acher. And yet, in the days of my infancy I was carried by
Christian parents to the house of God, and consecrated in baptism to the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; but that did not save me. In
after time I was taught to kneel at the Christian family altar with
father and mother and brothers and sisters. In after time I read
Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted,"
and all the religious books around my father's household; but that did
not save me. But one day the voice of Christ came into my heart saying,
"Repent, repent; believe, believe," and I accepted the offer of mercy.

It happened this way: Truman Osborne, one of the evangelists who went
through this country some years ago, had a wonderful art in the right
direction. He came to my father's house one day, and while we were all
seated in the room, he said: "Mr. Talmage, are all your children
Christians?" Father said: "Yes, all but De Witt." Then Truman Osborne
looked down into the fireplace, and began to tell a story of a storm
that came on the mountains, and all the sheep were in the fold; but
there was one lamb outside that perished in the storm. Had he looked me
in the eye, I should have been angered when he told me that story; but
he looked into the fireplace, and it was so pathetically and beautifully
done that I never found any peace until I was inside the fold, where the
other sheep are.

When I was a lad a book came out entitled "Dow Junior's Patent Sermons";
it made a great stir, a very wide laugh all over the country, that book
did. It was a caricature of the Christian ministry and of the Word of
God and of the Day of Judgment. Oh, we had a great laugh! The commentary
on the whole thing is that the author of that book died in poverty,
shame, debauchery, kicked out of society.

I have no doubt that derision kept many people out of the ark. The
world laughed to see a man go in, and said, "Here is a man starting for
the ark. Why, there will be no deluge. If there is one, that miserable
ship will not weather it. Aha! going into the ark! Well, that is too
good to keep. Here, fellows, have you heard the news? This man is going
into the ark." Under this artillery of scorn the man's good resolution
perished.

I was the youngest of a large family of children. My parents were
neither rich nor poor; four of the sons wanted collegiate education, and
four obtained it, but not without great home-struggle. The day I left
our c