g, October 27."

Washington was always a beautiful city to me, the climate in winter is
delightful. President Cleveland was a personal friend, as were many of
the public men, and I regarded my call to Washington as a national
opportunity. It had been my custom in the past, when I was very tired
from overwork, to visit Washington for two or three days, stopping at
one of the hotels, to get a thorough rest. For a long time I was really
undecided what to do, I had so many invitations to take up my home and
life work in different cities. While preaching was to be the main work
for the rest of my life, my arrangements were so understood by my church
in Washington that I could continue my lecture engagements.

I delivered a farewell sermon before leaving for Washington, at the
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Brooklyn, before an audience of
five thousand people. My text was 2 Samuel xii. 23: "I shall go to Him."

I still recall the occasion as one of deep feeling--a difficult hour of
self-control. I could not stop the flow of tears that came with the
closing paragraph. The words are merely the outward sign of my inner
feelings:

"Farewell, dear friends. I could wish that in this last interview I
might find you all the sons and daughters of the Mighty. Why not
cross the line this hour, out of the world into the kingdom of God?
I have lived in peace with all of you. There is not among all the
hundreds of thousands of people of this city one person with whom
I could not shake hands heartily and wish him all the happiness for
this world and the next. If I have wronged anyone let him appear at
the close of this service, and I will ask his forgiveness before I
go. Will it not be glorious to meet again in our Father's house,
where the word goodbye shall never be spoken? How much we shall then
have to talk over of earthly vicissitudes! Farewell! A hearty,
loving, hopeful, Christian farewell!"

[Illustration: THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF WASHINGTON DR. TALMAGE'S
LAST CHARGE.]

I was installed in the First Presbyterian Church in Washington on
October 23, 1895. My first sermon in the new pulpit in Washington was
preached to a crowded church, with an overflow of over three thousand
persons in the street outside. The text of my sermon was, "All Heaven is
looking on."

In a few days, by exchange of my Brooklyn property, I had obtained the
house 1402 Massachusetts Avenue, i