T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him

by T. De Witt Talmage; Eleanor McCutcheon Collier Talmage

I was installed in the First Presbyterian Church in Washington on October 23, 1895. My first sermon in the new pulpit in Washington was preached to a crowded church, with an overflow of over three thousand persons in the street outside. The text of my sermon was, "All Heaven is looking on."

In a few days, by exchange of my Brooklyn property, I had obtained the house 1402 Massachusetts Avenue, in Washington, for my home. It had at one time been the Spanish Legation, and was in a delightful part of the city. Shortly after my arrival in Washington I received my first introduction at the White House, with my daughters, to Mrs. Cleveland. Our reception was cordial and gracious in the extreme. I had engaged a suite of rooms at the Arlington Hotel for a year. We remained there till our lease was up before entering our new home. There was a desire among members of the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church to have me preach at the morning as well as the evening services. With three ministers attached to one church there was some difficulty in the arrangement of the sermons. Eventually it was decided that I should preach morning and evening.

In 1896 I made an extensive lecturing tour, in which I discussed my impressions of the world trip I had recently made.

The world was getting better in spite of contrasting opinions from men who had thought about it. God never launched a failure.

In 1897 I made an appeal for aid for the famine in India. I always believed it was possible to evangelise India.

My life in Washington was not different from its former course. I had known many prominent people of this country, and some of the great men of other lands.

I had known all the Presidents of the United States since Buchanan. I had known Mr. Gladstone, all the more prominent men in the bishoprics, and in high commercial, financial and religious position. I had been presented to royalty in more than one country.

Legislatures in the North and South have adjourned to give me reception. The Earl of Kintore, a Scottish peer, entertained us at his house in London in 1879. I found his family delightful Christian people, and the Countess and their daughters are very lovely. The Earl presided at two of my meetings. He took me to see some of his midnight charities—one of them called the "House of Lords" and the other the "House of Commons," both of them asylums for old and helpless men. We parted about two o'clock in the morning in the streets of London. As we bade each other good-bye he said, "Send me a stick of American wood and I will send you a stick." His arrived in America, and is now in my possession, a shepherd's crook; but before the cane I purchased for him reached Scotland the good Earl had departed this life. I was not surprised to hear of his decease. I said to my wife in London, "We will never see the Earl again in this world. He is ripe for Heaven, and will soon be taken." He attended the House of Lords during the week, and almost every Sabbath preached in some chapel or church.

I shall not forget the exciting night I met him. I was getting out of a carriage at the door of a church in London where I was to lecture when a ruffian struck at me, crying, "He that believeth not shall be damned." The scoundrel's blow would have demolished me but for the fact that a bystander put out his arm and arrested the blow. From that scene I was ushered into the ante-room of the church where the Earl of Kintore was awaiting my arrival. From that hour we formed a friendship. He had been a continuous reader of my sermons, and that fact made an introduction easy. I have from him five or six letters.

Lord and Lady Aberdeen had us at their house in London in the summer of 1892. Most gracious and delightful people they are. I was to speak at Haddo House, their estate in Scotland, at a great philanthropic meeting, but I was detained in St. Petersburg, Russia, by an invitation of the Emperor, and could not get to Scotland in time. Glad am I that the Earl is coming to Canada to be Governor-General. He and the Countess will do Canada a mighty good. They are on the side of God, and righteousness, and the Church. Since his appointment—for he intimated at Aberdeen, Scotland, when he called upon me, that he was to have an important appointment—I have had opportunity to say plauditory things of them in vast assemblages in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, London and Grimsby Park.