T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him. T. De Witt Talmage
which they know nothing at all.
But, outside my own family, I am sure that there are many who would like to read about what I have been doing, thinking, enjoying, and hoping all these years; for through the publication of my entire Sermons, as has again and again been demonstrated, I have been brought into contact with the minds of more people, and for a longer time, than most men. This I mean not in boast, but as a reason for thinking that this autobiography may have some attention outside of my own circle, and I mention it also in gratitude to God, Who has for so long a time given me this unlimited and almost miraculous opportunity.
Each life is different from every other life. God never repeats Himself, and He never intended two men to be alike, or two women to be alike, or two children to be alike. This infinite variety of character and experience makes the story of any life interesting, if that story be clearly and accurately told.
I am now in the full play of my faculties, and without any apprehension of early departure, not having had any portents, nor seen the moon over my left shoulder, nor had a salt-cellar upset, nor seen a bat fly into the window, nor heard a cricket chirp from the hearth, nor been one of thirteen persons at a table. But my common sense, and the family record, and the almanac tell me it must be "towards evening."
T. DE WITT TALMAGE
AS I KNEW HIM
FIRST MILESTONE
ToC
1832–1845
Our family Bible, in the record just between the Old and the New Testaments, has this entry: "Thomas DeWitt, Born January 7, 1832." I was the youngest of a family of twelve children, all of whom lived to grow up except the first, and she was an invalid child.
I was the child of old age. My nativity, I am told, was not heartily welcomed, for the family was already within one of a dozen, and the means of support were not superabundant. I arrived at Middlebrook, New Jersey, while my father kept the toll-gate, at which business the older children helped him, but I was too small to be of service. I have no memory of residence there, except the day of departure, and that only emphasised by the fact that we left an old cat which had purred her way into my affections, and separation from her was my first sorrow, so far as I can remember.
In that home at Middlebrook, and in the few years after, I went through the entire curriculum of infantile ailments. The first of these was scarlet fever, which so nearly consummated its fell work on me that I was given up by the doctors as doomed to die, and, according to custom in those times in such a case, my grave clothes were completed, the neighbours gathering for that purpose. During those early years I took such a large share of epidemics that I have never been sick since with anything worthy of being called illness. I never knew or heard of anyone who has had such remarkable and unvarying health as I have had, and I mention it with gratitude to God, in whose "hand our breath is, and all our ways."
The "grippe," as it is called, touched me at Vienna when on my way from the Holy Land, but I felt it only half a day, and never again since.
I often wonder what has become of our old cradle in which all of us children were rocked! We were a large family, and that old cradle was going a good many years. I remember just how it looked. It was old-fashioned and had no tapestry. Its two sides and canopy were of plain wood, but there was a great deal of sound sleeping in that cradle, and many aches and pains were soothed in it. Most vividly I remember that the rockers, which came out from under the cradle, were on the top and side very smooth, so smooth that they actually glistened. But it went right on and rocked for Phoebe the first, and for DeWitt the last.
There were no lords or baronets or princes in our ancestral line. None wore stars, cockade, or crest. There was once a family coat-of-arms, but we were none of us wise enough to tell its meaning. Do our best, we cannot find anything about our forerunners except that they behaved well, came over from Wales or Holland a good while ago, and died when their time came. Some of them may have had fine equipages and postilions, but the most of them were sure only of footmen. My father started in life belonging to the aristocracy of hard knuckles and homespun, but had this high honour that no one could despise: he was the son of a father who loved God and kept His commandments. Two eyes, two hands, and two feet were the capital my father started with.
Benignity, kindness, keen humour, broad common sense and industry characterised my mother. The Reverend Dr. Chambers was for many years her pastor. He had fifty years of pastorate service, in Somerville, N.J., and the Collegiate Church, New York. He said, in an address at the dedication of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, that my mother was the most consecrated Christian person he had ever known. My mother worked very hard, and when we would come in and sit down at the table at noon, I remember how she used to look. There were beads of perspiration along the line of her grey hair, and sometimes she would sit down at the table, and put her head against her wrinkled hand and say, "Well, the fact is, I'm too tired to eat."
My father was a religious, hard-working, honest man. Every day began and closed with family worship, led by my father, or, in case of his absence, by Mother. That which was evidently uppermost in the minds of my parents, and that which was the most pervading principle in their lives, was the Christian religion. The family Bible held a perfect fascination for me, not a page that was not discoloured either with time or tears. My parents read out of it as long as I can remember. When my brother Van Nest died in a foreign land, and the news came to our country home, that night they read the eternal consolations out of the old book. When my brother David died that book comforted the old people in their trouble. My father in mid-life, fifteen years an invalid, out of that book read of the ravens that fed Elijah all through the hard struggle for bread. When my mother died that book illumined the dark valley. In the years that followed of loneliness, it comforted my father with the thought of reunion, which took place afterward in Heaven.
To the wonderful conversion of my grandfather and grandmother, in those grand old days of our declaration of independence, I trace the whole purpose, trend, and energies of my life. I have told the story of the conversion of my grandfather and grandmother before. I repeat it here, for my children.
My grandfather and grandmother went from Somerville to Baskenridge to attend revival meetings under the ministry of Dr. Finney. They were so impressed with the meetings that when they came back to Somerville they were seized upon by a great desire for the salvation of their children. That evening the children were going off for a gay party, and my grandmother said to the children, "When you get all ready for the entertainment, come into my room; I have something very important to tell you." After they were all ready they came into my grandmother's room, and she said to them, "Go and have a good time, but while you are gone I want you to know I am praying for you and will do nothing but pray for you until you get back." They did not enjoy the entertainment much because they thought all the time of the fact that Mother was praying for them. The evening passed. The next day my grandparents heard sobbing and crying in the daughter's room, and they went in and found her praying for the salvation of God, and her daughter Phoebe said, "I wish you would go to the barn and to the waggon-house for Jehiel and David (the brothers) are under powerful conviction of sin." My grandparent went to the barn, and Jehiel, who afterward became a useful minister of the Gospel, was imploring the mercy of Christ; and then, having first knelt with him and commended his soul to Christ, they went to the waggon-house, and there was David crying for the salvation