Dr. Talmage's interview with the Czar was quite as cordial. The Emperor expressed his faith in the results of the Peace movement at the Hague, for he was himself at peace with all the world. During the interview the Doctor was asked many questions by the Emperor about the heroes of the Spanish war, especially concerning Admiral Dewey. His Majesty laughed heartily at the Doctor's story of a battle in which the only loss of life was a mule.
"How many important things have happened since we met," the Czar said to the Doctor; "I was twenty-four when you were here before, now I am thirty-two. My father is gone. My mother has passed through three great sorrows since you were here—the loss of my father, of my brother, and during this last year of her own mother, the Queen of Denmark. She wishes to see you in her own palace."
The Czar is about five feet ten in height, is very fair, with blue eyes, and seemed full of kindness and good cheer.
As we were leaving, word came from the Dowager Empress that she would see us, and we drove a mile or two further through the royal park to her palace. She greeted Dr. Talmage with both hands outstretched, like an old friend. Though much smaller in stature than the Empress of Russia, the Dowager Empress was quite as impressive and stately. She was dressed in mourning. Her room was like a corner in Paradise set apart from the grim arrogance of Imperial Russia. It was filled with exquisite paintings, sweet with a profusion of flowers and plants. She seemed genuinely happy to see the Doctor, and her eyes filled with tears when he spoke of the late Emperor, her husband. At her neck she was wearing a miniature portrait of him set in diamonds. Very simply she took it off to show to us, saying, "This is the best picture ever taken of my husband. It is such a pleasure to see you, Dr. Talmage, I heard of your being in Europe from my brother in Denmark."
The Dowager Empress was full of remembrances of the Doctor's previous visit to Russia, eight years before.
"How did you like the tea service which my husband sent you?" she asked Dr. Talmage; "I selected it myself. It is exactly like a set we use ourselves."
The informal charm of the Empress's manner was most friendly and kind.
"Do you remember the handful of flowers I picked for you, and asked you to send them to your family?" she said.
"You stood here, my husband there, and I with my smaller children stood here. How well I remember that day; but, oh, what changes!"
The Dowager Empress invited us to come to her palace next day and meet the Queen of Greece, her niece by marriage, and her sister-in-law who was visiting Russia just then, but we were obliged to decline because of previous plans. Very graciously she wrote her autograph for us and promised to send me her photograph, which later on I received. We were driven back to the station in the Imperial carriage, where a representative of the American Embassy met us and rode back to St. Petersburg with us.
So ended a day of absorbing interest such as I shall never experience again. There is a touch of humour always to the most important events in life. I shall never forget Dr. Talmage's real distress when he found that the sword which he had borrowed from Mr. Pierce, the Charge d'Affaires of the American Embassy, had become slightly bent in the course of its royal adventure. I can see his look of anxiety as he tried to straighten it out, and was afraid he couldn't. He always abhorred borrowed things and hardly ever took them. Fortunately, the sword was not seriously damaged.
Our objective point after leaving Russia was Ober-Ammergau, where Dr. Talmage wanted to witness the Passion Play. We travelled in that direction by easy stages, going from St. Petersburg first to Moscow, where we paid a visit to Tolstoi's house. From Moscow we went to Warsaw, and thence to Berlin. The Doctor seemed to have abandoned himself completely to the lure of sightseeing by this time. Churches, picture galleries, museums were our daily diet. While in Berlin we returned from a drive one day to the hotel and found ourselves the objects of unusual solicitude and attention from the hotel proprietor and his servants. With many obsequious bows we were informed that the Russian Ambassador had called upon us in our absence, and had informed the hotel people that he had a special package from the Czar to deliver to me. He left word that he would be at the hotel at 2 p.m. the following day to carry out his Imperial Master's instructions. At the time appointed the next day the Russian Ambassador called and formally presented to me, in the name of the Emperor, a package that had been sent by special messenger. I immediately opened it and found a handsome Russian leather case. I opened that, and inside found the autographs of the Emperor and Empress of Russia, written on separate sheets of their royal note paper.
We had a very good time in Berlin. The presence of Sousa and his band there gave it an American flavour that was very delightful. The Doctor's interest was really centred in visiting the little town of Württemberg, famous for its Luther history. Dr. Dickey, Pastor of the American Church in Berlin, became our guide on the day we visited the haunts of Luther. One day we went through the Kaiser's Palace at Potsdam, where my daughter managed to use her kodak with good effect.
From Berlin we went to Vienna, and thence to Munich, arriving at the little village of Ober-Ammergau on August 25, 1900.
Dr. Talmage's impressions of the Passion Play, which he wrote at Ober-Ammergau on this occasion, were never published in this country, and I herewith include them in these last milestones of his life.
THE PASSION PLAY AT OBER-AMMERGAU
By Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D.
About fifteen years ago the good people of America were shocked at the proposition to put on the theatrical stage of New York the Passion Play, or a dramatic representation of the sufferings of Christ. It was to be an imitation of that which had been every ten years, since 1634, enacted in Ober-Ammergau, Germany. Every religious newspaper and most of the secular journals, and all the pulpits, denounced the proposition. It would be an outrage, a sacrilege, a blasphemy. I thought so then; I think so now. The attempt of ordinary play actors amid worldly surroundings, and before gay assemblages, to portray the sufferings of Christ and His assassination would have been a horrible indecency that would have defied the heavens and invoked a plague worse than that for the turning back of which the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau was established. We might have suggested for such a scene a Judas, or a Caiaphas, or a Pilate, or a Herod. But who would have been the Christ?
The Continental protest which did not allow the curtain of that exhibition to be hoisted was right, and if a similar attempt should ever be made in America I hope it may be as vehemently defeated. But as certain individuals may have an especial mission which other individuals are not caused to exercise, so neighbourhoods and provinces and countries may have a call peculiar to themselves.
Whether the German village of Ober-Ammergau which I have just been visiting, may have such an especial ordination, I leave others to judge after they have taken into consideration all the circumstances. The Passion Play, as it was proposed for the theatrical stage in New York, would have been as different from the Passion Play as we saw it at Ober-Ammergau a few days ago as midnight is different from mid-noon.
Ober-Ammergau is a picture-frame of hills.
The mountains look down upon the village, and the village looks up to the mountains. The river Ammer, running through the village, has not recovered from its race down the steeps, and has not been able to moderate its pace. Like an arrow, it shoots past. Through exaltations and depressions of the rail train, and on ascending and descending grades, we arrived at the place of which we had heard and read so much. The morning was as glorious as any other morning that was let down out of the heavens. Though many thousands of people from many quarters of the earth had lodged that night in Ober-Ammergau, the place at dawn was as silent as a hunter's cabin in any of the mountains of Bavaria. The Ammergauers are a quiet people. They speak in low tones, and are themselves masters of the art of silence. Their step, as well as their voice, is quiet. Reverence and courtesy are among their characteristics. Though merry enough, and far from being dolorous, I think the most of them feel themselves called to a solemn duty, that in some later time they will be called to take part in absorbing solemnities, for about 700 performers appear in the wonderful performance; there are only about 1,400 inhabitants.
While the morning is still morning, soon after 7 o'clock, hundreds and thousands of people, nearly all on foot, are moving in one direction, so that you do not have to ask for the place of mighty convocation. Through fourteen large double doors the audience enter. Everything in the immense building is so plain that nothing could be plainer, and the seats are cushionless, a fact which becomes thoroughly pronounced after you have for eight hours, with only brief intermissions, been seated on them.
All is expectancy!
The signal gun outside the building sounds startlingly. We are not about to witness an experiment, but to look upon something which has been in preparation and gathering force for two hundred and sixty-six years. It was put upon the stage not for financial gain but as a prayer to God for the removal of a Destroying Angel which had with his wings swept to death other villages, and was then destroying Ober-Ammergau. It was a dying convulsion in which Widowhood and Orphanage and Childlessness vowed that if the Lord should drive back that Angel of Death, then every ten years they would in the most realistic and overwhelming manner show the world what Christ had done to save it.
They would reproduce His groan. They would show the blood-tipped spear. They would depict the demoniac grin of ecclesiastics who gladly heard perjurers testify against the best Friend the world ever had, but who declined to hear anything in His defence. They would reproduce the spectacle of silence amid wrong; a silence with not a word of protest, or vindication, or beseechment; a silence that was louder than the thunder that broke from the heavens that day when at 12 o'clock at noon was as dark as 12 o'clock at night.
Poets have been busy for many years putting the Passion Play into rhythm. The Bavarian Government had omitted from it everything frivolous. The chorus would be that of drilled choirs. Men and women who had never been out of the sight of the mountains which guarded their homes would do with religious themes what the David Garricks and the Macreadys and the Ristoris and the Charlotte Cushmans did with secular themes. On a stage as unpretentious as foot ever trod there would be an impersonation that would move the world. The greatest tragedy of all times would find fit tragedian. We were not there that August morning to see an extemporised performance. As long ago as last December the programme for this stupendous rendering was all made out. No man or woman who had the least thing objectionable in character or reputation might take part.
The Passion Council, made up of the pastor of the village church and six devout members, together with the Mayor and ten councillors selected for their moral worth, assembled. After special Divine service, in which heaven's direction was sought, the vote was taken, and the following persons were appointed to appear in the more important parts of the Passion Play: Rochus Lang, Herod; John Zwink, Judas; Andreas Braun, Joseph of Arimathea; Bertha Wolf, Magdalen; Sebastian Baur, Pilate; Peter Rendi, John; William Rutz, Nicodemus; Thomas Rendi, Peter; Anna Flunger, Mary; Anton Lang, Christ.
The music began its triumphant roll, and the curtains were divided and pulled back to the sides of the stage. Lest we repeat the only error in the sacred drama, that of prolixity, we will not give in minutiæ what we saw and heard. The full text of the play is translated and published by my friend, the Reverend Doctor Dickey, pastor of the American Church of Berlin, and takes up 169 pages, mostly in fine print.
I only describe what most impressed me.
There is a throng of people of all classes in the streets of Jerusalem, by look and gesture indicating that something wonderful is advancing. Acclamations fill the air. The crowd parts enough to allow Christ to pass, seated on the side of a colt, which was led by the John whom Jesus especially loved. The Saviour's hands are spread above the throng in benediction, while He looks upon them with a kindness and sympathy that win the love of the excited multitude. Arriving at the door of the Temple, Jesus dismounts and, walking over the palm branches and garments which are strewn and unrolled in His way, He enters the Temple, and finds that parts of that sacred structure are turned into a marketplace, with cages of birds and small droves of lambs and heifers which the dealers would sell to those who wanted to make a "live offering" in the Temple. Indignation gathers on the countenance of Christ where gentleness had reigned. He denounces these merchants, who stood there over-reaching in their bargains and exorbitantly outrageous in their charges. The doors of the cages holding the pigeons are opened, and in their escape they fly over the stage and over the audience. The table on which the exchangers had been gathering unreasonable percentage was thrown down, and the coin rattled over the floor, and the place was cleared of the dishonest invaders, who go forth to plot the ruin and the death of Him who had so suddenly expelled them.
The most impressive character in all the sacred drama is Christ.
The impersonator, Anton Lang, seems by nature far better fitted for this part than was his predecessor, Josef Mayr, who took that part in 1870, 1880, and 1890. Mayr is very tall, brawny, athletic. His hair was black in those days, and his countenance now is severe. He must have done it well, but I can hardly imagine him impersonating gentleness and complete submission to abuse. But Anton Lang, with his blonde complexion, his light hair, blue eyes and delicate mouth, his exquisiteness of form and quietness of manner, is just like what Raphael and many of the old masters present. When we talked with Anton Lang in private he looked exactly as he looked in the Passion Play. This is his first year in the Christ character, and his success is beyond criticism. In his trade as a carver of wood he has so much to do in imitating the human countenance that he understands the full power of expression. The way he listens to the unjust charges in the court room, his bearing when the ruffians bind him, and his manner when, by a hand, thick-gloved so as not to get hurt, a crown of thorns was put upon his brow, and the officers with long bands of wood press it down upon the head of the sufferer, all show that he has a talent to depict infinite agony.
No more powerful acting was ever seen on the stage than that of John Zwink, the Judas. In repose there is no honester face in Ober-Ammergau than his. Twenty years ago he appeared in the Passion Play as St. John; one would suppose that he would do best in a representation of geniality and mildness. But in the character of Judas he represents, in every wrinkle of his face, and in every curl of his hair, and in every glare of his eye, and in every knuckle of his hand with which he clutches the money bag, hypocrisy and avarice and hate and low strategy and diabolism. The quickness with which he grabs the bribe for the betrayal of the Lord, the villainous leer at the Master while seated at the holy supper, show him to be capable of any wickedness. What a spectacle when the traitorous lips are pressed against the pure cheek of the Immaculate One, the disgusting smack desecrating the holy symbol of love.
But after Judas has done his deadly work then there comes upon him a remorse and terror such as you have never seen depicted unless you have witnessed the Passion Play at the foot of the Bavarian mountains. His start at imaginary sounds, his alarm at a creaking door, his fear at nothing, the grinding teeth and the clenched fist indicative of mental torture, the dishevelled hair, the beating of his breast with his hands, the foaming mouth, the implication, the shriek, the madness, the flying here and there in the one attempt to get rid of himself, the horror increased at his every appearance, whether in company or alone, regarded in contrast with the dagger scene of "Macbeth" makes the latter mere child's play. That day, John Zwink, in the character of Judas, preached fifty sermons on the ghastliness of betrayal. The fire-smart of ill-gotten gain, the iron-beaked vulture of an aroused conscience; all the bloodhounds of despair seemed tearing him. Then, when he can endure the anguish no longer, he loosens the long girdle from his waist and addresses that girdle as a snake, crying out:—
"Ha! Come, thou serpent, entwine my neck and strangle the betrayer," and hastily ties it about his neck and tightens it, then rushes up to the branch of a tree for suicide, and the curtain closes before the 4,000 breathless auditors.
Do I approve of the Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau?
My only answer is that I was never so impressed in all my life with the greatness of the price that was paid for the redemption of the human race. The suffering depicted was so awful that I cannot now understand how I could have endured looking upon its portrayal. It is amazing that thousands in the audience did not faint into a swoon as complete as that of the soldiers who fell on the stage at the Lord's reanimation from Joseph's mausoleum.
Imagine what it would be to see a soldier seemingly thrust a spear into the Saviour's side, and to see the crimson rush from the laceration.
Would I see it acted again? No. I would not risk my nerves again under the strain of such a horror. One dreams of it nights after.
When Christ carrying His cross falls under it, and you see Him on His hands and knees, His forehead ensanguined with the twisted brambles, and Veronica comes to Him offering a handkerchief to wipe away the tears, and sweat and blood, your own forehead becomes beaded with perspiration. As the tragedy moves on, solemnity is added to solemnity. Not so much as a smile in the eight hours, except the slight snicker of some fool, such as is sure to be found in all audiences, when the cock crew twice after Peter had denied him thrice.
What may seem strange to some, I was as much impressed with Christ's mental agony as with his physical pangs. Oh! what a scene when in Gethsemane He groaned over the sins of the world for which He was making expiation, until the angelic throngs of heaven were so stirred by His impassioned utterance that one of their white-winged number came out and down to comfort the Angel of the New Covenant!
Some of the tableaux or living pictures between the acts of this drama were graphic and thrilling, such as Adam and Eve expelled from arborescence into homelessness; Joseph, because of his picturesque attire sold into serfdom, from which he mounts to the Prime Minister's chair; the palace gates shut against Queen Vashti because she declines to be immodest; manna snowing down into the hands of the hungry Israelites; grapes of Eshcol so enormous that one cluster is carried by two men on a staff between them; Naboth stoned to death because Ahab wants his vineyard; blind Samson between the pillars of the Temple of Dagon, making very destructive sport for his enemies. These tableaux are chiefly intended as a breathing spell between the acts of the drama. The music rendered requires seven basses and seven tenors, ten sopranos and ten contraltos. Edward Lang has worked thirty years educating the musical talent of the village. The Passion Play itself is beyond criticism, though it would have been mightier if two hours less in its performance. The subtraction would be an addition.
The drama progresses from the entering into Jerusalem to the condemnation by the Sanhedrim, showing all the world that crime may be committed according to law as certainly as crime against the law.
Oh, the hard-visaged tribunal; countenances as hard as the spears, as hard as the spikes, as hard as the rocks under which the Master was buried! Who can hear the metallic voice of that Caiaphas without thinking of some church court that condemned a man better than themselves? Caiaphas is as hateful as Judas. Blessed is that denomination of religionists which has not more than one Caiaphas!
On goes the scene till we reach the goodby of Mary and Christ at Bethany. Who will ever forget that woman's cry, or the face from which suffering has dried the last tear? Who would have thought that Anna Flunger, the maiden of twenty-five years, could have transformed her fair and happy face into such concentration of gloom and grief and woe? Mary must have known that the goodbye at Bethany was final, and that the embrace of that Mother and Son was their last earthly embrace. It was the saddest parting since the earth was made, never to be equalled while the earth stands.
What groups of sympathetic women trying to comfort her, as only women can comfort!
On goes the sacred drama till we come to the foot-washing. A few days before, while we were in Vienna, we had explained to us the annual ceremony of foot washing by the Emperor of Austria. It always takes place at the close of Lent. Twelve very old people are selected from the poorest of the poor. They are brought to the palace. At the last foot-washing the youngest of the twelve was 86 years of age, and the oldest 92. The Imperial family and all those in high places gather for this ceremony. An officer precedes the Emperor with a basin of water. For many days the old people have been preparing for the scene. The Emperor goes down on one knee before each one of these venerable people, puts water on the arch of the foot and then wipes it with a towel. When this is done a rich provision of food and drink is put before each one of the old people, but immediately removed before anything is tasted. Then the food and the cups and the knives and the forks are put in twelve sacks and each one has his portion allotted him. The old people come to the foot-washing in the Emperor's carriage and return in the same way, and they never forget the honour and splendour of that occasion.
Oh, the contrast between that foot-washing amid pomp and brilliant ceremony and the imitated foot-washing of our Lord at Ober-Ammergau. Before each one of the twelve Apostles Christ comes down so slowly that a sigh of emotion passes through the great throng of spectators. Christ even washes the feet of Judas. Was there in all time or eternity past, or will there be in all time or eternity to come, such a scene of self-abnegation? The Lord of heaven and earth stooping to such a service which must have astounded the heavens more than its dramatisation overpowered us! What a stunning rebuke to the pride and arrogance and personal ambition of all ages!
The Hand of God on Human Foot in Ablution!
No wonder the quick-tempered Peter thought it incongruous, and forbade its taking place, crying out: "Thou shalt never wash my feet!" But the Lord broke him down until Peter vehemently asked that his head and his hands be washed as well as his feet.
During eight hours on that stage it seems as though we were watching a battle between the demons of the Pit and the seraphs of Light, and the demons triumph. Eight hours telling a sadness, with every moment worse than its predecessor. All the world against Him, and hardly any let up so that we feel like leaving our place and rushing for the stage and giving congratulations with both hands to Simon of Cyrene as he lightens the Cross from the shoulder of the sufferer, and to Nicodemus who voted an emphatic "No" at the condemnation, and to Joseph of Arimathea who asks the honour of being undertaker at the obsequies.
Scene after scene, act after act, until at the scourging every stroke fetches the blood; and the purple mantle is put upon Him in derision, and they slap His face and they push Him off the stool upon which He sits, laughing at His fall. On, until from behind the curtain you hear the thumping of the hammers on the spikes; on, until hanging between two bandits, He pledges Paradise within twenty-four hours to the one, and commits His own broken-hearted mother to John, asking him to take care of her in her old age; and His complaint of thirst brings a sponge moistened with sour wine on the end of a staff; and blasphemy has hurled at Him its last curse, and malice has uttered concerning Him its last lie, and contempt has spit upon Him its last foam, and the resources of perdition are exhausted, and from the shuddering form and white lips comes the exclamation, "It is finished!"
At that moment there resounded across the river Ammer and through the village of Ober-Ammergau a crash that was responded to by the echoes of the Bavarian mountains. The rocks tumbled back off the stage, and the heavens roared and the graves of the dead were wrecked, and it seemed as if the earth itself had foundered in its voyage through the sky. The great audience almost leaped to its feet at the sound of that tempest and earthquake.
Look! the ruffians are tossing dice for the ownership of the Master's coat. The darkness thickens. Night, blackening night. Hark! The wolves are howling for the corpse of the slain Lord. Then, with more pathos and tenderness than can be seen in Rubens' picture, "Descent from the Cross," in the cathedral at Antwerp, is the dead Christ lowered, and there rises the wailing of crushed motherhood, and with solemn tread the mutilated body is sepulchred. But soon the door of the mausoleum falls and forth comes the Christ and, standing on the shoulder of Mount Olivet, He is ready for ascension. Then the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the 700 voices before and behind the scenes closes the most wonderful tragedy ever enacted.
As we rose for departure we felt like saying with the blind preacher, whom William Wirt, the orator of Virginia, heard concluding his sermon to a backwoods congregation:
"Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus died like a God!"
I have been asked whether this play would ever be successfully introduced into America or England. I think there is some danger that it may be secularised and turned into a mercenary institution. Instead of the long ride by carriages over rough mountain roads for days and days, as formerly was necessary in order to reach Ober-Ammergau, there are now two trains a day which land tourists for the Passion Play, and among them may appear some American theatrical manager who, finding that John Zwink of Ober-Ammergau impersonates the spirit of grab and cheat and insincerity better than any one who treads the American stage, and only received for his wonderful histrionic ability what equals forty-five pounds sterling for ten years, may offer him five times as much compensation for one night. If avarice could clutch Judas with such a relentless grasp at the offer of thirty pieces of silver, what might be the proportionate temptation of a thousand pieces of gold!
The impression made upon Dr. Talmage by the Passion Play was stirring and reverent. He described it as one of the most tremendous and fearful experiences of his life.
"I have seen it once, but I would not see it again," he said, "I would not dare risk my nerves to such an awful, harrowing ordeal. Accustomed as I am to think almost constantly on all that the Bible means, the Passion Play was an unfolding, a new and thrilling interpretation, a revelation. I never before realised the capabilities of the Bible for dramatic representation."
We went from Ober-Ammergau to that modern Eden for the overwrought nerves of kings and commoners—Baden-baden, where we spent ten days. At the end of this time we returned to Paris to enjoy the Exposition at our leisure. Paris is always a place of brightness and pleasure. King Leopold of Belgium was among the distinguished guests of the French capital, whom we saw one day while driving in the Bois. We made visits to Versailles and the palace of Fontainebleau. The Doctor enjoyed these trips into the country, and always manged to make his arrangements so that he could go with us. From Paris we went to London for a farewell visit. Dr. Talmage had promised to preach in John Wesley's chapel in the City Road, known as "The Cathedral of Methodism."
On Sunday, September 30, 1900, the crowd was so great that had come to hear Dr. Talmage that a cordon of police was necessary to guard the big iron gates after the church was filled. The text of his sermon that day was significant. It may have been a conception of his own life work—its text. It was taken from a passage in the eleventh chapter of Daniel:—
"The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits."
It is difficult to conceive of the enthusiasm that Dr. Talmage aroused everywhere the immense crowds that gathered to see and hear him. During our stay in London this time, after a preaching service in a church in Piccadilly, the wheels of our carriage were seized and we were like a small island in a black sea of restless men and women. The driver couldn't move. The Doctor took it with great delight and stood up in the carriage, making an address. From where he was standing he could not see the police charging the crowd to scatter them. When he did, he realised that he was aiding in obstructing the best regulated thoroughfare in London. Stopping his address, he said, "We must recognise the authority of the law," and sat down. It was said that Dr. Talmage was the only man who had ever stopped the traffic in Piccadilly.
From London Dr. Talmage and I went together for a short visit to the Isle of Wight, and later to Swansea where he preached; we left the girls with Lady Lyle, at Sir John Lyle's house in London.
It had become customary whenever the Doctor made an address to ask me to sit on the platform, and in this way I became equal to looking a big audience in the face, but one day the Doctor over-estimated my talents. He came in with more than his usual whir, and said to me:
"Eleanor, I have been asked if you won't dedicate a new building at the Wood Green Wesleyan Church in North London. I said I thought you would, and accepted for you. Won't you please do this for me?"
There was no denying him, and I consented, provided he would help me with the address. He did, and on the appointed day when we drove out to the place I had the notes of my speech held tightly crumpled in my glove. There was the usual crowd that had turned out to hear Dr. Talmage who was to preach afterwards, and I was genuinely frightened. I remember as we climbed the steps to the speaker's platform, the Doctor whispered to me, "Courage, Eleanor, what other women have done you can do." I almost lost my equilibrium when I was presented with a silver trowel as a souvenir of the event. There was nothing about a silver trowel in my notes. However, the event passed off without any calamity but it was my first and last appearance in public.
As the time approached for us to return to America the Doctor looked forward to the day of sailing. It had all been a wonderful experience even to him who had for so many years been in the glare of public life. He had reached the highest mark of public favour as a man, and as a preacher was the most celebrated of his time. I wonder now, as I realise the strain of work he was under, that he gave me so little cause for anxiety considering his years. He was a marvel of health and strength. There may have been days when his genius burned more dimly than others, and often I would ask him if the zest of his work was as great if he was a bit tired, hoping that he would yield a little to the trend of the years, but he was as strong and buoyant in his energies as if each day were a new beginning. His enjoyment of life was inspiring, his hold upon the beauty of it never relaxed.
From London we went to Belfast, on a very stormy day. Dr. Talmage was advised to wait a while, but he had no fear of anything. That crossing of the Irish Channel was the worst sea trip I ever had. We arrived in Belfast battered and ill from the stormy passage, all but the Doctor, who went stoically ahead with his engagements with undiminished vigour. Going up in the elevator of the hotel one day, we met Mrs. Langtry. Dr. Talmage had crossed the ocean with her.
"Won't you come and see my play to-night?" she asked him.
"I am very sorry, Madame, but I am speaking myself to-night," said the Doctor courteously. He told me afterwards how fortunate he felt it to be that he was able to make a real excuse. Invitations to the theatre always embarrassed him.
From Belfast we went to Cork for a few days, making a trip to the Killarney lakes before sailing from Queenstown on October 18, 1900, on the "Oceanic."
"Isn't it good to be going back to America, back to that beautiful city of Washington," said the Doctor, the moment we got on board.
Whatever he was doing, whichever way he was going, he was always in pursuit of the joy of living. Although the greatest year of my life was drawing to a close, it all seemed then like an achievement rather than a farewell, like the beginning of a perfect happiness, the end of which was in remote perspective.
THE LAST MILESTONE
1900-1902
There was no warning of the divine purpose; there was no pause of weakness or illness in his life to foreshadow his approaching end. Until the last sunset hours of his useful days he always seemed to me a man of iron. He had stood in the midst of crowds a towering figure; but away from them his life had been a studied annihilation, an existence of hidden sacrifice to his great work. He used to say to me: "Eleanor, I have lived among crowds, and yet I have been much of the time quite alone." But alone or in company his mind was ever active, his great heart ever intent on his apostolate of sunshine and help towards his fellow-men. And the good things he said were not alone the utterances of his public career; they came bubbling forth as from a spring during the course of his daily life, in his home and among his friends, even with little children. Books have been written styled, "Conversations of Eminent Men"; and I have often thought had his ordinary conversations been reported, or, better, could the colossal crowds who admired him have been, as we, his privileged listeners, they would have been no less charmed with his brilliant talk than with the public displays of eloquence with which they were so captivated.
Immediately after his return from Europe in the autumn of 1900, Dr. Talmage took up his work with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. He stepped back into his study as if a new career of preaching awaited him. Never, indeed, had a Sunday passed, since our union, on which he had not given his divine message from the pulpit; never had he missed a full, arduous, wearisome day's work in his Master's vineyard. But I think Dr. Talmage now wrote and preached more industriously and vigorously than I had ever seen him before. His work had become so important an element in the character of American life, and in the estimate of the American people—I might add, in that of many foreign peoples, too—that his consciousness of it seemed to double and treble his powers; he was carried along on a great wave of enthusiasm; and in the joy of it all, we, with the thousands who bowed before his influence, looked naturally for a great many years of a life of such wide-spread usefulness. Over him had come a new magic of autumnal youth and strength that touched the inspirations of his mind and increased the optimism of his heart. No one could have suspected that the golden bowl was so soon to be broken; that the pitcher, still so full of the refreshing draughts of wisdom, was about to be crushed at the fountain. But so it was to be.
Invigorated by his delightful foreign trip, Dr. Talmage now resumed his labours with happy heart and effervescing zeal. He used to say: "I don't care how old a man gets to be, he never ought to be over eighteen years of age." And he seemed now to be a living realisation of his words. He had given up his regular pastorate at the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, that he might devote himself to broader responsibilities, which seemed to have fallen upon him because of his world-wide reputation. I cannot forbear quoting here—as it reveals so much the character of the man—a portion of his farewell letter, the mode he took of giving his parting salutation:
"The world is full of farewells, and one of the hardest words to utter is goodby. What glorious Sabbaths we have had together! What holy communions! What thronged assemblages! Forever and forever we will remember them.... And now in parting I thank you for your kindness to me and mine. I have been permitted, Sabbath by Sabbath, to confront, with the tremendous truths of the Gospel, as genial and lovely, and cultivated and noble people as I ever knew, and it is a sadness to part with them.... May the richest blessing of God abide with you! May your sons and daughters be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty! And may we all meet in the heavenly realms to recount the divine mercies which have accompanied us all the way, and to celebrate, world without end, the grace that enabled us to conquer! And now I give you a tender, a hearty, a loving, a Christian goodby.
"T. DeWitt Talmage."
Apart from his active literary and editorial work, he was now to devote himself to sermons and lectures which should have for audience the whole country. As a consequence, on re-entering his study after his long absence, he found accumulated on his desk an immense number of invitations to preach, applications from all parts of the land. He smiled, and expressed more than once his conviction that God's Providence had marked out his way for him, and here was direct proof of His divine call and His fatherly love.
At a monster meeting in New York this year Dr. Talmage revived national interest in his presence and his Gospel. Ten thousand people crowded to the Academy of Music to hear his words of encouragement and hope. It was the twentieth anniversary of the Bowery Mission, of which Dr. Talmage was one of the founders. "This century," he said in part, "is to witness a great revival of religion. Cities are to be redeemed. Official authority can do much, but nothing can take the place of the Gospel of God.... No man goes deliberately into sin; he gets aboard the great accommodation train of Temptation, assured that it will stop at the depot of Prudence, or anywhere else he desires, to let him off. The conductor cries: 'All aboard' and off he goes. The train goes faster and faster, and presently he wants to get off. 'Stop'! he calls to the conductor; but that official cries back: 'This is the fast express and does not stop until it reaches the Grand Central Station of Smashupton.'" The sinner can be raised up, he insists. "The Bible says God will forgive 490 times. At your first cry He will bend down from his throne to the depths of your degradation. Put your face to the sunrise."
Faith in God was his armour; his shield was hope; his amulet was charity. He harnessed the events of the world to his chariot of inspiration, and sped on his way as in earlier years. He had become a foremost preacher of the Gospel because he preached under the spell of evangelical impulse, under the control of that remarkable faith which comes with the transformation of all converted men or women. The stillness of the vast crowds that stood about the church doors when he addressed them briefly in the open air after services was a tribute to the spell he cast over them by the miracle of that converting grace. He was quite unconscious of the attention he attracted outside the pulpit, on the street, in the trains. His celebrity was not the consequence of his endeavours to obtain it, nor was it won, as some declared, by studied dramatic effects; it was the result of his moments of inspiration, combined with continual and almost superhuman mental labour—labour that was a fountain of perennial delight to him, but none the less labour.
If "Genius is infinite patience," as a French writer said, Dr. Talmage possessed it in an eminent degree. Every sermon he ever wrote was an output of his full energies, his whole heart and mind; and while dictating his sermons in his study, he preached them before an imaginary audience, so earnest was his desire to reach the hearts of his hearers and produce upon them a lasting influence. His sermons were born not of the crowd, but for the crowd, in deep religious fervour and conviction. His lectures, incisive and far-reaching as they were in their conceptions and in their moral and social effects, were not so impressive as his sermons, with their undertone of divine inspiration.
In accord with an invitation sent to us in Paris, from the Governor of Pennsylvania, we went to Harrisburg as the guests at the Executive Mansion, where a dinner and reception were given Dr. Talmage in honour of his return from abroad. During this dinner, the Rev. Dr. John Wesley Hill, then pastor of the church in Harrisburg in which Dr. Talmage preached, told us of a rare autograph letter of Lincoln, which he owned. It was his wish that Dr. Talmage should have it in his house, where he thought more people would see it. The next day, Dr. Hill sent this letter to us:—
"Gentlemen,—In response to your address, allow me to attest the accuracy of its historical statements; indorse the sentiments it expresses; and thank you, in the nation's name, for the sure promise it gives.
"Nobly sustained as the government has been by all the churches, I would utter nothing which might, in the least, appear invidious against any. Yet, without this, it may fairly be said that the Methodist Episcopal Church, not less devoted than the best, is, by its greater numbers, the most important of all. It, is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church—bless all the churches—and blessed be God, Who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.
"A. Lincoln.
"May 18th, 1864."
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 scrapbook 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 furnishing 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 manuscript. 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 Washington contained a large and valuable collection of classics, 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 assailed by modern critics—pronounced infidels or of infidel proclivities—who called him a "bibliolater." He asserted and reasserted 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 God'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 bass 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 grasshopper 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 God, 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 passed 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 illustrates 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 warship at Hampton Roads, homesick and miserable. Dr. Talmage went directly to Washington, 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 ship 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 passed. 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 passing, "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 versâ, 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 masses, 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 scrap-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 God, 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 God 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 Washington 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 Washington, 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 god 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 assassination 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:—
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 Washington. 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 xxxiii. 2: "Sing unto Him with the Psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings." This was David's harp of gratitude 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. Instead of being grateful for here and there a blessing we happen to think of, we ought to rehearse all our blessings, and obey the injunction of my text to sing unto Him with an instrument of ten strings." "Have you ever thanked God for delightsome food?" he asks; and for sight for "the eye, the window of our immortal nature, the gate through which all colours march, the picture gallery of the soul?" He enumerates other blessings—hearing, sleep, the gift of reason, the beauties of nature, friends. "I now come," he continues, "to the tenth and last. I mention it last that it may be more memorable—heavenly anticipation. By the grace of God we are going to move into a place so much better than this, that on arriving we will wonder that we were for so many years so loath to make the transfer. After we have seen Christ face to face, and rejoiced over our departed kindred, there are some mighty spirits we will want to meet soon after we pass through the gates." As his graphic pen depicts the scene—the meeting with David and the great ones of Scripture, "the heroes and heroines who gave their lives for the truth, the Gospel proclaimers, the great Christian poets, all the departed Christian men and women of whatever age or nation"—he seems to have already a foretaste of the wonderful vision so soon to open to his eyes. "Now," he concludes, "take down your harp of ten strings and sweep all the chords. Let us make less complaint and offer more thanks; render less dirge and more cantata. Take paper and pen and write in long columns your blessings.... Set your misfortunes to music, as David opened his dark sayings on a harp.... Blessing, and honour and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever. Amen!"
I recall that when Dr. Talmage first read this sermon to me in his study, he said: "That is the best I can do; I shall never write a better sermon." I have been told that when a man says he has reached the topmost effort of his abilities, it presages his end, and the march of events seemed to verify the axiom.
Dr. Talmage's last journey came about through the invitation of the Mexican minister in Washington. The latter met Dr. Talmage at dinner, and on hearing that he had never preached in Mexico he urged him to go there. When the Doctor's plans had all been made, some friends tried to dissuade him from going, secretly fearing, perhaps, the tax it would be on his strength. Yet there was no evidence at this time to support their fears, and the Doctor himself would have been the last to listen to any warning. He was very busy during the few days that preceded our departure from Washington in attending the meetings of the Committee of distinguished clergymen who were in session to revise the creed of the Presbyterian Church.
The day before we left for Mexico, the Doctor told me he desired to entertain these gentlemen, as had been his custom during all important gatherings of representative churchmen who visited Washington. He was in great spirits. His ideas of a social affair were definite and generous, as we discovered that day, much to our amusement.
"Eleanor," he said, "I feel as though I would like to have these gentlemen to luncheon at my house to-morrow. Can you arrange it? I could not possibly leave Washington without showing them some special courtesy. Now, I want a real meal, something to sit down to. None of your floating oysters, or little daubs of meat in pastry, but real food, whole turkeys, four or five of them—a substantial meal." The Doctor's respect for chicken patties, creamed oysters, and the usual buffet reception luncheon, was clearly not very great.
The luncheon was given at 1.30 on the day appointed; the distinguished guests all came, two by two, into our house. A few weeks later, they came again in a body, two by two, into the house of mourning.
Besides the visiting clergy, Dr. Talmage had also invited for this luncheon other representative men of Washington. It was the last social gathering which the Doctor ever attended in his own home, and perhaps for that reason becomes a significant event in my memory. After the rest had departed, Dr. Henry Van Dyke remained for an hour or two to talk with my husband in his study. Dr. Talmage so often referred to the great pleasure this long interview had given him, that I am sure it was one of the supreme enjoyments of his last spiritual milestone.
The night before we left Washington an incident occurred that directly concerns these pages. We had gone down into the basement of the house to look for some papers the Doctor kept there in the safe, and in taking them out he picked up the manuscript of his autobiography. As we went upstairs I said to the Doctor, "What a pity that you have not completed it entirely."
The Doctor replied, "All the obscure part of my life is written here, and a great part of the rest of it. When I return from Mexico I will finish it. If anything should happen, however, it can be completed from scrapbooks and other data."
We went into his study and the Doctor had just begun to read it to me when we were interrupted by a call from Senator Hanna. Dr. Talmage particularly admired Senator Hanna, and, as they were great friends, the autobiography was forgotten for the rest of the evening. Knowing that the Doctor was about to leave Washington the Senator had come to wish him goodby, and to urge him to visit his brother at Thomasville, Georgia, where we were to stop on our way to Mexico. I remember Senator Hanna said to the Doctor, "You will find the place very pretty; we own a good deal of property there, so much so that it could easily be called Hannaville." The next morning we started for the City of Mexico, going direct to Charleston, where the Doctor preached. He was entertained a good deal there, and we witnessed the opening of the Charleston Exposition.
From Charleston we went to Thomasville, Georgia, where we spent a week, during which time the Doctor preached and lectured twice at nearby places. It was here that we met the first accident of our journey. Just as we were steaming into Thomasville we ran into a train ahead, and there was some loss of life and great damage. Fortunately we were in the last Pullman car of the train. I have always believed that the shock of this accident was the beginning of the end for Dr. Talmage. He showed no fear, and he gave every assistance possible to others; but, in the tension of the moment, in his own self-restraint for the sake of others, I think that he overtaxed his strength more than he realised. I never wanted to see a train again, and begged the Doctor to let us remain in Thomasville the rest of our lives. The next morning, however, Dr. Talmage started out on a preaching engagement in the neighbourhood by train, but we remained behind. Our stay in Thomasville was made very enjoyable by the relatives of Senator Hanna, whose beautiful estates were a series of landscape pictures I shall always remember. Although the Doctor was obliged to be away on lecturing engagements three times during the week he enjoyed the drives about Thomasville with us while he was there. Our destination after leaving Thomasville was New Orleans, where Dr. Talmage was received as if he had been a national character. He was welcomed by a distinguished deputation with the utmost cordiality. The Christian Herald said of this occasion: "When he went on the following Sunday to the First Presbyterian Church he found a great multitude assembled, the large building densely packed within and a much vaster gathering out of doors unable to obtain admittance. Thousands went away disappointed. He spoke with even more than usual force and conviction." Never were we more royally entertained or fêted than we were here. From New Orleans we went to San Antonio, where we stopped off for two or three days' sight-seeing. The Doctor was urged to preach and lecture while he was there; but he excused himself on the ground of a previous engagement, promising, however, to lecture in San Antonio on his return trip to Washington.