T. De Witt Talmage

“ May not all of us practically adopt the Christian theory that any work is honorable that is useful? The slaves of an ignominious pride, how many kill themselves earning a living! We have tens of thousands of women in our cities, sitting in cold rooms, stabbing their life out with their needles, coughing their lungs into tubercles and suffering the horrors of the social inquisition, for whom there waits plenty of healthy, happy homes in the country, if they could only, like these sons and daughters of Dartmouth and Northampton, consent to serve. ”

“ I think the most presuming thing on earth for a Pulpit to do is to demand that an audience sit quiet when they cannot hear, simply looking. The handsomest minister I ever saw is not worth looking at for an hour and a half at a stretch. The truth is that I have often been so provoked with your inarticulate speech, that I would have got up and left the church, had it not been for the fact that I am nailed fast, and my appearance on the outside on a Sabbath-day, walking up and down, would have brought around me a crowd of unsanctified boys to gaze at me, a poor church pew on its travels. ”

“ But I have read somewhere in an old book that there is a day coming when all wrongs will be righted; and I should not wonder if then the dead were vindicated, and all the swine who have uprooted graveyards should, like their ancestors of Gadara, run down a steep place into the sea and get choked. The fact that there are now alive men so debauched of mind and soul that they rejoice in mauling the reputation of those who spent their lives in illustrious achievement for God and their country, and then died as martyrs for their principles, makes me believe in eternal damnation. ”

“ The rabbit has no such power to listen as this creature we speak of. It hears all the sounds that come from five thousand keyholes. It catches a whisper from the other side the room, and can understand the scratch of a pen. It has one ear open toward the east and the other toward the west, and hears everything in both directions. All the tittle-tattle of the world pours into those ears like vinegar through a funnel. They are always up and open, and to them a meeting of the sewing society is a jubilee and a political campaign is heaven. ”

“ Out of its black wing is plucked the pen from which to write the brightest songs of earth and the richest doxologies of heaven. Let camel or ox stabled that night in Bethlehem, after the burden-bearing of the day, stand and look at Him who is to carry the burdens of the world. Put back the straw and hear the first cry of Him who is come to assuage the lamentation of all ages.
Christmas bells ring out the peace of nations! We want on our standards less of the lion and eagle and more of the dove. ”

“ Much of our time in life we go about blindfolded, stumbling over mistakes, trying to catch things that we miss, while people stand round the ring and titter, and break out with half-suppressed laughter, and push us ahead, and twitch the corner of our eye-bandage. After a while we vehemently clutch something with both hands, and announce to the world our capture; the blindfold is taken from our eyes, and, amid the shouts of the surrounding spectators, we find we have, after all, caught the wrong thing. What is that but "blind-man's buff" over again? ”

“ If one takes after a man or woman, there are at least ten in its company. As soon as anything bad is charged against a man, there are many others who know things just as deleterious. Lies about himself, lies about his wife, lies about his children, lies about his associates, lies about his house, lies about his barn, lies about his store—swarms of them, broods of them, herds of them. Kill one of them, and there will be twelve alive to act as its pall-bearers, another to preach its funeral sermon, and still another to write its obituary. ”

“ THE LAZY SEXTON.
He does not lead the stranger to the pew, but goes a little way on the aisle, and points, saying, "Out yonder!" You leave the photograph of your back in the dust of the seat you occupy; the air is in an atmospheric hash of what was left over last Sunday. Lack of oxygen will dull the best sermon, and clip the wings of gladdest song, and stupefy an audience. People go out from the poisoned air of our churches to die of pneumonia. What a sin, when there is so much fresh air, to let people perish for lack of it! The churches are the worst ventilated buildings on the continent. ”

“ I propose to tell you some things about God's mercy.
First, think of His pardoning mercy. The gospel finds us shipwrecked; the wave beneath ready to swallow us, the storm above pelting us, our good works foundered, there is no such thing as getting ashore unhelped. The gospel finds us incarcerated; of all those who have been in thick dungeon darkness, not one soul ever escaped by his own power. If a soul is delivered at all, it is because some one on the outside shall shove the bolt and swing open the door, and let the prisoner come out free. ”

“ A week-night meeting widens the pulpit till all the people can stand on it. Such a service tests one's piety. No credit for going to church on Sabbath. Places of amusement are all closed, and there is no money to be made. But week-nights every kind of temptation and opportunity spreads before a man, and if he goes to the praying circle he must give up these things. The man who goes to the weekly service regularly through moonlight and pitch darkness, through good walking and slush ankle-deep, will in the book of judgment find it set down to his credit. ”

“ Many an author has got a drop of printers' ink spattered in his eye, and collapsed. The critic who had lobsters for supper the night before, and whose wife in the morning had parted his hair on the wrong side, snarled at the new book, and the time that the author might have spent in new work he squanders in gunning for critics. You might better have gone straight ahead, Nick! You will come to be estimated for exactly what you are worth. If a fool, no amount of newspaper or magazine puffery can set you up; and if you are useful, no amount of newspaper or magazine detraction can keep you down. ”

“ We have a poetic friend. The backs of his books are scrolled and transfigured. A vase of japonicas, even in mid-winter, adorns his writing desk. The hot-house is as important to him as the air. There are soft engravings on the wall. This study-chair was made out of the twisted roots of a banyan. A dog, sleek-skinned, lies on the mat, and gets up as you come in. There stand in vermilion all the poets from Homer to Tennyson. Here and there are chamois heads and pressed seaweed. He writes on gilt-edged paper with a gold pen and handle twisted with a serpent. ”

“ The ladies of Boston have more color in their cheeks than those of many cities, and walk as though they would live to get round the next corner. It is not so fashionable to be delicate. They are robust in mind and always ready for an argument. State what you consider an indisputable proposition, and they will say: "Yes, but then—" They are not afraid to attack the theology of a minister, or the jurisprudence of a lawyer, or the pharmacy of a doctor. If you do not look out, the Boston woman will throw off her shawl and upset your logic in a public meeting. ”

“ I hate sensationalism in the pulpit so far as that word means the preaching of everything but the gospel, but the simple fact is that whenever and wherever faith and repentance and heaven and hell are proclaimed with emphasis there will be a sensation. The people in our great cities are hungry for the old gospel of Christ. If our young men in the ministry want large audiences, let them quit philosophizing, and hair-splitting, and botanizing, and without gloves take hold of men's sins and troubles, and there will be no lack of hearers. Stagnation is worse than sensationalism. ”

“ But while I advocate all sports, and exercises, and modes of life that improve the physical organism, I have no respect for bone, and nerve, and muscle in the abstract. Health is a fine harp, but I want to know what tune you are going to play on it. I have not one daisy to put on the grave of a dead pugilist or mere boat-racer, but all the garlands I can twist for the tomb of the man who serves God, though he be as physically weak as Richard Baxter, whose ailments were almost as many as his books, and they numbered forty. ”

“ As our last load starts we go in to take a farewell look at the old place. In that parlor we have been gay with our friends many a time, and as we glance round the room we seem to see the great group of their faces. The best furniture we ever had in our parlor was a circle of well-wishers. Here is the bed-room where we slept off the world's cares, and got up glad as the lark when the morning sky beckons it upward. Many a time this room has been full of sleep from door-sill to ceiling. We always did feel grandly after we had put an eight-hour nap between us and life's perplexities. ”

“ At midnight, seizing a chair, I ran into the next room, resolving to kill, at the first stroke, the ruffian who was murdering a member of my household. But there was no ruffian. The sweet girl had, during the day, been reading of St. Bartholomew's massacre, and was now lying on her back, dreaming it all over again. When dreams find anyone lying flat on the back, they cry out, "Here is a flat surface on which to skate and play ball," and from scalp to toe they sport themselves. The hardest nag in all the world to ride is the nightmare. Many think that sleep is lost time. ”

“ Then, having placed your watch where no villainous straggler may be induced to examine it to see whether he can get to the depot in time for the next train, you issue forth ingloriously, your head down in consciousness that you are cutting a sorry figure before the world. Barefoot as a mendicant, your hair disheveled in the wind, the stripes of your clothes strongly suggestive of Sing Sing, your appearance a caricature of humankind, you wander up and down the beach a creature that the land is evidently trying to shake off and the sea is unwilling to take. ”

“ Our own observation is that there is nothing that so loosens the hinge of the tongue, soothes the temper, exhilarates the diaphragm, kindles sociality and makes the future promising. Like one of the small glasses in the wall of Barnum's old museum, through which you could see cities and mountains bathed in sunshine, so, as you drink from the tea-cup, and get on toward the bottom so that it is sufficiently elevated, you can see almost anything glorious that you want to. ”

“ He will put the arms of His love around about your neck. He will bring you close to His heart and shelter you from the storm. In times of trouble He will put upon your soul the balm of precious promises. He will lead you all through the vale of tears trustfully and happily, and then at last take you to dwell in His presence, where there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. Oh, compared with such a wise God, such a mighty God, such a loving God, what are all the images under the camel's saddle in the tent of Rachel? ”

“ It has earned its quiet. The hands that shook up its pillow have quit work. The foot that kept the rocker in motion is through with its journey. The face that hovered has been veiled from mortal sight. Cradle of blessed memories! Cradle that soothed so many little griefs! Cradle that kindled so many hopes! Cradle that rested so many fatigues! Sleep now thyself, after so many years of putting others to sleep!
One of the great wants of the age is the right kind of a cradle and the right kind of a foot to rock it. We are opposed to the usurpation of "patented self-rockers." ”

“ Let us go much into the presence of the natural world if we can get at it. Especially if we live in great thoroughfares let us make occasional flight to the woods and the mountains. Even the trees in town seem artificial. They dare not speak where there are so many to listen, and the hyacinth and geranium in flower pots in the window seem to know they are on exhibition. If we would once in a while romp the fields, we would not have so many last year's rose leaves in our sermons, but those just plucked, dewy and redolent.
We cannot see the natural world through the books or the eyes of others. ”

“ He has the window blinds arranged just right—the light not too glaring so as to show the freckles, nor too dark so as to cast a gloom, but a subdued light that makes the plainest face attractive. He rings the bell merrily for Christmas festival, and tolls it sadly for the departed. He has real pity for the bereaved in whose house he goes for the purpose of burying their dead—not giving by cold, professional manner the impression that his sympathy for the troubled is overpowered by the joy that he has in selling another coffin. He forgets not his own soul ”

“ They prowl through every street of the city, craunch in the restaurants, sleep in the hall of Congress, and in grandest parlor have one paw under the piano, another under the sofa, one by the mantel and the other on the door-sill.
Now, many people spend half their time in hunting lies. You see a man rushing anxiously about to correct a newspaper paragraph, or a husband, with fist clenched, on the way to pound some one who has told a false thing about his wife. ”

“ I cried, "you might as well turn round and go back; the audience will be gone long before ten o'clock." "No!" said the conductor; "at the last depot I got a telegram saying they are waiting patiently, and telling us to hurry on." The locomotive seemed to feel it was on the home stretch. At times, what with the whirling smoke and the showering sparks, and the din, and rush, and bang, it seemed as if we were on our last ride, and that the brakes would not fall till we stopped for ever. ”