CHAPTER XXX.
Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music—Rev. Dr. Talmage.
New York, March 2.
Went to hear Dr. T. de Witt Talmage this morning at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn.
What an actor America has lost by Dr. Talmage choosing the pulpit in preference to the stage!
The Academy of Music was crowded. Standing-room only. For an old-fashioned European, to see a theater, with its boxes, stalls, galleries, open for divine service was a strange sight; but we had not gone very far into the service before it became plain to me that there was nothing divine about it. The crowd had come there, not to worship God, but to hear Mr. Talmage.
At the door the programme was distributed. It consisted of six hymns to be interluded with prayers by the doctor. Between the fifth and sixth, he delivered the lecture, or the sermon, if you insist on the name, and during the sixth there was the collection, that hinge on which the whole service turns in Protestant places of worship.
| THE LEADER OF THE CHOIR. |
I took a seat and awaited with the rest the entrance of Dr. Talmage. There was subdued conversation going on all around, just as there would be at a theater or concert: in fact, throughout the whole of the proceedings, there was no sign of a silent lifting up of the spirit in worship. Not a person in that strange congregation, went on his or her knees to pray. Most of them put one hand in front of the face, and this was as near as they got that morning to an attitude of devotion. Except for this, and the fact that they did not applaud, there was absolutely no difference between them and any other theater audience I ever saw.
The monotonous hymns were accompanied by a cornet-à-piston, which lent a certain amount of life to them, but very little religious harmony. That cornet was the key-note of the whole performance. The hymns, composed, I believe, for Dr. Talmage’s flock, are not of high literary value. “General” Booth would probably hesitate to include such in the répertoire of the Salvation Army. Judge of them for yourself. Here are three illustrations culled from the programme:
| Sing, O sing, ye heirs of glory! Shout your triumphs as you go: Zion’s gates will open for you, You shall find an entrance through. |
| ’Tis the promise of God, full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe. |
| Though the pathway be lonely, and dangerous too, (sic) Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro’. |
This is poetry such as you find inside Christmas crackers.
Another hymn began:
| One more day’s work for Jesus, One less of life for me! |
I could not help thinking that there would be good employment for a prophet of God, with a stout whip, in the congregations of the so-called faithful of to-day. I have heard them by hundreds shouting at the top of their voices:
| O Paradise, O Paradise! ’Tis weary waiting here; I long to be where Jesus is, To feel, to see him near. O Paradise, O Paradise! I greatly long to see The special place my dearest Lord, In love, prepares for me! |
Knowing something of those people outside the church doors, I have often thought what an edifying sight it would be if the Lord deigned to listen and take a few of them at their word. If the fearless Christ were here on earth again, what crowds of cheats and humbugs he would drive out of the Temple! And foremost, I fancy, would go the people who, instead of thanking their Maker who allows the blessed sun to shine, the birds to sing, and the flowers to grow for them here, howl and whine lies about longing for the joy of moving on to the better world, to the “special place” that is prepared for them. If there be a better world, it will be too good for hypocrites.
After hymn the fifth, Dr. Talmage takes the floor. The audience settled in their seats in evident anticipation of a good time, and it was soon clear to me that the discourse was not to be dull at any rate. But I waited in vain for a great thought, a lofty idea, or refined language. There came none. Nothing but commonplaces given out with tricks of voice and the gestures of a consummate actor. The modulations of the voice have been studied with care, no single platform trick was missing.
The doctor comes on the stage, which is about forty feet wide. He begins slowly. The flow of language is great, and he is never at a loss for a word. Motionless, in his lowest tones, he puts a question to us. Nobody replies, of course. Thereupon he paces wildly up and down the whole length of the stage. Then, bringing up in full view of his auditors, he stares at them, crosses his arms, gives a double and tremendous stamp on the boards, and in a terrific voice he repeats the question, and answers it. The desired effect is produced: he never misses fire.
Being an old stager of several years’ standing myself, I admire him professionally. Nobody is edified, nobody is regenerated, nobody is improved, but all are entertained. It is not a divine service, but it is a clever performance, and the Americans never fail to patronize a clever performance. All styles go down with them. They will give a hearing to everybody but the bore, especially on Sundays, when other forms of entertainment are out of the running.
THE DESIRED EFFECT.
It is not only the Brooklyn public that are treated to the discourses of Dr. Talmage, but the whole of America. He syndicates his sermons, and they are published in Monday’s newspapers in all quarters of America. I have also seen them reproduced in the Australian papers.
The delivery of these orations by Dr. Talmage is so superior to the matter they are made of, that to read them is slow indeed compared to hearing them.
At the back of the programme was a flaring advertisement of Dr. Talmage’s paper, called:
CHRISTIAN HERALD AND SIGNS OF OUR TIMES.
A live, undenominational, illustrated Christian paper, with a weekly circulation of fifty thousand copies, and rapidly increasing. Every State of the Union, every Province of Canada, and every country in the world is represented on its enormous subscription list. Address your subscription to Mr. N., treasurer, etc.
“Signs of our times,” indeed!
