The Indianapolis journal., 1902-04-27
TALMAGE "REMINISCENCES
personal ANECDOTES AND IMPRESS
sIONs or THE FAMOUS PREACHER.
His Philosophy Concerning His Enc
mies-The Last Brooklyn Triumph
-NeighbOrIy Qualities.
Correspondence Of the Indianapolis Journal.

Sunday by taking a Fulton ferrybOat,
landing in Brooklyn. and climbing the slop
ing, densely-populated Hill, to Beechers
Church
But he was out OF town lecturing. and
somebody else was In the pulpit, and
walked away with a discomfort which L
did not take any particular care TO conceal
from good-natured looking burgher who
stood at the doorway OF his house. summing
himself
why don't you go and hear this new
light up on SchermerhOrn street?' he
asked: He's almost as good
SO TO SchermerhOrn street / wended my
way and found the new light'-just COM
mencing his sermon. He was "A tall, bOny,
angular man over six feet high, and as
wide a spacious pulpit platform would
allow him to be-wide in the sense that he
could occupy every inch Of that rostrum
within sixty seconds OF any given time.
His face was thin; sandy Burnside whis-
kers ornamented IL. His voice was harsh,
though strong His gestures were such as
the average elOcutionist would promptly
condemn. Where is his drawing power?'
mUsed, for / was standing up for lack of
seat in that great audience
The answer came in the very next SEN
b
oratorical figure that caught you by the
collar and held you. whether you would or
not II was prose-poem in twenty words.
Il wonder if he can do that again. or if
it's his pet epigram Of the day" was the
next thought
He did it again and again. He seemed to
be so full of that sort Of thing that he had
hardly time TO give them all out Inde-
Of rba t,f-
sermon was a literary feast-or rather a
series of literary electric shocks.
A BORN ACTOR.
CandOr compels me 10 admit that had,
during the preceding week, attended the
theaters six evenings in succession for
student just out OF college restrictions is
prone to indulge himself somewhat when
ne gets into a city. But during all the six
nights had seen no acting like this-had
found no stage-however large the company
lighted up with attractions like this, no
scenery equal to that which he drew with
his own unaided tongue.
So far as the way-down subject-matter of
the discourse was concerned. there was
nothing particularly new; you could go
into the church of any good old Presby-
terian divine and hear exactly the same
doctrine. But when it came TO the manner
OF stating those doctrines. then it was that
the excitement commenced.
His ideas of the fallibility of earthly
grandeur had been preached again and
again; but probably no one had counseled
people to ask the French guillotine in Nine
Tussaud's museum concerning the queenly
necks IL had discovered. His views of eter-
nal punishment were as orthodox as if
they had been brewed a hundred years be-
fore; but he alone asserted in those same
words that Hell is a great metropolis of
suffering" 1 had heard infidels denounced
but had never imagined that they gathered
all the divine teachings and under them
lighted the fires of their own wit. and
scorn, and sarcasm. and then danced in the
light of that blaze. and then scratched
amid the rubbish for something with which
TO help them in the days of trouble
And when he through he referred
TO great shipwreck that had recently
taken place. and said. solemnly and impress
sively:
''Toll. toll the bell for the spirits of those
who were lost beneath those murderous
waves
And Immediately. from the regions of the
belfry. came the half-mufied sounds OF the
tabernacle belI-toIled by the hand of the
sexton. who was. it seems, a coadjutor in
this impressive speech. Talmage seemed
that morning like a John Knox. George
Whitefield and a Lorenzo Dow all rolled
into one.
IMAGINARY AUDIENCES.
was a few years later TO become a near
neighbor of this unique man. and to see and
hesr him under all sorts of conditions and
IN almost every mood. He had been a farm
er's boy in New Jersey. ne told me. and
had preached many a sermon to the night
woods and winds. imagining that large
audiences sat before him. His father was
a strong. rather austere man. who was
stern and sturdy enough to be elected
sheriff OF the county. His mother was a
poet in prose. never telling fact in plain
words il there was a figure with which to
Illustrate It, DE Witt. bounce up like
lamplghter." she would call from the bot
tom OF the stairway on a cold winter morn
ing while he yet fingered in his warm bed.
The dear. sweet woman looks like picked
canary" she would say upon returning
from some ministration of love and charity
''Ie pours the oil OF gladness into leather
bottles and then seals them up too tightly"
she remarked OF dull preacher.
But wherever he procured his genius
whether from father or mother. or both
ne was one Of the mental and heart phe-
nomena OF the nineteenth century. I'm two
thirds OF which he lived and half OF which
ne kept aglow with his Oratory. Although
one might not be a regular attendant at
his church. IL was an unmeasured luxury
20 have him so near by. If you asked an
out-of-town visitor what he or she wanted
most 10 see or hear the first answer was
generally. "Oh. Beecher and Talmage Of
course" and Beecher's name was not al
ways mentioned first.
HIS QUICK PERCEPTIONS.
IL there was any particular event that
occupied the public mind. his quick per-
ceptiOn always enabled him TO take ad-
vantage OF IL. One morning happened into
his church during a severe storm. Ii was
such a sturdy mixing up OF the elements
that many of Efs flock had stayed i'm their
home folds. md the great shoals OF tran
sient cuTiOsity-seekers were constrained 10
keep away; but the service went on with
II possible, more elaborate care than ever
stayed that morning only during the
public perusal Of Bible verses, being really
on my way 10 another church: but what I
heard was characteristic. He had gone