ngtry. Dr.
Talmage had crossed the ocean with her.

"Won't you come and see my play to-night?" she asked him.

"I am very sorry, Madame, but I am speaking myself to-night," said the
Doctor courteously. He told me afterwards how fortunate he felt it to be
that he was able to make a real excuse. Invitations to the theatre
always embarrassed him.

From Belfast we went to Cork for a few days, making a trip to the
Killarney lakes before sailing from Queenstown on October 18, 1900, on
the "Oceanic."

"Isn't it good to be going back to America, back to that beautiful city
of Washington," said the Doctor, the moment we got on board.

Whatever he was doing, whichever way he was going, he was always in
pursuit of the joy of living. Although the greatest year of my life was
drawing to a close, it all seemed then like an achievement rather than a
farewell, like the beginning of a perfect happiness, the end of which
was in remote perspective.

THE LAST MILESTONE

1900-1902

There was no warning of the divine purpose; there was no pause of
weakness or illness in his life to foreshadow his approaching end. Until
the last sunset hours of his useful days he always seemed to me a man of
iron. He had stood in the midst of crowds a towering figure; but away
from them his life had been a studied annihilation, an existence of
hidden sacrifice to his great work. He used to say to me: "Eleanor, I
have lived among crowds, and yet I have been much of the time quite
alone." But alone or in company his mind was ever active, his great
heart ever intent on his apostolate of sunshine and help towards his
fellow-men. And the good things he said were not alone the utterances of
his public career; they came bubbling forth as from a spring during the
course of his daily life, in his home and among his friends, even with
little children. Books have been written styled, "Conversations of
Eminent Men"; and I have often thought had his ordinary conversations
been reported, or, better, could the colossal crowds who admired him
have been, as we, his privileged listeners, they would have been no less
charmed with his brilliant talk than with the public displays of
eloquence with which they were so captivated.

Immediately after his return from Europe in the autumn of 1900, Dr.
Talmage took up his work with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. He stepped
back into his study as if a new career of preaching awaited him. Never,
indeed, had a Sunday pa