ield,
more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven than any.
God bless the Methodist Church--bless all the churches--and blessed
be God, Who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.

"A. LINCOLN.

"May 18th, 1864."

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LETTER.]

A great welcome was given Dr. Talmage in Brooklyn, in November, 1900,
when he preached in the Central Presbyterian Church there. It was the
Doctor's second appearance in a Brooklyn church after the burning of the
Tabernacle in 1894.

It was urged in the newspapers that he might return to his old home. The
invitation was tempting, judging by the thousands who crowded that
Sunday to hear him. In my scrapbook I read of this occasion:

"Women fainted, children were half-crushed, gowns were torn and strong
men grew red in the face as they buffeted the crowds that had gathered
to greet the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage at the Central Presbyterian Church
in Brooklyn."

In the autumn of 1900, an anniversary of East Hampton, N.Y., was held,
and the Doctor entered energetically and happily into the celebration,
preaching in the little village church which had echoed to his voice in
the early days of his ministry. It was a far call backward over nearly
five decades of his teeming life. And he, whose magic style, whether of
word or pen, had enchanted millions over the broad world--how well he
remembered the fears and misgivings that had accompanied those first
efforts, with the warning of his late professors ringing in his ears:
"You must change your style, otherwise no pulpit will ever be open to
you."

Now he could look back over more than a quarter of a century during
which his sermons had been published weekly; through syndicates they had
been given to the world in 3,600 different papers, and reached, it was
estimated, 30,000,000 people in the United States and other countries.
They were translated into most European and even into Asiatic languages.
His collected discourses were already printed in twenty volumes, while
material remained for almost as many more. His style, too, in spite of
his "original eccentricities," had attracted hundreds of thousands of
readers to his books on miscellaneous subjects--all written with a moral
purpose. Among a score of them I might mention: From Manger to Throne;
The Pathway of Life; Crumbs Swept Up; Every-day Religion; The Marriage
Ring; Woman: her Powers and Privileges.

Dr. T