The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-10-30
A NOTED DIVINE.
SKETCH OF THE REV. DIR. tai
MAGE'S CAREER.
His Home Life and Manifold Duties
Where and How He Composes
His Sermons-His Cor
respondence.

respondence.
: Rev. T. De Witt Talmage was born
near Bound Brook, New Jersey, on the
7th of January, 1882, and was the son of
David Talmage, a respected citizen and
at one time Sheriff of Somerset County.
He was educated at the University of the
City of New York, and at the the Semin-
ary at New Brunswick, New Jersey, where
he continued his studies until he was
twenty-four years old. Then he was Or
dained, and after three years at a country
church, in 1850 he was called to the Sec
ond Reformed Church of Philadelphia.
So successful was his ministry, and so
popular his preaching, that he had many
opportunities of advancement to more
important posts. In 1869 he accepted a
call from the Central Presbyterian
Church of Brooklyn, N. Y, of which he
has now been pastor for twenty years.
Soon after his arrival in Brooklyn, his
congregation became too large for the
church, and in 1870 a new building was
erected on Schermerhorn street, and
called the Tabernacle. This was de-
stroyed by fire in 1872. The following
year third and still more capacious edi-
flee was completed, which has been
crowded at every service since the open
ing.
A New York editor thus describes the
doctors study in his home in Brooklyn.
"There is no evidence here of luxury, or
even comfort. The floor is of hard, pol
ished wood. The walls are plain white.
Drawn up to big window is table. 1t
is Uttered with letters, newspapers,
books, magazines, pens, Ink bottles, pen
ellis and writing paper. A stiff backed
chair, without cushion, is before the
table. 1t is typical literary mans den.
Book shelves are ranged around the
walls. Books are piled in corners, and
even in the middle of the floor. Ascore
or more of the leading daily newspapers
of the country are filed away in one cor
ner."
Here it is that Dr.. Talmage composes
his sermons, his lectures, and his "Fri-
day night talks" These he ditates to a
stenographer after carefully thinking
them out in his mind. Easy and fluent as
his delivery is, vast amount of labor is
needed to evolve, as he has done for more
than twenty years, constant succession
of new and striking ideas. 1t may be
doubted whether any other public speaker
has said so much, and maintained so sur.
prising q freshness of thought and ex'
preston.
Here, too, he attends to the letters thai
come to him from all over the country,
many from friends, but more from total
strangers, who ask his advice under
every conceivable emergency. In an arti;
Gle about DR.. Talmage's home life, printed
some months since in New York daily,
there WAS given an interesting account oi
the contents of mornings mail, deliv.
cred by the postman at the home of th.
noted preacher: ga young minister writes
to say that his congregation is leaving
him. How shall he get his people backs
An old sailor scrawls on piece of yellow
paper that he is bound for the China Seas,
and he wants copy of each of DR.. Tai.
mages sermons sent to his old wife in
New Bedford while he is gone. Here is
a letter in schoolgirls hand. She has
had quarrel with her first lover, and he
has left her in huff. How can she get
him backa The next letter is from the
driver of horse car. He has been dis
charged. His children go to DR.. Tai
mage's ay-school. Is that not
enough to show that the father is relia-
BILE and steady, and will not the preacher
60 at once to the superintendent of the
car line and have him reinstated2 There
are invitations to 60 here and there and
to speak in various cities. Young men
write for advice. One, with the com.
mercial instinct strongly developed,
wants to know if the ministry pays9 Still
another letter is from a patent medicine
house, asking if the preacher will not
write an Endorsement of new cure for
rheumatism. Other writers take the
preacher to task for some uttcrance in
the pulpit that does not please them. A
young man wants to get married and
writes to know what it will cost to tie
the knot"
Such assistance as the preacher can
give is given, as it is also to the throng
of applicants who come in person. 1t is
not strange that DR.. Talmage should be
sought out in this way, when we con-
slider the enormous number OF those
whose chosen preacher he is. This does
not mean the audiences who actually hear
his sermons delivered. Indeed, the six
thousand worshipers who throng every
seat and aisle of the Tabernacle are as it
were mere drop in the ocean over which
his words are carried by the printing
press. His discourses are published in
many hundreds of periodicals, not only
in this country but all over the civilized
world, and it has been calculated that
they reach not less than eighteen millions
of readers every week.-The Argosy.