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 scrapbook, 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 embarrassment 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.