Women fainted, children were half-crushed, gowns were torn and strong men grew red in the face as they buffeted the crowds that gathered to greet Rev. T. De Witt Talmage at the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. (Talmage, 1902:397).

A World-Wide Ministry

While he was at Brooklyn (and even afterward until he died in 1902), 3,500 daily newspapers continued to spread his sermons across the entire world reaching an estimated 30,000,000 readers and being translated into most European and even some Asian languages. In Great Britain one magazine carried his weekly sermon alongside C. H. Spurgeon's regular messages.

Talmage toured Britain under sponsorship of a lecture bureau and found folks complaining of the high admission ticket prices over which he had no control as his contract called for a specific fee and he had no part in such income. In 1879 he arranged to revisit every place at his own expense where he had been and preach without price in all the places he had previously visited as a lecturer. He took up collections in some meetings to benefit the YMCA.

In London he preached to huge crowds gathered in the Albert Hall and in the open air in Hyde Park. In London he went to hear C. H. Spurgeon and, determined to be gracious when introduced he said, "Mr. Spurgeon -- I read your sermons." Spurgeon, more than equal to the compliment, replied, "Dr. Talmage, everybody reads yours"!

In later years Talmage served as editor of the Christian Herald and several other magazines. He published a 20 volume set of 500 sermon as well as some individual volumes. His popular itinerant lectures delivered across the U.S. and around the world were printed in many volumes such as Everyday Religion, Crumbs Swept Up, and From the Manger to the Throne.

As a grey-haired veteran at 62 he spent two months in Australia preaching every night for up to two hours and to ministers each Monday morning. A sermon in Melbourne was on God's Sunshine." Presbyterian businessman, High Victor McKay was so moved by his ideas that he called the wheat processing machine he had just invented The Sunshine Harvester. He erected a new residence in the street he named Talmage Street and named the outlying area where he built his factory, "Sunshine" -- a Melbourne suburb which continues by that name to this day. McKay's "Sunshine" harvester transformed an entire nation's primary industry and lifted him to such affluence that he developed into one of Australia's foremost philanthropists.

Model Sermons

Present-day preachers can profit from the reading of Talmage's sermons. While not all of his flowery language and elocutionary craft will easily be received by contemporary congregations, no pulpiteer can read those sermons without being impressed by the facility of well-chosen language to communicate truth. In today's demanding contexts congregations require clear, succinct communication. However, sanctified, authentic, and controlled oratory will never lose its value.

Some preachers will always be loquacious rather than eloquent. The "Gift of the Gab" can never effectively substitute for genuine enthusiastic emotion. Today we are afraid of the facile use of affluent verbiage as language can be so easily abused. But Dr. Martin Luther King's famous I have a dream speech was carefully prepared and emotionally delivered using the same language arts that Talmage employed. It has now gone down in contemporary history as one of our most powerful and effective moments of communication. So also from preachers such as Talmage we learn that God's Word can be communicated in many ways, and that a disciplined and responsible rhetoric will always have its place in public speech.

Oratory in the pulpit can be empty and profitless where it is viewed as only an end in itself. But where the preacher possesses a true and radiant faith, and is motivated by a genuine concern to energize hearers through the power of words, such an authentic declamatory and emotional power can be a worthy instrument for good when surrendered to the direction of the Spirit of God.

1. Key reference volumes as quoted above are: Talmage, T. De Witt, T. De Witt Talmage As I Knew Him (autobiography) (London, Eng.: John Murray, 1912); Banks, Louis Albert, T. De Witt Talmage, His Life and Work (Phil.,PA: Winston, 1902); Talmage, T. De Witt, 500 Sermons (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 1956, 1978, 20 volumes)