Chapter V: Preface (4)

I have known many instances where friends would complain to Mr. Beecher that Dr. Abbott was working _The Christian Union_ to his own aggrandizement. He always gave a sharp rebuke to these suggestions, and lost no opportunity to defend his friend, whom he declared to be the most patient, long suffering, and forgiving man in the world, or he never could have stood the neglect he was constantly receiving at his (Mr. Beecher’s) hands. This tendency to impugn Dr. Abbott’s methods pervaded even Mr. Beecher’s household quite extensively, but to no effect, for if ever Mr. Beecher could rise in his might, it was when good motives of a friend were assailed, and he generally settled the matter on the spot. Mr. Beecher died. The great church was left without a pastor. There was not a minister in the world that this congregation, as a body, wished to even consider as his successor. His friend, Dr. Abbott, who was now at the head of _The Christian Union_ Company, its editor and business manager, had given up preaching for his present work. He was available and invited to supply the pulpit, pending the securing of a pastor. With hesitancy the doctor accepted, on the distinct understanding that he was not a candidate for the pastorate, and for months he preached to that great congregation, which seemed to show no signs of depletion from the loss of its pastor. Only a few famous preachers were thought of. When Rev. Dr. Parker, of London, came over in 1887 for a lecture tour and to deliver a eulogy on his friend, Mr. Beecher, the enterprising men of the press interviewed a large number of church members and printed their expressions, both kind, friendly, and unfriendly, to such an extent that before the doctor was in this country a week he was dragged through the newspapers as one who expected to be called to Plymouth Church, whereas he had his own great congregation eagerly awaiting his return. I don’t wonder that he was disgusted and discouraged and unable to finish his tour.

There was a young preacher in England who had made a great impression on Mr. Beecher by his speech of welcome before the Congregational board, at a reception given Mr. Beecher in Liverpool on our last day in England: Rev. Charles Berry, of Wolverhampton.

I had published Mr. Beecher’s remarks concerning Mr. Berry in my “Summer in England with Henry Ward Beecher,” and some Plymouth people had seen them, and suggested that Mr. Berry be invited to come over and preach a trial sermon. Meanwhile Dr. Abbott was preaching every Sunday, and the church was always full. Mr. Berry was preaching in Wolverhampton on a salary of £200 a year. He came to Plymouth Church, preached two sermons and received a call, with an offer of $9,000 a year. Of course this first real recognition of Mr. Berry as a preacher of unusual ability, and a call to the most famous pulpit in the world, surprised the religious public of Great Britain, and more than quadrupled his value at home. The people of his own congregation at once strongly protested against his going away, and from then until the time of his death he was the leading minister of his denomination in his own country.

During all this time Dr. Abbott was occupying the pulpit and preaching twice every Sunday. It finally dawned upon the Church Committee that they were really having the finest and most acceptable preaching available in all the world. Dr. Abbott was called to be their pastor, and accepted. There was, of course, some protest, for it did not seem possible to a great many that there were not some “great” men somewhere, and Lyman Abbott had been all his life familiar to them. But the church interest and attendance showed no falling off; it rather increased; the sentiment in his favor became and remained unanimous, and for ten years Lyman Abbott held that pulpit, and, as all the world knows, held it to the highest grade among the pulpits of the land.

The most unanimous protest came in 1898, when Dr. Abbott surprised his congregation by telling them that he was going to resign, and asked them to look for his successor. They were not going to accept his resignation. He had so completely filled their ideal of a pastor and preacher that to lose him meant a certain calamity to the church. Only a few of the veterans--who had seen Mr. Beecher followed by another, without disaster--could believe that Plymouth Church could be satisfied with a substitute for Dr. Abbott.

During all this decade Dr. Abbott had carried on his editorial work and the management of his paper. He had dared to make some remarkable changes. To the great dissatisfaction of many of his readers, he had changed the name of his paper--that well-known, loved and appropriate name, _The Christian Union_--to _The Outlook_. Even the name _Christian Union_ was a magnificent property in itself, and the doctor had to answer a great many complaints and listen to prophecies of disaster, but it did not seem to worry him. There was an improvement in form and dress made at the same time, and the smaller page with wider columns was accepted cheerfully. It was a conspicuous and very welcome visitor in the household, and soon had an enhanced popularity. This ran for only a year or so, when another change was made to magazine form, with a neat greenish-gray cover, resembling more the old-fashioned almanac than anything else. This, many of the subscribers thought, was a fatal innovation, but it took only a few short weeks to convince them that the new size was more convenient to read, to carry, and to preserve; and so all the changes came to be acknowledged as advance movements in keeping with the times.

In my intercourse with Dr. Abbott during these ten years I saw that he was under great strain from his many duties. His two sermons a week, his editorial duties, and his lecture engagements were more than any man could keep up with, even had he the physique of an athlete. I learned that his ambition was to reach the great people more extensively than was possible through the pulpit. He told me long before he resigned that he wanted to stop preaching and try to make _The Outlook_ more nearly what it ought to be by giving it his best work. His sons were developing good business ability, and he wanted to leave them an established business. The fact that the increased growth and influence of his paper has placed it as the very first in its line is evidence that his head was level, for is not _The Outlook_ the paper above all others that voices public sentiment on all the important issues of the times? In all the improvements and continued elements of success he has been peculiarly aided by the discriminating taste and literary talent of his associate editor, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, and by the intelligent enterprise and judgment of his publisher, Mr. William B. Rowland; yet, after all, _The Outlook_ is Lyman Abbott.

The Plymouth Committee was diligent in its search for a successor to Dr. Abbott. I heard Thomas G. Shearman say the evening that Mr. Abbott’s resignation was accepted: “We are going to have the greatest preaching in Plymouth right along. Your committee are not ready to report yet, but when they are ready, there will be no mistake.” This was at the close of the meeting that had been devoted to eulogistic speeches on Dr. Abbott in the doctor’s presence--speeches showing that, if one-half were true, the doctor was certainly a greater man than any that had yet walked upright on this terrestrial globe. It was for that congregation to bide their time with patience and see what the committee would present. In two weeks Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Chicago, was announced at a prayer meeting for the following Sunday. The committee reported very enthusiastically. They had heard the young man in Chicago, and were in love with him at first sight. Dr. Hillis came. The church had been prepared to do honor to an ideal minister. They did. Dr. Abbott was foremost in welcoming the young stranger to the pulpit, to which he certainly had reason to believe no other man could ever be so welcome as he had been, and then, in all simplicity and modesty, Dr. Abbott took his seat in the congregation and joined in the tide of enthusiasm which rolled over Dr. Hillis. The new pastor was then and there carried up to the highest possible place in the hearts of the congregation. Such a scene of joy and general expression of love and satisfaction could not often be witnessed in any other body of Christian men and women. Plymouth Church is a unique institution--the fruits of forty years of Henry Ward Beecher’s inspiration and harmonizing genius.

Since his retirement, Dr. Abbott seems to have been none the less busy. He has been addressing large audiences continually. He has delivered twelve lectures before the Lowell Institute, Boston, has been “preacher to the University” at Yale, at Harvard, at Cornell, and elsewhere, year after year, and at other important places all over the country has been a welcome speaker and, what is better than all, he has given, “without money and without price,” an extensive course of lectures before the People’s Institute, Cooper Union, New York, where thousands have rushed to hear him and many have been obliged to turn away because the houses were filled on each occasion long before the time to begin. This great crowd contains as intelligent people as exist anywhere, most of whom have seen better days, and who show their appreciation of their opportunities by expressions of joy that can come only from true, loving hearts. The poor have the gospel preached to them by Dr. Lyman Abbott.

Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, third and present pastor of Plymouth Church (A.D. 1900), is one of whom I hardly dare attempt to write or prophesy, as I fear my heart may outrun my head. He came to Plymouth Church in April, 1899, and has been preaching twice every Sunday to a congregation that tests the capacity of the famous church--the most critical and intelligent congregation to preach to that exists in Christendom--a congregation that seldom heard and never could endure a dull sermon from any of its pastors.

Twelve years ago the public believed that the work of Plymouth Church was sustained and carried on mainly through the tremendous personality of Henry Ward Beecher, and that it must greatly suffer by his death; yet Dr. Lyman Abbott surprised the religious world by infusing into the work of that church increased vigor and strength for ten years longer. Now comes this young minister from the West (more markedly Western than either of his predecessors), born in Iowa thirty-seven years ago, and takes up the work laid down by Henry Ward Beecher and Dr. Lyman Abbott, and carries it on as vigorously as ever. Truly he must be a great man to do this thing.

His preaching differs widely from any other that this generation has heard. It is nineteenth century preaching, embellished by all the intellectual appliances conceivable. I remember that while I was a printer, away back in the fifties, the New York _Sun_ announced a cylinder press that could print two thousand papers in an hour. What a sensation in the daily newspaper world! Now, one hundred thousand are printed on one machine in that time, and the demand for an increased output has constantly kept ahead of achievement The same wonderful progress in facilities for travel, in telephony and telegraphy and other applications of electricity, multiplying the efficiency of every conceivable faculty and resource, in every line of thought and invention, has extended even to the pulpit of Dr. Hillis. Such preaching! So much preaching, and such sound and commonsense preaching! Such showers of words and finished sentences, epigrammatic outpourings of sound thoughts, quotations from the best books on all subjects, ancient and modern! His head is a storehouse of knowledge. Such an encyclopedia of words and facts it seems impossible for one man to be. There is enough in a single sermon to make four good ones for four good ministers, and then there would be enough left over to supply four more.

I sit, just one in that great crowd, and listen spellbound, for it will not do to lose one of those sparkling sentences. I want him to stop, for he has given me more than I can possibly digest in one week; but yet I want him to go on, too, for it seems wrong to break the spell of enchantment. I catch a suggestion that I might surely profit by, but I cannot remember it, there is so much else that I must hear crowding it out. I risk a turn of my head to see if all the crowd are as intensely interested as I am. None of them see me, so intent is each one to catch every word. So it goes on for an hour. When he suddenly stops with, “Let us pray,” the whole congregation gives one simultaneous long breath. It is a short prayer. Then there is a hymn by the united choir and congregation--old Plymouth congregational singing, nowhere else to be heard. The great crowd rises to go away. I look in front of me and see there this young minister, meeting and shaking hands with the crowd that is rushing forward to greet him, as placid and quiet and as gently receiving his friends as though he had but just now stepped into the hall. There is not the slightest show of fatigue. And here I discover the greatest element in all this young man’s attractiveness. Dominating all else is his personality. All who meet him and have the privilege of speaking to him and shaking his hand are his devoted, loving friends.

Such is Dr. Hillis, and this the dawn of his career. What will he be at high meridian?

The Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, minister of City Temple, London, and the greatest of living pulpit orators--I do not say the greatest preacher, for I think that distinction has belonged to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, during the past fifty-three years--has eccentricities that have retarded his friendships among strangers. Dr. Parker and his congregation in London were loyal, staunch friends of Mr. Beecher and his church during the time of the great preacher’s deepest sorrow. In 1886, while in England with Henry Ward Beecher, I engaged Dr. Parker to come over here and make a lecture tour.

Meanwhile his friend, Mr. Beecher, died, and as Dr. Parker was coming to America, it was arranged that he should deliver a eulogy on his friend in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. The net proceeds I was to present to the Beecher Statue Fund, then being raised. It was the Doctor’s first appearance on the tour, and a large audience of Mr. Beecher’s friends nearly filled the Academy. The net proceeds were subsequently turned over to the Statue Fund as a contribution from me.

At the end of the first week I paid Dr. Parker for five lectures, which included the Beecher eulogy. I made no objections to this. In fact, I knew I had a perfect right to do so. Nothing was said about it in settlement. The Doctor delivered five lectures and I had paid him. The net proceeds of the first lecture I had donated to the Beecher Statue Fund. I should have sent in a check as the net receipts of the lecture, with no further explanation, and then everything would have been all right and no questions asked; but as many thought the net receipts--about $1,100--looked small for so large a house, and did not take into consideration the expense of the Academy of Music rental, advertising, etc., I made a confidential statement to a member of the Statue Committee of all items, including the fee of the speaker. The secretary happened to be the very last man I should have trusted. He at once had an item for the newspapers, and rushed to the office, and that evening appeared in all the daily papers sensational headlines:

“DR. PARKER TAKES PAY FOR EULOGIZING HIS FRIEND.”

“MAJOR POND WITHHOLDS MONEY BELONGING TO THE
BEECHER STATUE.”

“DEACON WHITE DENOUNCES THE THIEF AND ACCOMPLICE,
ETC.”

It was exciting. Dr. Parker was on the road filling lecture engagements. Reporters and interviewers found him in Chicago and told him he was charged with refusing to deliver a eulogy on his friend for less than $250. Had he any money belonging to the Beecher Statue Fund? He declared he had none.

The Doctor had been lecturing to crowded houses, but now the reporters completely demoralized him. He telegraphed me that he must stop. He was ill and could not go farther. He returned to New York. Reporters haunted him there. Every interview made matters worse. He engaged passage and sailed back home in a very few days. There was due to Dr. Parker $1,100 for lectures that he had delivered. Of course I had been making money on his lectures, and to stop and cancel was a financial loss to me; but as in all contracts, “illness or unavoidable circumstances render this agreement null and void,” I could only settle with Dr. Parker by paying what was due him. I made out the statement and accompanying check for $1,100. He sent for me the day before he sailed. As I came into his dignified and sombre presence the Doctor said:

“Major Pond, I sail for my home to-morrow. My health is such that I cannot go on. The long voyages frighten me, and I am so completely collapsed when I arrive at the end of a day’s journey that I cannot address my audiences. Under these conditions, and with this certificate of one of your most eminent physicians, I am legally released from any obligation to you. You owe me $1,100 according to this statement. I propose to go away from America owing no one and having no one owe me, and you wish to pay me? You give me this check, which I suppose is good.”

Holding the check in his hand, he proceeded to tear it up. “You are an honorable man. I want you to feel welcome at all times in my house in London. As to what you owe me, I propose to give you five hundred years to pay me, and if when due you cannot meet it I will renew it five hundred years more.”

That was Dr. Parker’s eccentric business way.

Comparisons were sometimes made between Mr. Beecher and Dr. Parker from the standpoint of pulpit and church resemblances. There were, in fact, few if any points of similarity. In the Englishman’s manner there is the note of social dominance and a full gamut of ecclesiastical supremacy. Mr. Beecher had none of this, but in his relation to the public exhibited only a loving paternalism. Dr. Parker directs as well as teaches. Beecher advised and sympathized.

In public affairs, taking their different conditions into view, Dr. Joseph Parker and Henry Ward Beecher would bear a closer comparison, not at all unfavorable to Beecher’s British compeer.

Dr. Parker was Mr. Beecher’s personal friend of many years’ standing, and was his host in England on several occasions, the last being in 1886. During Beecher’s English campaign in defence of the Union cause, in 1863, Dr. Parker, then living and preaching in Manchester, was among Mr. Beecher’s firmest and most active supporters. As a speaker, Dr. Parker’s manner, though essentially dramatic, is never melodramatic like that of Dr. Talmage. His intellect, and therefore his voice and style, is that of action--insistent, believing, combative, even aggressive. His manner is more emphatic and his tones deeper than were Mr. Beecher’s, striking as the latter’s often were. The small piercing eyes and peculiar voice hold his audience strongly; even the burr in his tones helps the orator’s control. It intensifies the air of sagacity, the expression of intellectual shrewdness, as well as sincerity, which make him one of the more notable personages I have been able to bring into the arena of brain and speech which our lecture forum offers. Dr. Parker does not possess the amazing versatility which made Mr. Beecher so attractive and gave him such a mental charm, nor does he possess at all times the sunny sweetness of disposition which men loved in Mr. Beecher.

Dr. Parker’s sincerity is always as apparent as his ability of thought and expression. He gives the impression that all his preparation and power are aimed merely to give suitable expression to the opinions and convictions that are his. Words, tones, mannerisms, gestures, are all simply vehicles. It is the thought and its purpose that dominate all, and this is the secret of his strength, success, and power.

His imagery is English; his poesy belongs to their flowers and verdure; the ruggedness of his speech and manner is that of the bleak moors of the north of England. A middle-class Englishman, the Doctor is the personification of all their sterling traits and sturdy characteristics. His speech is studied, polished, finished; his gestures are trained, and all climaxes are carefully arranged. One can only imagine what might be if the speaker ever broke loose; but he never did so far as I know. Our Beecher, on the contrary, was, while obedient to the law of his themes, free as the wind, fresh as the air, full of fancy and illustration as all out of doors, alive with the human glory and glow of life, sweeping in grandeur, glowing with sunshine or melting as with the dew and the joy of the eve. All these, and the deep, lifting, surging soul of the man were in his utterances.

But when all is said for Mr. Beecher, it must not be forgotten that Dr. Parker is a power, a unique personality, gifted with a remarkable intellect and endowed with a temperamental quality which makes all characteristics effective for his work. He is a contemporary whose force and value can be measured only by a comparison with one like Mr. Beecher. And I found him an honorable man.

The Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage made a lecture tour under my management in England in the summer of 1879.

One morning in early June of that summer I was passing a news stand in front of the Astor House in New York and was attracted toward a small placard which read “_Christian Herald and Signs of the Times._ Circulation half a million. Only authorized publication of the Rev. Dr. Talmage’s sermons in England.” I bought the paper, and read the attractive headlines of the sermons, and a leader by its editor, the Rev. Dr. Baxter, a clergyman of the Church of England, eulogizing the great preacher, describing his popularity as a preacher and lecturer in America and his extensive influence on the religious thought of Great Britain. I was on my way to Brooklyn, and while reading the paper on the ferryboat, I concluded to call on Dr. Talmage and see if he would not like to do some lecturing in England. I found him in his study, very affable, and disposed to look favorably on a proposition to go abroad. He had never crossed the ocean, but had heard that his sermons were extensively published and read in Great Britain. In fact, the last mail had brought a letter from the general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. at Leeds asking if he would consider a proposition to deliver ten lectures under the auspices of his association in the larger cities of England, Ireland, and Scotland, offering to pay his passage and give him £10 a lecture--£100 for ten cities ($500). The Doctor asked me to write out a proposition and to call in the morning. I sat down and wrote on a sheet of paper in his study, as follows:

* * * * *

“REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

“DEAR SIR: I will give you $10,000 for one hundred lectures in Great Britain this summer, paying all the travelling and hotel expenses for yourself and Mrs. Talmage from the time you sail from America until you return; settlement to be made weekly.

“Yours truly,

“J. B. POND.”

* * * * *

The following morning I called again at No. 1 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, the Doctor’s home, and he read me a letter which he had prepared in duplicate:

“J. B. POND.

DEAR SIR: I will deliver one hundred lectures for you in Great Britain, beginning within three weeks, for $100 a lecture, you paying the expenses of myself, wife, and daughter from the time we sail until you return.

“Signed,

“T. DEWITT TALMAGE.”

* * * * *

I mailed a note accepting his proposition, and he gave me the subjects of his lectures. He wrote a note to the secretary of the Leeds Y. M. C. A., saying that I would soon be in England, and that all arrangements must be made with me. He told me that he had already secured passage on the _Gallia_, to sail in about a week.

The next morning found me on board the _City of Berlin_ bound for England for the first time. While on the steamer I wrote a letter to the editor of _The Christian Herald and Signs of the Times_ stating that I was coming over to see if arrangements could be made for some lectures by Dr. Talmage, and that I would stop at the Westminster Palace Hotel and hoped to pay my respects to him soon after my arrival. I also wrote Mr. John Lobb, whose address Dr. Talmage had given me, editor of a new religious paper, _The Christian Globe_, who had also asked permission to print some of Dr. Talmage’s sermons.

Upon my arrival at the hotel in London, I found several gentlemen waiting to see me: Dr. Baxter, of _The Christian Herald_; John Lobb, of _The Christian Globe_, and Henry Thorn (brother of Charley Thorn, belonging to the family of famous actors of that name), who was secretary of the Leeds Y. M. C. A. All wanted a private interview then and there, but I was very tired. It was past midnight, and I set a time for meeting them the following morning.

The next morning the first and earliest caller was Dr. Baxter, who apologized for the unseasonableness of the hour--8 A.M. He thought he would come early, as possibly he might be of service, as his paper was going to press that day and if I wished any announcement made of Dr. Talmage’s coming, its columns were at my service. I replied that I should like to announce that the Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage would be available to lecture in Great Britain during his summer vacation. Any parties desiring to secure him might address Major J. B. Pond, Westminster Palace Hotel, London. This at once he agreed to, and then asked if I would sell him the right to place on the benches of all the halls where the Doctor lectured copies of _The Christian Herald_. I told him that I had no idea as to the value of such a franchise in his country, and asked him what he considered a fair price. He offered me £50 ($250). So large a sum almost stunned me. However, I showed no signs of the shock, but intimated that a Mr. Lobb, of _The Christian Globe_, had some proposition to make. He replied, “Yes, Mr. Lobb has a new paper, but I consider the established circulation of half a million copies of _The Christian Herald_ a great medium for Dr. Talmage, as it prints his sermons regularly.” I asked if he paid the Doctor for his sermons. He replied that at one time he had sent him £100. There was no international copyright law then. He then said that if I would accept £100 ($500) for the right, he would give me a check then and there. I concluded to do this, and the first half hour’s business talk in London found me in possession of $500, without the slightest expense on my part. Then Dr. Baxter offered another £100 for the sole privilege of Dr. and Mrs. Talmage’s and their daughter’s photographs, to print on the first page of his paper. I told him that I was not authorized to sell the right, but as he was the Doctor’s publisher, I would risk the acceptance of his offer. As I gave Dr. Baxter a receipt for £100 for the sole right to publish these portraits in Great Britain during the tour, I at once telegraphed Dr. Talmage on board the _Gallia_ at Queenstown what I had done, and to consider no overtures from publishers who had already gone to Queenstown to meet and to welcome him.

That afternoon Dr. Baxter brought me a copy of _The Christian Herald and Signs of the Times_, fresh from the press, with the little announcement that I had given him inserted at the head of the editorial column. It was not long before ministers began to call and to inquire terms and the possibility of securing a lecture. I had not even time to inquire as to the best hall for a first London appearance. Mr. Thorn, general secretary of the Leeds Y. M. C. A., had come by first train, after receiving my letter mailed at Queenstown. He wanted the first ten lectures in Great Britain, and offered me £20 each for those to be given in the largest cities. When I informed him that I paid the Doctor far more than that amount, he seemed amazed. He said that £20 was the highest fee ever paid for a lecture in England. I told him I was prepared to speculate unless I could get my price. He asked time to wait upon his associates in Exeter Hall, promising to return in an hour. On his return he said that he was authorized to pay me £50 each, for one lecture in each of the ten cities of Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Bradford, and Sheffield.

Being unacquainted with the country and its lecture system, and knowing the offer to be a substantial one, and that there was $1,200 profit in it for me, I closed the contract, fixing the first date in Nottingham on Wednesday, June 18.

I had been kept in my hotel all day by the crowd of waiting applicants for lectures without a chance even to look out on a London street. I was recognized and addressed by all visitors as Dr. Talmage’s “secretary.” Such patronage from such a class of men was indescribably overwhelming; they were all ministers from suburban churches. I saw success and profit assured in my venture already in the first twelve hours in London.

That evening I went out into the London streets for the first time in my life. “London by Gaslight” I had read about, and now the reality had suddenly burst upon me! No wonder so much has been said and written of it. I got into a hansom cab for the first time, and told my driver to show me as much of London as he could in an hour. We went over Westminster Bridge to Spurgeon’s Tabernacle. I wanted to see that famous edifice first. It was not lighted, and to me presented a dreary appearance. Then back over the bridge down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, and out Oxford Street to Holborn Viaduct we went. I wanted to see City Temple, where the Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker preached. That was dark, too, but oh! the flying street traffic of cabs and vehicles of all kinds!

What an amazing sight!

Many handcarts were drawn by men and women in the streets, something entirely new to me. The streets were bordered on each side with cablights--a yellow border when looking in one direction and red in the opposite. All those in motion were being driven with such rapid speed that collision and accident seemed inevitable, but I got safely back to my hotel having seen more in sixty minutes than my eyes had ever before beheld in as many months. I tried to get sleep that night, but sleep would not come. What if the _Gallia_ should go down, or Dr. Talmage get ill, or any other accident? I was alone in London, too. I had no one to talk to. I wanted to vent my feelings and could not. It was a long night.

I was up early next morning, but there was no sign of life about the hotel or in the street. I asked the first person I met: “What is the matter--is it Sunday? Where are all the people? “He informed me that it was only 7 o’clock, and that nobody was supposed to be moving about London before 9. It seemed strange to a Yankee. I started out and got lost in Westminster Abbey. How time dragged along. I wanted breakfast, but could get nothing for an hour, so I waited and wondered.

At 8:30 I got into the dining room and gave an order for breakfast and a morning paper. While reading my paper a man in uniform, whom I found to be “boots,” approached me with a salute, asking if I were Major Pond?

“Yes,” I replied.

“The post has just brought your letters; where shall I take them, sir?”

“Bring them to me here,” I said.

“But I can’t. There are several baskets full.”

“What!” said I. “You must be mistaken. I am expecting no such mail.”

“Aren’t you Major J. B. Pond?” he again politely inquired.

“Yes; I’m that man. What’s the matter?”

“You have several hundred letters, sir. Shall I take them to your room?”

I accompanied “boots” to the office, and there, to my astonishment, were between four and five hundred letters, nearly enough to fill a barrel, and they were all addressed to me, and from every part of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and many telegrams. All were seeking to secure the Rev. Dr. Talmage for a lecture, and all from the two-line announcement in _The Christian Herald and Signs of the Times_ the day before.

About 10 o’clock Dr. Baxter called and I showed him what I considered a sight--more letters than I could open and read in two days. He expressed no surprise, but kindly offered to put one or two stenographers and a permanent secretary at my disposal, free of any expense. About noon three young men arrived from Dr. Baxter’s with notes of introduction; these were the stenographers and a secretary at my service. “Who am I?” I thought. Such patronage and politeness I was unaccustomed to. It required change of position and getting out into the lobby for a free breath very often.

I began opening letters. They were from everywhere in the British islands, invariably addressing me in words of welcome to Dr. Talmage and his worthy secretary, and asking terms for the Doctor to preach or lecture. Many of them were admirably written, showing that their respect and welcome for Dr. Talmage knew no bounds. I wondered if it were possible that there could be so many ministers who knew and read of Dr. Talmage. I felt certain that the Doctor had no idea of his popularity over there. Callers flocked in and crowded the lobby of the hotel, waiting answers to their cards. I could not see half of them. I put them off with asking them to write and promising to answer.

I soon discovered that I had made a mistake, and that my contract with Mr. Thorn for the first ten lectures had cost me $5,000, for that was just what the Leeds Y.M.C.A. cleared on them.

I got the letters open. I also got a map of Great Britain and an “A.B.C. Guide,” which tells more of that country than all our American guides can tell in many times the space. With the aid of secretaries and map, I was soon enabled to see that I could easily fill five hundred lecture engagements, if I only had them. I replied to the smaller cities that no proposition for lectures would be considered under a guarantee of £100, and cities like London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh and other large ones would require £300. I received acceptances from Belfast and Dublin of my proposition of £200; of that for £300 from Manchester, Liverpool, and Bristol. In all replies to the applications I was non-commital and careful to state that when terms were accepted and contracts forwarded and signed, there must be an accompanying deposit of twenty-five per cent. of the amount of each sum contracted for. Many correspondents were so eager to secure contracts at once that they sent checks by return mail. So many of these checks of deposit came in that it caused great embarrassment and confusion. In some instances they were sent back to me a second time, with the assurance that I was held to produce Dr. Talmage or I would have the law applied to force me. Such a scramble for an attraction I had never dreamed of before. During all the first two days at every mail “Boots” brought in armsful of letters. I decided to wait a day or two and let applications accumulate. On Dr. Baxter’s recommendation I accepted an invitation for Dr. Talmage to preach in the Islington Presbyterian Church, Colebrooke Road, Beside-the-Angel (a part of London). He was to have £10 for that. The Sunday business was not mine, and the secular days were all I cared to be interested in.

The _Gallia_ arrived at Queenstown in due time, and I received a despatch from the Doctor that deputations were there to meet him from all parts of Great Britain and he had referred all to me. A day later I met him and Mrs. Talmage and Miss Jessie Talmage at the Northwestern Station in London, safe and well, but very tired. He said he had had a narrow escape of his life; that as soon as the steamer arrived in Queenstown delegations of ministers and deacons and secretaries of Y.M.C.A.’s had rushed aboard the boat and down to his and Mrs. Talmage’s stateroom. He heard them coming, shouting:

“Welcome, Talm-o-d-ge.” (They all give the broad sound of “o” to the middle “a” of his name.) “Welcome! Welcome! God bless you! God bless Mrs. Talm-o-d-ge. God bless Miss Talm-o-d-ge. Where is the Doctor?”

And rushing into the room they got hold of Mrs. Talmage’s arm, she being in the lower berth, and nearly jerked it out of the socket before they knew or cared to know their mistake. They got hold of the Doctor and pulled him out of his room before they let go, and shook his hands, and pulled his shirt nearly off, shouting, “Welcome! God bless you,” and kept it up all day on the steamer and on the cars to London, arriving at the Westminster Palace Hotel about 6 P.M., where Dr. Baxter was in waiting. Arrangements had been made for dinner and a reception at the Doctor’s house that evening, so our party was obliged to hurry and dress. We drove in hansoms about four miles. Dr. Baxter’s father, a noted barrister, seemed to be the head of the household. Ministers and clergymen were assembled to do the guests honor. Lord Shaftsbury was the first lord I ever recalled seeing. Dinner was at a long table, with not much sociability; all wore serious, pious expressions. I think I never saw Talmage so uncomfortable. He asked the blessing, and after dinner in the parlors came a season of prayer. The circle of kneeling visitors was to me as tiresome as the old frontier country prayer meetings of my boyhood days, and there was less feeling in them. Each prayed in his turn, and thus for two long hours there was a contest of appeals to the throne for God’s servant, “Talm-o-d-ge.” It was twelve o’clock when we got into our cabs to make our way back to our hotel. It was the first chance I had to speak to Talmage alone; but as it was Saturday night, and he was to preach the next afternoon in the Islington Presbyterian Church, he retired at once.

I did not see him the next morning, as he was preparing for the afternoon sermon. An hour’s drive, with Dr. Baxter as pilot, and Dr. and Mrs. Talmage in an open carriage, Miss Jessie and I following in a second carriage, brought us to a point where we could look across an open space to a hillside where stood a church. That hillside was black with thousands of people, they all wear black on Sunday there, and as we came in sight the crowd began to move, and soon I saw we were being surrounded by what seemed an impassable mob. Coming nearer, Talmage was recognized, and a shout arose:

“Talm-o-d-ge! Talm-o-d-ge! God bless Talm-o-d-ge!” and the crowd came rushing on. Some jumped on the carriage and grabbed his hands and hung on to them; some got hold of Mrs. Talmage, and some one got hold of Talmage’s coat and succeeded in tearing off a piece of his coat-tail. “I want this for a souvenir,” shouted that maniac.

They then unhooked the horses, tied a long rope to the carriage, and hauled the great divine through a jam of humanity, and amid uproars and noises that Niagara Falls could hardly have drowned. Finally the preacher was lifted from the carriage, carried bodily over the heads of the mob, and thrust into the crowded church. After he was out of sight, the crowd gave way, and not long afterward a committee succeeded in getting Mrs. Talmage into a side door, but Miss Jessie and I preferred to wait outside in our carriage until after the service. What took place inside can be inferred from the following item, which appeared in _The Dally News_ next day (June 16th):

“The public announcement that the Rev. Dr. Talmage, of Brooklyn, U. S., would preach attracted yesterday evening a very large number of persons to the outside at least of the Islington Presbyterian Church, of which Dr. Thain Davidson is the minister. The seat-holders and a few others having received tickets were enabled to get in sideways, and between them they filled about all the seats almost two hours before the service commenced. Thousands of unprivileged persons either went away altogether or remained to take their chances among the public rush at a quarter past six, the services commencing at half past. The church, which seats about seven hundred and fifty persons, then quickly became crammed, amid cries and shrieks here and there for help in consequence of the pressure, and a few windows had to be broken to increase the ventilation. Many persons were reported injured.”

The same performance was gone through after service except that the horses were allowed to be hitched back on the carriage. The mob followed for at least half a mile, shouting praises for “Talmodge” as we drove away. Dr. Baxter left us at the hotel and for the first time our party was left alone free from visitors. The Doctor was very tired. At dinner both he and Mrs. Talmage could talk of nothing but this “overwhelmingly cordial greeting to an American minister.” “Major, did you ever hear of such greeting to a minister?” I was asked, and I certainly never had.

“This is going to be awful. How can I ever live through a succession of ovations like that?” he said to all of us.

“DeWitt, you never can endure it,” said Mrs. Talmage; “I am sure you cannot.”

This was the burden of the conversation at dinner. When I retired to the reading room the Doctor soon followed me, to remark:

“Major Pond, was ever such an ovation given to an American minister in London before?”

“Never,” said I instantly and emphatically.

“Major, what would the American papers say of this if they knew the facts? Hadn’t some account of this tremendous reception better be cabled to the Associated Press?”

The next morning the following despatch appeared in the New York _Herald_:

* * * * *

“LONDON, June 15, 1879.

“_Herald_, New York:

“Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage preached to-day at the Islington Presbyterian Church, Colebrooke Road, to an enormous congregation. Much curiosity was evinced by the people to see the famous American preacher; a dense crowd blockaded the streets leading to the church. The enthusiasm was immense. Half a mile before the Presbyterian church was reached the carriage of the reverend gentleman was lifted from the ground and carried bodily to the church. It was one of the most tremendous ovations ever paid to an American minister in London.”

* * * * *

That Sunday evening Dr. Talmage and I walked out and had our first private business talk. We crossed the street to Westminster Abbey and walked all around it, discussing the wonders of the historic Abbey for some time, when the Doctor suddenly changed the subject.

“Wasn’t that the most tremendous, overwhelming reception that a minister ever had?” he said to me. “This excitement is going to use me all up. I never can stand it. What have you done?”

I replied that I had fixed my first ten nights with the Leeds Y. M. C. A., all in the large cities.

“I cannot stand it. I am sure it will break me down. How much am I to get out of it?”

I replied, “You get your $100 a night and your expenses; isn’t that our contract?”

“Oh, I can’t do that. It would be the ruin of my health; and you would be getting rich and I have nothing.”

“Wait, my dear Dr. Talmage, and see how it starts. I came here under terms of a contract with you, and now you don’t seem to consider it binding.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t stand it, and must give the whole thing up unless I can have at least $250 a lecture.”

“That’s all I get for the first ten lectures, and by that time we don’t know whether they will be worth any more. Let’s try under our contract and see if it is as great as your prediction. I am ready to do the fair thing. I certainly will make no new contract until we see if the one in existence is any good.”

“Very well; stop it all. I will take Mrs. Talmage and Jessie and go to Paris and get rest, which I need and must have.”

So we sat on the steps of Westminster Abbey until 2 o’clock Monday morning and the Doctor was booked to lecture in Nottingham that night.

When we separated he asked me what hour he had better start for Nottingham, if he went. I told him 9:30. “I’ll see you at breakfast at 8 and tell you finally,” he said.

When he and Mrs. Talmage came down to breakfast in their travelling clothes I knew he was going to Nottingham. I felt so, any way. Applications were pouring in, and I saw that I could obtain certainties of from £100 to £200 a lecture after the ten Leeds lectures had been given, so I was prepared to make concessions to the Doctor, if he showed any disposition to be fair. As we sat down to the table the Doctor handed me a note written by his own hand on a narrow strip of paper. It read as follows:

“Pay me $200 a lecture and my expenses, not those of my family, and I will go on for one hundred lectures. Put this note in your pocket.” I read and replied:

“All right, Dr. Talmage. I accept. Mrs. Talmage, do you know about this?”

“Yes, Major Pond. I am so glad you and the Doctor have come to an agreement.”

So we started for Nottingham. Mr. Thorn met us at the station there and drove the Talmages to some gentleman’s house where, they were entertained. Mr. Thorn returned and dined with me at my hotel. I asked him how the bookings were. He replied that everything was full. I asked if he sold reserved seats. He said:

“No; the people had filled the house early that afternoon and not another person could be got in. He and his committee had been all the afternoon collecting the entrance fee from the crowd now in their seats. He was ready for Dr. Talmage to go on at any time.”

When he went to the hall there were thousands of the same human strata that had been seen the Sunday before, waiting to set eyes on Dr. Talmage, and they were enthusiastic to the verge of insanity. The police had protected a back entrance, so that the chairman, mayor, and speaker could get in. I was obliged to stand until I could bear it no longer, and went out.

I arranged with Thorn to pay me for the two following lectures in Birmingham and Manchester, so I could return to London and proceed to fill the balance of the time, and he to look after the welfare of the “star” while I agreed to join them on the following Saturday in Liverpool. At my London hotel I found great stacks of letters, but as my time and route were all mapped out, they did not trouble me. Still all the letters must be opened in order to know which of them most needed attention. There were many applications with accompanying checks for from £20 to £40. It seemed incredible that there could be such a craze over a minister, and yet that it caused no comment whatever in the daily newspapers or the secular press in any way. I expected to read blazing headlines of the first great occasion in the London morning papers, but there was not a word. The London secular press seldom mentions religious doings.

I then set to work to finish booking the time. There was much to do in arranging ninety one-night stands for a great attraction, and surely I had the greatest one I had ever known. I was working into midnight when a telegram came up. I would not have opened it had it been a seasonable hour. It was from the Doctor, and read:

* * * * *

“BIRMINGHAM, June 19, 1879.

“J. B. POND, Westminster Palace Hotel, London.

“Stop everything. To-night surpasses all.

“Signed,

“T. DEWITT TALMAGE.”

* * * * *

He was booked for Manchester the following evening, and a great audience was expected. I replied:

“Must keep the Manchester engagement. Will meet you there to-morrow.”

So I left London and arrived in Manchester about 5 o’clock the next afternoon. Passing the City Hall and public buildings my “cabby” drove into a dense crowd of thousands massed together. I never saw the like. I asked my driver what that crowd meant. He said a Yankee minister was to lecture there by the name of “Talm-o-d-ge.” I asked the name of the building. He said it was Free Trade Hall.

I discharged the cab and tried to get into the outskirts of the crowd. I had a small handbag. The crowd was not noisy, but simply made a rush for the door, which had been burst open, and filled the hall with all that could get in. Every now and then I could hear some one say, “I _will_ see Talm-o-d-ge,” and then he would make a break, only to be crowded back. I slipped up to a policeman and asked what this all meant. He told me the same story, of a Yankee minister that was to lecture. He had never before heard of “Talm-o-d-ge,” but the crowd evidently had. I said to him, so as not to be overheard: “I am a Yankee. I am Dr. Talmage’s secretary.” He didn’t even wait to look at me, but with both hands in the air he shouted:

“This is Dr. Talm-o-d-ge’s secretary! Here! Here! Dr. Talin-o-d-ge’s secretary! Here! Here! “ Just then the crowd within hearing turned their eyes on me and made a rush, all shouting, “Dr. Talm-o-d-ge’s secretary! Here! Here!”

The next thing I knew I was being carried above the heads of that crowd and shot along head first. So I was carried over and on these heads, until I was nearly in the centre of great Free Trade Hall. How they found a place for my feet I don’t know. They passed me on by their hands until there was a place to alight. “Dr. Talm-o-d-ge’s secretary,” was the cry. The crowd was orderly and numbered about six thousand, or as many as could possibly get inside of Free Trade Hall, which is one of the greatest auditoriums in the world. They were singing “Hold the Fort,” while the Y. M. C. A. committee, in their shirt sleeves, were collecting the admission fees, ranging from one shilling to half a crown. No objections were made to paying, for everybody expected to do that, but the rush of thousands was more than the hall could accommodate.