was always doing, were filled with the delight of watching the eager interest in sightseeing of the two girls, Miss Maud Talmage and my daughter. In Glasgow we encountered the usual wet weather of the proverbial Scottish quality, and it was Saturday of the week before we ventured out to see the Lakes. My daughter naively confesses the situation to her journal as follows:—
"This A.M.—Got up at the usual starting hour, 7 o'clock, and as it looked only dark we decided to go. At breakfast it started to rain again and Mamma and the Doctor began to back out, but Maud and I talked to some advantage. We argued that if we were going to sit around waiting for a fair day in this country we might just as well give up seeing anything more interesting than hotel parlours and dining-rooms.
"We started, and just as a 'send off' the old sky opened and let down a deluge of water. It rained all the time we were on Loch Lomond, but that didn't prevent us from being up on deck on the boat. From under umbrellas we saw the most beautiful scenery in Scotland. Part of this trip was made by coach, always in the pouring rain. We drove on and on through the hills, seeing nothing but sheep, sheep, sheep. Doctor Talmage asked the driver what kind of vegetables they raised in the mountains and the driver replied—'mutton.' We had luncheon at a very pretty little hotel on Loch Katrine, and here boarded a little steamer launch, 'Rob Roy,' for a beautiful sail. I never, no matter where I travel, expect to look upon a lake more beautiful. The mountains give wildness and romance to the calm and quiet of the lake, and the island. Maud read aloud to us parts of 'The Lady of the Lake' as we sat out on deck."
In Edinburgh Dr. Talmage preached his well-known sermon upon unrequited services, at the request of Lord Kintore, the son of the Earl of Kintore, who had suggested the theme to him some years before. In fact the Doctor wrote this sermon by special suggestion of the Earl of Kintore.
Incidents great and small were such a large part of the eventful trip to Europe that it is difficult to make those omissions which the disinterested reader might wish. The Doctor, like ourselves, saw with the same rose-coloured glasses that we did. We were very pleasantly entertained in Edinburgh by Lord Kintore and others, but the most interesting dinner party I think was when we were the guests of Sir Herbert Simpson, brother of the celebrated Sir James Y. Simpson, the man who discovered the uses of chloroform as an anæsthetic. We dined in the very room where the discovery was first tested. When Dr. Simpson had decided upon a final experiment of the effects of chloroform as an anæsthetic, he invited three or four of his colleagues and friends to share the test with him. They met in the very room where we dined with Sir Herbert Simpson and his family. The story goes that when everything had been prepared for the evening's work, Dr. Simpson informed "Sandy," an old servant, that he must not be disturbed under any circumstances, telling him not to venture inside the door himself until 5 a.m. Then, if no one had left the room, he was to enter. "Sandy" obeyed these instructions to the letter, and came into the room at 5 in the morning. He was very much shocked to find his master and the others under the table in a stupor. "I never thought my master would come to this," said Sandy. He was still in the employ of the family, being a very old man.
Dr. Talmage's engagements took him from Edinburgh to Liverpool, where he preached. It was while there that we made a visit to Hawarden to see Mrs. Gladstone. The Doctor had been to Hawarden before as the guest of Mr. Gladstone, and was disappointed to find that Mrs. Gladstone was too ill to be seen by anyone. We were entertained, however, by Mrs. Herbert Gladstone. I remember how much the Doctor was moved when he saw in the hall at Hawarden a bundle of walking sticks and three or four hats hanging on the hat-rack, as Mr. Gladstone had left them when he died.
From Liverpool we went to Sheffield, where Dr. Talmage preached to an immense congregation. It was in May, the time when all England is flower-laden, when the air is as sweet as perfume and the whole countryside is as fascinating as a garden. It was the coaching season, too, and the Doctor entered into the spirit of these beautiful days very happily. We took a ten days' trip from Leamington after leaving Sheffield, coaching through the exquisite scenery around about Warwick, Kenilworth, and the Shakespeare country in Stratford-on-Avon. Most of these reminiscences are full of incidents too intimate for public interest. Like a dream that lifts one from prosaic life into the places of precious remembrance I recall these long, happy days in the glorious sunset of his life.
We returned to London in time for the Doctor's first preaching engagement there on May 28, 1900. The London newspapers described him as "The American Spurgeon."
"And now before the services opened at St. James' Hall a congregation of 3,000 people waited to hear Dr. Talmage," says a London newspaper. Then it goes on to say further:—
"Dr. Talmage, who has preached from pulpits all over the world, may be described as an 'American Spurgeon.' None of our great English speakers is less of an orator. Dr. Talmage is a great speaker, but his power as an orator is not by any means that of a Gladstone or a Bright. It lies more in the matter than in the manner, in his wonderful imagery, the vividness with which he conjures up a picture before the congregation. He is a great artist in words. Dr. Talmage affects nothing; he is naturalness itself in the pulpit, and the manner of his speech suggests that he is angry with his subject. The sermon on this occasion lent itself well to a master of metaphor such as Dr. Talmage, it being a review of the last great battle of the world, when the forces of right and wrong should meet for the final mastery."
Dr. Talmage rarely preached this sermon because it was a great tax on his memory. It included a suggestion of all the great battles of the earth, a vivid description of the armies of the world marching forward in the eternal human struggle of right against wrong until they were masked for the last great battle of all, when "Satan would take the field in person, in whose make-up nothing bad was left out, nothing good was put in."
It is very remarkable to see the universal acknowledgments of the Doctor's genius in England, one of the London newspapers going so far as to describe him in its headlines as "America's Apostle." Nothing I could write about him could be more in eulogy, more in sympathy in comprehension of his brilliant sacred message to the world. England proclaimed him as he was, with deep sincerity and reverence.
His favourite sermon, and it was mine also, was upon the theme of unrequited services, the text being from I Samuel xxx. 24, "But as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff." It was in this sermon that Dr. Talmage made reference to Florence Nightingale, in the following words:—
"Women, your reward in the eternal world will be as great as that of Florence Nightingale, the Lady of the Lamp." While in London he preached this sermon, and the following day to our surprise the Doctor received the following note at his hotel:—
"June 3, 1900.
"10, South Street,
"Park Lane.
"Dear Sir—
"I could gladly see you to-morrow (Monday) at 5.—Yours faithfully,
"Florence Nightingale.
"T. DeWitt Talmage, of America."
I have carefully kept the letter in my autograph album.
Dr. Talmage and I called at the appointed time. It was a beautiful summer day and we found the celebrated woman lying on a couch in a room at the top of the house, the windows of which looked out on Hyde Park. She was dressed all in white. Her face was exquisitely spiritual, calm, sweet with the youth of a soul that knew no age. She had never known that she had been called 'The Lady of the Lamp' by the soldiers of the Crimea till she read of it in the Doctor's sermon. She was curious to be told all about it. In conversation with the Doctor she made many inquiries about America and the Spanish war, making notes on a pad of what he said. The Doctor told her that she looked like a woman who had never known the ordinary conflicts of life, as though she had always been supremely happy and calm in her soul. I remember she replied that she had never known a day's real happiness till she began her work as a nurse on the battlefield.
"I was not always happy," she said; "I had my idle hours when I was a girl." I may not remember her exact words, but this is the sense of them. She was past 82 years of age at the time.
Enjoying the intervals of sight-seeing, such as the Tower, the Museum, Westminster Abbey, and the usual wonders of historical London, we remained in town several weeks. I remember a visit which Mr. Choate, the American Ambassador, made us with a view to extending any courtesy he could for the Doctor while we were in England. I told him that I was more anxious to see the British Parliament in session than anything else.
"I should think, as Dr. Talmage has with him a letter from the President of the United States, this request could be arranged," I said.
Mr. Choate gracefully replied that Dr. Talmage required no introduction anywhere, not even from the President, and arranged to have the Charge d'Affaires, Mr. White, who was later Ambassador to France, take us over to the Houses of Parliament, where we were permitted a glimpse of the Members at work from the cage enclosure reserved for lady visitors.
The Doctor's friends in England did their best to make us feel at home in London. We were dined and lunched, and driven about whenever Dr. Talmage could spare time from his work. Sir Alfred Newton, the Lord Mayor, and Lady Newton gave us a luncheon at the Mansion House on June 5, 1900. I remember the date because it was an epoch in the history of England. During the luncheon the news reached the Lord Mayor of the capture of Pretoria. He ordered a huge banner to be hung from the Mansion House on which were the words—
"THE BRITISH FLAG FLIES AT PRETORIA."
This was the first intimation of the event given to Londoners in that part of the city. Side by side with it another banner proclaimed the National prayer, "God Save the Queen," in big red letters on the white background. A scene of wild enthusiasm and excitement followed. Every Englishman in that part of London, I believe, began to shout and cheer at the top of his lungs. An immense crowd gathered in the adjoining streets around the Mansion House. The morning war news had only indicated a prolonged struggle, so that the capture of Pretoria was a great and joyous surprise to the British heart. Suddenly all hats were off, and the crowds in the streets sang the National Anthem. There were loud calls for the Lord Mayor to make a speech. We watched it all from the windows in the parlour of the Mansion House, at the corner of Queen Victoria Street. Dr. Talmage was as wildly enthusiastic as any Englishman, cheering and waving his arm from the open windows in hearty accord with the crowd below. There was no sleep for anyone in London that night. Around our hotel, the blowing of horns and cheering lasted till the small hours of the morning. It seemed very much like the excitement in America after the capture of the Spanish Fleet.
We left London finally with many regrets, having enjoyed the hospitality of what is to me the most attractive country in the world to visit. We went direct to Paris to attend the opening ceremonies of the Paris Exposition of 1900. It seems like a very old story to tell anything to-day of this event, and to Dr. Talmage it was chiefly a repetition of the many Fairs he had seen in his life, but he found time to write a description of it at the time, which recalls his impressions. He regarded it as "An Object Lesson of Peace and a Tableau of the Millennium."
His defence of General Peck, the American Commissioner-General, who was criticised by the American exhibitors, was made at length. He considered these criticisms unjust, and said so. During our stay in Paris Dr. Talmage preached at the American churches.
Fearing that it would be difficult to secure rooms in Paris during the Exposition, the Doctor had written from Washington during the winter and engaged them at the hotel which a few years before had been one of the best in Paris. Many changes had occurred since he had last been abroad, however, and we found that the hotel where we had engaged rooms was far from being suitable for us. The mistake caused some amusement among our American friends, who were surprised to find Dr. Talmage living in the midst of a Parisian gaiety entirely too promiscuous for his calling. We soon moved away from this zone of oriental music and splendour to a quieter and more remote hotel in the Rue Castiglione.
Dr. Talmage was restless, however, to reach the North Cape in the best season to see the Midnight Sun in its glory, and we only remained in Paris a few days, going from there to the Hague, Amsterdam, and thence to Copenhagen in Denmark. In all the cities abroad we were always the guests of the American Embassy one evening during our stay, and this frequently led to private dinner parties with some of the prominent residents, which the Doctor greatly enjoyed, because it gave him an opportunity to know the foreign people in their homes. I remember one of these invitations particularly because as we drove into the grounds of our host's home he ordered the American flag to be hoisted as we entered. The garden was beautiful with a profusion of yellow blossoms, a national flower in Denmark known as "Golden Rain." We admired them so much that our host wanted to present me with sprigs of the trees to plant in our home at East Hampton. Dr. Talmage said he was sure that they would not grow out there so near the sea. Remembering Judge Collier's grounds in Pittsburg, where every sort of flower grows, I suggested that they would thrive there. Our host took my father-in-law's address, and to-day this "Golden Rain" of Denmark is growing beautifully in his garden in Pittsburg.
We saw and explored Copenhagen thoroughly. The King of Denmark was absent from the capital, but we stood in front of his palace with the usual interest of visitors, little expecting to be entertained there, as afterwards we were. It all came as a surprise.
We were on our way to the station to leave Copenhagen, when Mr. Swenson, the American Minister, overtook us and informed us that the Crown Prince and Princess desired to receive Dr. Talmage and his family at the summer palace. Though it may be at the risk of lèse majesté to say it, some persuasion was necessary to induce the Doctor to remain over. Our trunks were already at the station and Dr. Talmage was anxious to get up to the North Cape. However, the American Minister finally prevailed upon the Doctor to consider the importance of a request from royalty, and we went back to the hotel into the same rooms we had just left.
Our presentation took place the next day at the summer palace, which is five miles from Copenhagen. It was the most informally delightful meeting. The formalities of royalty that are sometimes made to appear so overwhelming to the ordinary individual, were so gracefully interwoven by the Crown Prince and the Princess with cordiality and courtesy, that we were as perfectly at ease, as if there had been crowns hovering over our own heads. The royal children were all present, too, and we talked and walked and laughed together like a family party. The Crown Princess said to me, "Come, let me show you my garden," and we strolled in the beautiful grounds. The Crown Prince said, "Come, let me show you my den," and there gave us the autographs of himself and the Princess. We left regretfully. As we drove away the royal party were gathered at the front windows of the palace waving their handkerchiefs to us in graceful adieus. I remember my little daughter was very much surprised with the simplicity of the whole affair, saying to me as we drove away, "Why, it was just like visiting Grandpa's home."
On our way to Tröndhjem from Copenhagen we stayed over a few days at Christiania, where we were the guests of Nansen, the Arctic explorer. His home, which stood out near the water's edge, was like a bungalow made of pine logs. There were no carpets on the floors, which were covered with the skins of animals he had himself killed. Trophies of all sorts were in evidence. It was a very memorable afternoon with the simple, brave, scientific Nansen.
At Tröndhjem we took the steamer "Köng Harald" for the North Cape. A party of American friends had just returned from there with the most lugubrious story about the bad weather and their utter failure to see the sun. As it was pouring rain when we started, it would not have taken much persuasion to induce us to give it all up. But we had started with a purpose, and silently but firmly we went on with it. Dr. Talmage never turned back at any cross road in his whole life. In a few hours after leaving Tröndhjem we were in the raw, cold Arctic temperature where a new order of existence begins.
We lose all sense of ordinary time, for our watches indicate midnight, and there is no darkness. The over-hanging clouds draw slowly apart, and the most brilliant, dazzling midnight sun covers the waters and sets the sky on fire. It neither rises from the horizon or sinks into it. It stays perfectly, immovably still. After a while it rises very slowly. The meals on board are as irregular as the time; they are served according to the adaptability of one's appetite to the strangeness of the new element of constant daytime. We scarcely want to sleep, or know when to do so. Fortunately our furs are handy, for there is snow and ice on the wild, barren rocks on either side of us.
On July 1, at 8 p.m., we sighted this northernmost land, the Cape, and were immediately induced to indulge in cod fishing from the decks of our steamer. It is the custom, and the cod seem to accept the situation with perverse indiscretion, for many of them are caught. Our lines and bait are provided by sailors. Dinner is again delayed to enable us to indulge in this sport, but we don't mind because we have lost all the habitual tendencies of our previous normal state.
At 10 p.m., in a bright daylight, the small boats full of passengers begin to leave the steamer for the shore. In about fifteen minutes we are landed at the base of that towering Cape. There are some who doubt the wisdom of Dr. Talmage's attempting to climb at his age. He has no doubts, however, and no one expresses them to him. He is among the first to take the staff, handed to him as to all of us, and starts up at his usual brisk, striding gait. It is a test of lungs and heart, of skill and nerve to climb the North Cape, and let no one attempt it who is unfitted for the task. Steep almost as the side of a house, rocky as an unused pathway, it is a feat to accomplish. We were the first party of the season to go up, and the paths had not been entirely cleared of snow, which was two and three feet deep in places, the path itself sometimes a narrow ledge over a precipice. A rope guard was the only barrier between us and a slippery catastrophe. Every ten or fifteen minutes we sat down to get our breath. It took us two hours to reach the top. It was a few minutes after midnight when the sun came out gloriously.
Coming down was much more perilous, but we got back in safety to the "Köng Harald" at 2 a.m. On our way down to Tröndhjem we celebrated the Fourth of July on board. The captain decorated the ship for the occasion and we all tried to sing "The Star Spangled Banner," but we could not remember the words, much to our mutual surprise and finally we compromised by singing "America," and, worst of all, "Yankee Doodle." Dr. Talmage made a very happy address, and we came into port finally, pledged to learn the words of "The Star Spangled Banner" before the year was up.
In our haste to reach the North Cape we had passed hurriedly through Sweden, so, on our return we went from Tröndhjem to Stockholm, where we arrived on July 7, 1900.
When in London Dr. Talmage had accepted an invitation to preach in the largest church in Sweden, with some misgiving, because, as he himself said when asked to do this, "Shall I have an audience?" Of course the Doctor did not speak the Swedish language. Dr. Talmage had been told in England that his name was known through all Sweden, which was a fact fully sustained by a publisher in Stockholm who came to the hotel one afternoon and brought copies of ten of the Doctor's books translated into Swedish. This insured a cordial greeting for the Doctor, but how was he to make himself understood?
The Immanuel Church in Stockholm, one of the largest I ever saw, with two galleries and three aisles, was filled to its capacity. Dr. Talmage was to preach through an interpreter, himself a foremost preacher in his own country. The Doctor had preached through interpreters three times in his life; once when a theological student addressing a congregation of American Indians, once in a church in Hawaii, and once in Ceylon through an interpreter standing on each side of him, one to translate into Cingalese, and the other to translate into Hindustan. No one who was present at that morning Sabbath service on July 8, 1900, will forget the strange impressions that translated sermon preached by Dr. Talmage made upon everyone. Sentence by sentence the brilliant interpreter repeated the Doctor's words in the Swedish language, while the congregation in eager silence studied Dr. Talmage's face while listening to the translation of his ideas.
"Whether I did them any good or not they did me good," said the Doctor after the service.
While in Stockholm we dined with Mr. Wyndham, Secretary of the American Legation, and were shown through the private rooms of the royal palace, of which my daughter took snapshots with surreptitious skill. The Queen was a great invalid and scarcely ever saw anyone, but while driving to her summer palace we caught a glimpse of her being lifted from her little horse, on which she had been riding, seated in a sort of armchair saddle. With a groom to lead the horse Her Majesty took the air every day in this way. She was a very frail little woman.
From Stockholm we started by steamer for St. Petersburg, but the crowd was so great that we found our staterooms impossible, and we disembarked at Alba, the first capital in Finland. We were curious to see the new capital, Helsingfors, and stopped over a day or two there. From Helsingfors we went by rail to the Russian capital.
Dr. Talmage had been in Russia years before, on the occasion of his presentation of a shipload of flour from the American people to the famine sufferers. At that time he had been presented to Emperor Alexander III., as well as the Dowager Empress. It was his intention to pay his respects again to the new Emperor, whose father he had known, so that we looked forward to our stay in St. Petersburg as eventful. The Crown Prince of Denmark had urged the Doctor to see his brother-in-law, the Czar, while in St. Petersburg, and we learned later that he had written a letter to the Court concerning our coming to St. Petersburg.
On July 23, 1900, we received the following note from Dr. Pierce, the American Charge d'Affaires in St. Petersburg:—
"July 23, 1900.
"Embassy of the United States, St. Petersburg.
"Dear Dr. Talmage—
"I take much pleasure in informing you that you and Mrs. Talmage and your daughters will be received by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress on Wednesday next, at 21/2 p.m.
"Yours very sincerely,
"Herbert H.D. Pierce.
"P.S.—I will let you know the details later."
Mr. Pierce called in full court dress and informed Dr. Talmage that it would be necessary for him to appear in like regalia. As the Doctor was not accustomed to wearing swords, or cocked hats, or brass buttons on his coat, he received these instructions with some distress of mind. Later, we received from the Grand Master of Ceremonies of the Russian Court a formal invitation to be presented at Peterhof, the summer palace.
On Wednesday, July 25, 1900, I find this irreverent entry in my American girl's diary:—
"I can't think of any words sufficiently high sounding with which to begin the report of this day, so shall simply write about breakfast first, and gradually lead up to the great event. In spite of the coming honour and the present excitement we all ate a hearty breakfast."
"As our train was to leave for Peterhof about noon we spent the morning dressing.
"After all," writes my irreverent daughter in her diary, "dressing for royalty is not more important than dressing for a dance or dinner. It can't last for much over an hour. When we had everything on we sat opposite each other as stiff as pokers—waiting."
My daughter took a snapshot picture of us while waiting. Mrs. Pierce had kindly given us some instructions about curtseying and backing away from royalty, a ceremony which neither the Czar nor the Czarina imposed upon us, however. The trip to Peterhof was made on one of the Imperial cars. The distance by rail from St. Petersburg was only half-an-hour. A gentleman from the American Embassy rode with us. We were met at the station by footmen in royal livery and conducted to a carriage with the Imperial coat-of-arms upon it. Sentinels in grey coats saluted us.
We were driven first to the Palace of Peterhof, where more footmen in gold lace, and two other officials in gorgeous uniform, conducted us inside, through a corridor, past a row of bowing servants, into a dining-room where the table was set for luncheon, with gold and silver plates, cut glass and rare china. A more exquisite table setting I never saw. Three dressing-rooms opened off this big room, and these we promptly appropriated.
The luncheon was perfect, though we would have enjoyed it better after the strain of our presentation had been over. The four different kinds of wine were not very liberally patronised by any of our party. After luncheon we were driven through the royal park which was literally filled with mounted Cossacks on guard everywhere, to the abode of the Emperor. Through another double line of liveried servants we were ushered into a small room where the Master of Ceremonies and a lady-in-waiting greeted us. We waited about five minutes when an officer came to the Doctor and took him to see the Emperor. A little later we were ushered into another room into the presence of the Empress of Russia. She came forward very graciously with outstretched hands to meet us. The Czarina is the most beautiful woman I ever saw, aristocratic, simple, extremely sensitive. She was dressed in a black silk gown with white polka dots. Slightly taller than the Czar, the Empress was most affable, girlish in her manner. As she talked the colour came and went on her pale, fair cheeks, and she gave me the impression of being a very sensitive, reserved, exquisitely rare nature. Her smile had a charming yet half melancholy radiance. We all sat down and talked. I remember the little shiver with which the Empress spoke of a race in the Orient whom she disliked.
"They would stab you in the back," she said, her voice fading almost to a whisper. She looked to be about twenty-eight years old. Once when we thought it was time to go, and had started to make our adieus, the Czarina kept on talking, urging us to stay. She talked of America chiefly, and told us how enthusiastic her cousin was who had just returned from there. When, finally, we did leave we were spared the dreaded ceremony of backing out of the room, for the Empress walked with us to the door, and shook hands in true democratic American fashion.