FOUR QUOTES OF THOMAS DEWITT TALMAGE

Thomas DeWitt Talmage, clergyman and lecturer, was born near Boundbrook, New Jersey, January 7, 1832, the son of David Talmage, a farmer, and his wife Catharine Van Nest. He was educated at the University of the City of New York where he studied law, but changed to theology and was graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1856. He preached in the Dutch Reformed Church in Belleville, New Jersey, in Syracuse, and in Philadelphia. In 1869 he went to the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, where he drew immense crowds because of his eloquence and his showmanship. His sermons were published weekly by a syndicate in over 3,000 newspapers. He became editor of the Christian Herald in 1890, and after 1899 devoted all of his time to it. He was married three times, and died in Brooklyn April 12, 1902.


Here are four thought-provoking sayings of Thomas DeWitt Talmage:

We live but once. The years of childhood, when once past, are past forever...it has gone beyond our reach. What we have made it, it shall remain. There is no power in Heaven or on earth that can change it. The record of our past stands forth in bold and ineffaceable characters, open to the all-seeing eye of God. There it stands and one day we shall give an account of it. The present moment alone is ours...Today is a day which we never had before, which we shall never have again. It rose from the great ocean of eternity, and again sinks into its unfathomable depths.

Christ is our star of Hope. I want my death-bed to be under that star.

The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.

Our birth is the text. Youth the introduction. During manhood we lay down a few propositions and prove them. Some passages are dull and some sprightly. Then come Inferences and Application. At seventy we say, 'Fifthly and lastly.' The Doxology is sung. The Benediction is pronounced. The book is closed. It is getting cold. Frost on the window pane. Audience gone. Shut up the church. Sexton goes home with the key on his shoulder.