"His income, from all sources, exceeds that of the President of the United States."
"The impression is everywhere that Dr. Talmage is very rich."
I regretted this because there is a notion that a minister of the Gospel cannot accumulate money for himself, that he should not do so if he could, that his duty consists in collecting money for his church, his parish, his mission—for anything and everyone but his own temporal prosperity. I had done this all my life. I can solemnly say that I never sought the financial success which in some measure came to me. I regarded the money which I received for my work as pastor of the Tabernacle, or from other sources as an earning capacity that is due to every working man. I was able to do more work than some, because the motives of my whole life have insisted that I work hard. The impetus of my strength was not abnormal, it was merely the daily requirement of my health that I work as hard as I knew how as long as I could. Restlessness was an element of life with me. I could not keep still any length of time. My mind had acquired the habit of ideas, and my hands were always full of unfinished labours.
I remember trying once to sit still at a concert of Gilmore's band, at Manhattan Beach. After hearing one selection I found myself unable to listen any farther—I could not sit quiet for longer. I rarely allowed myself more than five minutes for shaving, no matter whether the razor were sharp or blunt. They used to tell me that I wore a black bow tie till it was not fit to wear. On the trains I slept a great deal. Sleep is the great storage battery of life. Four days of the week I was on the train. I rose every morning at six. The first thing I did was to glance over the morning newspaper, to catch in this whispering gallery of the world the life of a new day. First the cable news, then the editorials, then the news about ourselves. I received the principal newspapers of almost every big city in the morning mail I enjoyed the caricatures of myself, they made me laugh. If a man poked fun at me with true wit I was his friend. They were clever fellows those newspaper humorists. I consider walking a very important exercise—not merely a stroll, but a good long walk. Often I used to go from the Grand Central Depot in New York to my home in Brooklyn. There and back was my usual promenade. Seven miles should be an average walk for a man past fifty every day. I have made fifteen and twenty miles without fatigue. I always dined in the middle of the day. Contrary to "Combes' Physiology," I always took a nap after dinner. In my boyhood days this was a book that opposed the habit. Combes said that he thought it very injurious to sleep after dinner, but I saw the cow lie down after eating, and the horse, and it seemed to me that Combes was wrong. A morning bath is absolutely indispensable. When I was in college there were no luxurious hot and cold bath rooms. I often had to break the ice in my pitcher to get at the water.
These were the habits of my life, formed in my youth, and as they grew upon me they were the sinews that kept me young in the heart and brain and muscle. My voice rarely, if ever, failed me entirely. In 1888, to my surprise and delight, my western trips had become ovations that no human being could fail to enjoy. In St. Paul, Duluth, Minneapolis, the crowds in and about the churches where I preached were estimated to be over twenty thousand. It was a joy to live realising the service one could be to others. This year of 1888 was to be a climax to so many aspirations of my life that I am forced to record it as one of the most important of all my working years. No event of any consequence in the country, social or political, or disastrous, happened, that my name was not available to the ethical phase of its development. Newspaper squibs of all sorts reflect this fact in some way. Here is one that illustrates my meaning:
"ONLY TALMAGE!
"The weary husband was lounging in the old armchair reading before the fire after the day's work. Suddenly he brought down his hand vigorously upon his knee, exclaiming, 'That's so! That's so!' A minute after, he cried again, 'Well, I should say.' Then later, 'Good for you; hit them right and left.' Soon he stretched himself out at full length in the chair, let his right hand, holding the paper, drop nearly to the floor, threw up his left and laughed aloud until the rafters rang. His anxious wife inquired, 'What is it so funny, John?'
"He made no reply, but lifted the paper again, straightened himself up, and went on reading. Very quiet he now grew by degrees. Then slyly he slipped his left hand around and drew out his handkerchief, wiped his brow and lips by way of excuse and gave his eyelids a passing dash. The very next moment he pressed the handkerchief to his eyes and let the paper drop to the floor, saying, 'Well, that's wonderful.' 'What is it, John?' his good wife inquired again. 'Oh! It's only Talmage!'"
My contemporaries in Brooklyn celebrity at this time were unusual men. Some of them were dear friends, some of them close friends, some of them advisers or champions, guardians of my peace—all of them friends.
About this time I visited Johnstown, shortly after the flood. My heart was weary with the scenes of desolation about me. It did not seem possible that the hospitable city of Johnstown I had known in other days could be so tumbled down by disaster. Where I had once seen the street, equal in style to Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, I found a long ridge of sand strewn with planks and driftwood. By a wave from twelve to twenty feet high, 800 houses were crushed, twenty-eight huge locomotives from the round house were destroyed, hundreds of people dead and dying in its anger. Two thousand dead were found, 2,000 missing, was the record the day I was there. The place became used to death. It was not a sensation to the survivors to see it about them. I saw a human body taken out of the ruins as if it had been a stick of wood. No crowd gathered about it. Some workmen a hundred feet away did not stop their work to see. The devastation was far worse than was ever told. The worst part of it could not even be seen. The heart-wreck was the unseen tragedy of this unfortunate American city. From Brooklyn I helped to send temporary relief. With a wooden box in my hand I, with others, collected from the bounty of that vast meeting in the Academy of Music. The exact amount paid over by our relief committee in all was $95,905. There was no end to the demand upon one's energy in all directions.
I was called upon in September, 1888, to lay the corner stone of the First Presbyterian Church at Far-Rockaway, and amid the imposing ceremonies I predicted the great future of Long Island. It seemed to me that Long Island would some day be the London of America, filled with the most prominent churches of the country.
While in the plans of others I was an impulse at least towards success, in my own plans, how often I have been scourged and beaten to earth. As it had been before, so it was in this zenith of my personal progress. To my amazement, chagrin and despair, on the morning of October 13, 1889, our beautiful church was again burned to the ground.