At the Memorial for Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage, D.D.

April 1902

From Memorial Sermon by His Son, Rev. Frank De Witt Talmage, D.D.

"Sermons With Comfort In Them"

It was because my father's sermons were the products of a Spirit-filled life that the millions were able to find comfort in them. Whenever he would take a lecture trip the people would crowd about him by the thousands, uttering such greetings as "I read your sermon on 'Tears' by my baby's casket, and I have found Christ;" "I read your sermon upon 'Recognition of Friends In Heaven' to my mother when she was dying;" "I read this or that when I was in a certain trouble, and the sermon brought light to my soul."

Let no hearer or reader of this sermon think for one instant that my father's work was a man made work. My father's work was a divinely inspired work. He was called as certainly to do his work as Paul and Peter and John were called to do theirs. He was inspired by prayer and communion with God.

Would you go with me into the death chamber? His passing away was as he himself would have had it if his own wish had been consulted. He practically died in the harness. One Sunday he was preaching in Mexico, the next on his deathbed. For five long weeks he lingered, but God mercifully benumbed the worn out and tired brain. He suffered not at all. He awoke long enough to recognize and at times call for his wife and children. But conversation was an impossibility between him and the members of his family during the weary days and nights he was sick. We were all there, all except those of the family who had preceded him to the other side and who were waiting to give him a welcome. We repeated the old verse so often spoken by his own lips:

"When round my dying bed assemble those I love."

A dear old family friend uttered a sweet prayer. That was all. We watched and waited until his mortal life was lifted into the heavenly life. There were a few tears, a few callings of goodbye. He slipped away so quietly we could not tell when he was gone. He was asleep. The tired heart ceased to beat. The old sweet restful look came back to the loving face.

We laid him away for a little while in the family plot in beautiful Greenwood. As I lifted my hand over the open grave to pronounce the benediction, I said to myself, "So may we all live and labor, that when our work is done we may go to our rest in the full conviction that when we awake it will be like this glorified spirit in the likeness of his Lord."