THE LAST MILESTONE
1900-1902
There was no warning of the divine purpose; there was no pause of weakness or illness in his life to foreshadow his approaching end. Until the last sunset hours of his useful days he always seemed to me a man of iron. He had stood in the midst of crowds a towering figure; but away from them his life had been a studied annihilation, an existence of hidden sacrifice to his great work. He used to say to me: "Eleanor, I have lived among crowds, and yet I have been much of the time quite alone." But alone or in company his mind was ever active, his great heart ever intent on his apostolate of sunshine and help towards his fellow-men. And the good things he said were not alone the utterances of his public career; they came bubbling forth as from a spring during the course of his daily life, in his home and among his friends, even with little children. Books have been written styled, "Conversations of Eminent Men"; and I have often thought had his ordinary conversations been reported, or, better, could the colossal crowds who admired him have been, as we, his privileged listeners, they would have been no less charmed with his brilliant talk than with the public displays of eloquence with which they were so captivated.
Immediately after his return from Europe in the autumn of 1900, Dr. Talmage took up his work with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. He stepped back into his study as if a new career of preaching awaited him. Never, indeed, had a Sunday passed, since our union, on which he had not given his divine message from the pulpit; never had he missed a full, arduous, wearisome day's work in his Master's vineyard. But I think Dr. Talmage now wrote and preached more industriously and vigorously than I had ever seen him before. His work had become so important an element in the character of American life, and in the estimate of the American people—I might add, in that of many foreign peoples, too—that his consciousness of it seemed to double and treble his powers; he was carried along on a great wave of enthusiasm; and in the joy of it all, we, with the thousands who bowed before his influence, looked naturally for a great many years of a life of such wide-spread usefulness. Over him had come a new magic of autumnal youth and strength that touched the inspirations of his mind and increased the optimism of his heart. No one could have suspected that the golden bowl was so soon to be broken; that the pitcher, still so full of the refreshing draughts of wisdom, was about to be crushed at the fountain. But so it was to be.
Invigorated by his delightful foreign trip, Dr. Talmage now resumed his labours with happy heart and effervescing zeal. He used to say: "I don't care how old a man gets to be, he never ought to be over eighteen years of age." And he seemed now to be a living realisation of his words. He had given up his regular pastorate at the First Presbyterian Church in Washington, that he might devote himself to broader responsibilities, which seemed to have fallen upon him because of his world-wide reputation. I cannot forbear quoting here—as it reveals so much the character of the man—a portion of his farewell letter, the mode he took of giving his parting salutation:
"The world is full of farewells, and one of the hardest words to utter is goodby. What glorious Sabbaths we have had together! What holy communions! What thronged assemblages! Forever and forever we will remember them.... And now in parting I thank you for your kindness to me and mine. I have been permitted, Sabbath by Sabbath, to confront, with the tremendous truths of the Gospel, as genial and lovely, and cultivated and noble people as I ever knew, and it is a sadness to part with them.... May the richest blessing of God abide with you! May your sons and daughters be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty! And may we all meet in the heavenly realms to recount the divine mercies which have accompanied us all the way, and to celebrate, world without end, the grace that enabled us to conquer! And now I give you a tender, a hearty, a loving, a Christian goodby.
"T. DeWitt Talmage."
Apart from his active literary and editorial work, he was now to devote himself to sermons and lectures which should have for audience the whole country. As a consequence, on re-entering his study after his long absence, he found accumulated on his desk an immense number of invitations to preach, applications from all parts of the land. He smiled, and expressed more than once his conviction that God's Providence had marked out his way for him, and here was direct proof of His divine call and His fatherly love.
At a monster meeting in New York this year Dr. Talmage revived national interest in his presence and his Gospel. Ten thousand people crowded to the Academy of Music to hear his words of encouragement and hope. It was the twentieth anniversary of the Bowery Mission, of which Dr. Talmage was one of the founders. "This century," he said in part, "is to witness a great revival of religion. Cities are to be redeemed. Official authority can do much, but nothing can take the place of the Gospel of God.... No man goes deliberately into sin; he gets aboard the great accommodation train of Temptation, assured that it will stop at the depot of Prudence, or anywhere else he desires, to let him off. The conductor cries: 'All aboard' and off he goes. The train goes faster and faster, and presently he wants to get off. 'Stop'! he calls to the conductor; but that official cries back: 'This is the fast express and does not stop until it reaches the Grand Central Station of Smashupton.'" The sinner can be raised up, he insists. "The Bible says God will forgive 490 times. At your first cry He will bend down from his throne to the depths of your degradation. Put your face to the sunrise."