"You saved my father, God bless you!" "You saved my brother, thank God!" "You made a good woman of me!" "You gave me my first start in life!" In these words they told him their gratitude, as they grasped his hand.
On these occasions the Doctor's face was wonderful to see as, with the silent pressure of his hand, he looked into the eyes that were filled with tears. Sometimes people would come to me and whisper the same truths about him, and when I would tell him, his answer was characteristic: "Eleanor, this is what gives me strength. It is worth living to hear people tell me these things."
Dr. Talmage's instincts were big, evangelical impulses. I often used to urge him to relinquish his pastorate; but he would reply that after all the Church was his candlestick; that he must have a place to hold his candle while he preached to a world of all nations. Yet he often said he would rather have been an unfettered evangelist, bent on saving the world, than the pastor of any one flock or church. To preach to the people was the breath of his life. It was the restless energy of his soul that kept him for ever young. He would put all his strength into every sermon he preached, and every lecture he delivered.
Dr. Talmage had absolutely no personal vanity. He was a man absorbed in ideas, indifferent to appearances. He lived in the opportunities of his heart and mind to help others; although he had been one of the most tried of men, he had never spared himself to help others. He never lost faith in anyone. There were many shrewd enough to realise this characteristic in him, who would put a finger on his heart and draw out of him all he had to give.
On one occasion we were travelling through Iowa, when a big snow storm made it evident that we could not make connections to meet an engagement he had made to lecture that evening in Marietta, Ohio. He had just said to me that after all he was glad, because he was very tired and needed the rest. Will Carleton was on the same train, bound for Zanesville, Ohio, to give a lecture that night. He was very much afraid that he, too, would miss his engagement. He asked the Doctor to telegraph to the railroad officials to hold the limited at Chicago Junction, which the Doctor did. The result was that we were whisked in a carriage across Chicago and whirled on a special car to the junction, where the limited was held for us, much to the disgust of the other passengers.
He saw the mercy of God in every calamity, the beauty of faith in Him in every mood of earth or sky. One spring day we were sitting in the room of a friend's house. There were flowers in the room, and Dr. Talmage loved these children of nature. He always said that flowers were appropriate for all occasions. Some one said to him, "Doctor, how have you kept your faith in people, your sweet interpretation of human nature, in spite of the injustice you have sometimes been shown?" Looking at a great bunch of sweet peas on the table, he said: "Many years ago I learned not to care what the world said of me so long as I myself knew I was right and fair, and how can one help but believe when the good God above us makes such beautiful things as these flowers?"
His creed, as I learned it, was perfect faith, and the universal commands of human nature to live and let live. Although I was destined to share less than five years of his life, there was in the whole of it no chapter or incident with which he did not acquaint me. He was not a man of theory. No one could live near him without awe of his genius.
We returned to Washington after this spring lecturing tour, where the Doctor resumed his preaching twice on Sunday, and his mid-week lecture, till June. Then, according to Dr. Talmage's custom, we went to Saratoga for a few weeks before the crowds came for the season. The Doctor found the Saratoga Springs beneficial and made it a rule to go there for a time each summer. On July 3, 1898, we started for the Pacific coast on what Dr. Talmage called a summer vacation. On his desk there was always a great number of invitations to preach and lecture awaiting his acknowledgment or refusal. The greatest problem of the last years of his life was how to find time for all the things he was asked to do and wanted to do. In vain I tried to make him conform to the usual plans of a summer outing. He asked me if he might take a "few lectures" on our route to California, and he did, but he always managed to slip in a few extra ones without my knowledge. When I would protest about these additional engagements he would say that the people wanted to hear him, that they were new people he had never seen, which meant more to him than anything else; then, of course, I had to yield my judgment.
It had been Dr. Talmage's original plan to go to Europe during this first summer of our marriage, but the outbreak of the Spanish war made him afraid he might not be able to get back in time for his church work in October. Although ostensibly this was a vacation trip, it was so only in the spirit and gaiety of the Doctor's moods. Three times a week Dr. Talmage lectured, and preached once, sometimes twice, every Sunday. From Cincinnati westward to Denver, we zigzagged over the country, keeping in constant pursuit of the Doctor's engagements. No argument on our part could alter these working plans which my husband had made before we left Washington. He was so happy, however, in the midst of his energies, that we forgot the exertion of his labours.
The three places where, by agreeable lapses, Dr. Talmage really enjoyed a rest, were Colorado Springs, the Yellowstone Park, and Coronado Beach in California. Aside from these points, we were travelling incessantly in the Doctor's reflected glory, which was our vacation, but by no means his. While at Colorado Springs, where we stayed two weeks, Dr. Talmage preached once, and once in Denver, but he did not lecture.