T. De Witt Talmage Part 17

The Trustees of the Tabernacle, like a guard of honour, came in with me, and as we made our way through the crowds to the stage, the long-continued cheering and applause were deafening. The band, a.s.sisted by the cornetist, Peter Ali, played "Home, Sweet Home." For a few minutes I was very busy shaking hands.

The most inspiring moment of these preliminaries was the approach of the most distinguished man in that vast a.s.sembly, General William T.

Sherman. He marched to the platform under military escort, while the band played "Marching through Georgia." Everyone stood up in deference to the old warrior, handkerchiefs were waved, hats flew up in the air, everyone was so proud of him, so pleased to see him! Mayor Chapin introduced the General, and as he stood patiently waiting for the audience to regain its self-control, the band played "Auld Lang Syne."

Then in the presence of that great crowd he gave me a soldier's welcome.

I remember one sentence uttered by Sherman that night that revealed the character of the great fighter when he said, "The same G.o.d that appeared at Nazareth is here to-night."

But nothing on that auspicious evening was so great to me as when Sherman spoke what he described as the soldier's welcome:

"How are you, old fellow, glad to see you!" he said.

The building of the new Tabernacle, my third effort to establish an independent church in Brooklyn, went on rapidly. We were planning then to open it in September, 1891. The church building alone was to cost $150,000. Its architectural beauty was in accord with the elegance of its fashionable neighbourhood on "The Hill," as that residential part of Brooklyn was always described.

"The Hill" was unique. When people in Brooklyn became tired of the rush and bustle of life they returned to Clinton Avenue. It was an idyllic village in the heart of the city. The front yards were as large as farms. New Yorkers described this locality as "Sleepy Hollow." On this account, during my absence, there had developed in the neighbourhood some opposition to the building of the new Tabernacle there. Some of the residents were afraid it would disturb the quiet of the neighbourhood.

They opposed it as they would a base ball park, or a circus. They were afraid the organ would annoy the sparrows. The opposition went so far that a subscription paper was pa.s.sed around to induce us to go away. As much as $15,000 was raised to persuade us. These objections, however, were confined to a few people, the majority realising the adornment the new church would be to the neighbourhood. When I returned I found that this opposing sentiment had described us as "the Tabernacle Rabble." I was in splendid health and spirits however, and refused to be downcast.

During my absence our pews had been rented, realising $18,000. The largest portion of these pews were rented by letter, and the balance at a public meeting held in Temple Israel. The second gallery of the church was free. The highest price paid in the rental for one pew for a year was $75, the lowest was $20. In the interval, pending the completion of the church, pew holders were given tickets for reserved seats in the Academy of Music, where our Sunday services were held. There were 1,500 free seats in the second gallery of the new Tabernacle.

It was a great joy to find that the enterprise I had inaugurated before sailing for the Holy Land had made such good progress. But we were always fortunate.

I recall that my congregation was surprised one morning to learn that Emma Abbott, the beautiful American singer, had left a bequest of $5,000 to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. I was not surprised. I had received a private note from her once expressing her kindly feeling toward our Church and promising, in the event of her decease, to leave some remembrance to us. She always had a presentiment that her life was to be short, and this always had a very depressing effect upon her. Her grief for her husband's death hastened her own. She loved him with all her heart. She was a good woman. Mr. Beecher was a kind and loyal friend to her in her obscurer days. In those days Mr. Beecher brought her over from New York and put her in care of a Mrs. Bird in Brooklyn. Until she went abroad she was helped in her musical education by these friends.

She attended Mr. Beecher's prayer meetings regularly. Everyone who met her felt that she was a n.o.ble-hearted woman of pure character and sweet soul.

On February 9, 1890, I preached my first sermon since my return from the Holy Land in the Academy of Music. It was expected that I would preach about the country of sacred memories that I had visited, but I was impressed with what I had found on my return in religious history of a more modern purpose. They had been fixing up the creeds while I was abroad, tracing the footsteps of divine law, and I felt the importance of this fact. So I chose the text in Joshua vi. 23, "And the young men that were spies went in and brought out Rahab, and her father and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had."

I did not read the newspapers while I was away so I was not familiar with all the discussion. I understood, however, that they were revising the creed. You might as well try to patch up your grandfather's overcoat. It will be much better to get a new one. The recent sessions of the Presbytery had been divided into two parties. One was in favour of patching up the old overcoat, the other in favour of a new one. Dr.

Briggs had pointed out the torn places--at least five of them. He had revealed it, shabby and somewhat threadbare. Presbyterians had practically discarded the garment. Why should they want to flaunt any of its shreds? So I agreed with Dr. Briggs, that we had better get a new one.

The laying of the corner stone of the new Tabernacle took place on the afternoon of February 11, 1890. It was a modest ceremony because it was considered wise to defer the festivities for the dedication services that were to occur in the church itself in the spring. The two tin boxes placed in the corner stone contained the records of the church organisation from 1854 to 1873, a copy of the Bible, coins of 1873, newspaper accounts of the dedication of the old Tabernacle, copies of the Brooklyn and New York newspapers, photographs of the trustees, a 25-cent gold piece from the Philadelphia mint with the Lord's Prayer engraved on one side, drawing and plans of the new Tabernacle, and some Colonial money dated 1759, 1771, 1773, 1774. During my trip in the Holy Land I had secured two stones, one from Mount Calvary and one from Mount Sinai, which were to be placed in the Tabernacle later.

The "Tabernacle Rabble," as the Philistines of Clinton Avenue called us, continued to meet in the Academy of Music with renewed vigour. My own duties became more exacting because of the additional work I had undertaken, of an editorial nature, on two periodicals.

Of course my critics were always with me. What man or thing on earth is without these stimulants of one's energy. They were fair and unfair. I did not care so much for my serious critics as my humorous ones.

Solemnity when sustained by malice or bigotry is a bore. Some call it hypocrisy, but that is too clever for the tiresome critic. Frequently, in my sc.r.a.p book, I kept the funny comments about myself.

Here is one from the "Chicago American," published in 1890:--

When Talmage the terrible shouts his "G.o.d-speed"

To illit'rate (and worse) immigration, Who knows but his far-seeing mind feels a need Of recruits for his mix'd congregation?

And when he, self-made gateman of Heaven, says he's glad To rake in, on his free invitation, The fit and the unfit, the good and the bad, Put it down to his tall-'mag-ination.--_Pan._

My critics were particularly wrought up again on my return from Palestine over my finances. What a crime it was, they said, for a minister to be a millionaire! Had I really been one how much more I could have helped some of them along. Finally the subject became most wearisome, and I gave out some actual facts. From this data it was revealed that I was worth about $200,000, considerably short of one million. In actual cash it was finally declared that I was only worth $100,000. My house in Brooklyn, which I bought shortly after my pastorate began there, cost $35,000. I paid $5,000 cash, and obtained easy terms on a mortgage for the balance. It was worth $60,000 in 1890.

My country residence at East Hampton was estimated to be worth $20,000.

I owned a few lots on the old Coney Island road. My investments of any surplus funds I had were in 5 per cent. mortgages. I had as much as $80,000 invested in this way since I had begun these operations in 1882. Most of the mortgages were on private residences. I mention these facts that there may be no jealous feeling against me among other millionaires. Because of my reputation for wealth I was sometimes included among New York's fashionable clergymen. I deny that I was ever any such thing, and I almost believe such a thing never was, but I find, in my sc.r.a.pbook, a contemporaneous list of them.

Dr. Morgan Dix, of Trinity Church, with a salary of $15,000, heads the list, Dr. Brown of St. Thomas' Church, received the same amount; so did Dr. Huntington of Grace Church, and Dr. Greer of St. Bartholomew's. The Bishop of the diocese received no more. Dr. Rainsford of St. George's Church received $10,000, and like Dr. Greer, possessing a private fortune, he turned his salary over to the church. The clergymen of the Methodist Episcopal churches were not so rich. The Bishop of New York received only $5,000. The pastor of St. Paul's, on Fourth Avenue, received the same amount, so did the pastor of the Madison Avenue Church.

The Presbyterian pulpits were filled with some of the ablest preachers in New York. Dr. John Hall of the Fifth Avenue Church received the salary of $30,000, Dr. Paxton $10,000, Dr. Parkhurst and Dr. C.C.

Thompson $8,000 respectively. Dr. Robert Collyer of the Park Avenue Unitarian Church, received $10,000, and Dr. William M. Taylor of the Broadway Tabernacle the same amount.

I was included among these "men of fashion," much to my surprise. This fact, forced upon me by contemporary opinion, did not have anything to do with what happened in the spring of 1891, though it was applied in that way. My congregation were not told about it until it was too late to interfere. This I thought wise because there might have been some opposition to my course. I kept it a secret because it was not a matter I could discuss with any dignity. Then, too, I realised that it was going to affect the entire brotherhood of newspaper artists, especially the cartoonists. I shuddered when I thought of the embarra.s.sment this act of mine would cause the country editor with only one Talmage woodcut of many years in his art department. So I did it quietly, without consultation.

In the spring of 1891 I shaved my whiskers.

THE FIFTEENTH MILESTONE

1891-1892

On April 26, 1891, the new Tabernacle was opened. There were three dedication services and thousands of people came. I was fifty-nine years of age. Up to this time everything had been extraordinary in its conflict, its warnings. I found myself, after over thirty years of service to the Gospel, pastor of the biggest Protestant church in the world. It seems to me there were more men of indomitable success during my career in America than at any other time. There were so many self-made men, so many who compelled the world to listen, and feel and do as they believed--men of remarkable energy, of prophetic genius.

Everywhere in England I had been asked about Cyrus W. Field. He was the hero of the nineteenth century. In his days of sickness and trouble the world remembered him. Of all the population of the earth he was the one man who believed that a wire could be strung across the Atlantic. It took him twelve years of incessant toil and fifty voyages across the Atlantic. I remember well, in 1857, when the cable broke, how everyone joined in the great chorus of "I told you so." There was a great jubilee in that choral society of wise know-nothings. Thirty times the grapnel searched the bottom of the sea and finally caught the broken cable, and the pluck and ingenuity of Cyrus W. Field was celebrated. Ocean cablegrams had ceased to be a curiosity, but some of us remember the day when they were. I kept a memorandum of the two first messages across the Atlantic that pa.s.sed between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan in the summer of 1858.

From England, in the Queen's name, came this:

"To the President of the United States, Washington--

"The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this great international work, in which the Queen has taken the deepest interest. The Queen is convinced that the President will join with her in fervently hoping that the electric cable which now connects Great Britain with the United States will prove an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the President and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United States."

The President's answering cable was as follows:

"To Her Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain--

"The President cordially reciprocates the congratulations of Her Majesty the Queen on the success of the great international enterprise accomplished by the science, skill, and indomitable energy of the two countries. It is a triumph more glorious than was ever won by any conquest on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations and an instrument designed by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilisation, liberty and law throughout the world. In this view will not all nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be forever neutral, and that its communications shall be held sacred in pa.s.sing to their destination, even in the midst of hostilities.

"JAMES BUCHANAN."

It is interesting to compare the elemental quality, the inner character of these national flashes of feeling, that came so comparatively soon after the days of the revolution in America. It was a sort of prose poetry of the new century. This recollection came back to me, on my return from Europe, upon the opening of the new Tabernacle, a symbol of the eternal human progress of the world. Materially and spiritually we were striving ahead, men of affairs, men of religion, philosophers, scientists, and poets.

I was present in 1891 at the celebration of Whittier's eighty-fourth birthday. He was on the bright side of eighty then. The schools celebrated the day, so should the churches have done, for he was a Christian poet.

John Greenleaf Whittier was a Quaker. That means that he was a genial, kind, good man--a simple man. I spent an afternoon with him once in a barn. We were summering in the mountains near by. We found ourselves in the barn, where we stretched out on the hay. The world had not spoiled the simplicity of his nature. It was an afternoon of pastoral peace, with one who had written himself into the heart of a nation. How much I learned from that man's childlikeness and simplicity!

If he had lived to be a hundred he would still have remained young. The long flight of years had not tired his spirit, for wherever the English language is spoken he will always live. He was born in Christmas week, a spirit in human shape, come to earth to keep it forever young. He was the bell-ringer of all youthful ages. And yet he remembered also those who for any reason could not join in the merriment of the holidays. To those I recommend Whittier's poem, in which he celebrates the rescue of two Quakers who had been fined 10 for attending church instead of going to a Quaker Meeting House, and not being able to pay the fine were first imprisoned and then sold as slaves, but no ship master consenting to carry them into slavery they were liberated. The closing stanza of this poem is worth remembering:--

"Now, let the humble ones arise, The poor in heart be glad, And let the mourning ones again With robes of praise be clad; For He who cooled the furnace, And smoothed the stormy wave, And turned the Chaldean lions, Is mighty still to save."

The new Tabernacle more than met our expectations. From the day we opened it, it was a great blessing. It seated 6,000 persons, and when crowded held 7,000. There was still some debt on the building, for the entire enterprise had cost us about $400,000. There were regrets expressed that we did not follow the elaborate custom of some fashionable churches in these days and introduce into our services operatic music. I preferred the simple form of sacred music--a cornet and organ. Everybody should get his call from G.o.d, and do his work in his own way. I never had any sympathy with dogmatics. There is no church on earth in which there is more freedom of utterance than in the Presbyterian church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE THIRD BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.]

We were in the midst of a religious conflict on many sacred questions in 1892. There came upon us a plague called Higher Criticism. My idea of it was that Higher Criticism meant lower religion. The Bible seemed to me entirely satisfactory. The chief hindrance to the Gospel was this everlasting picking at the Bible by people who pretended to be its friends, but who themselves had never been converted. The Higher Criticism was only a flurry. The world started as a garden and it will close as a garden. That there may be no false impression of the sublime destiny of the world as I see it, let me add that it is not a garden of idleness and pleasure, but a vineyard in which all must labour from early morning till the glory of sundown wraps us in its revival robes of golden splendour.

What a changing, hurrying world of desperate means it is. What a mirage of towering ambition is the whole of life! I have so often wondered why men, great men of heart and brain, should ever die out, though they pa.s.s on to live forever under brighter skies.

In January, 1892, Congressman William E. Robinson was buried from our church, and in February of the same month Spurgeon died in England.

Though men may live at swords' points with each other they die in peace.