platform. And
there was so much that had to be said then, to encourage, to cheer, to
brighten, to illumine the sorrow and bereavement. From the first I
regarded my lecture tours as an annex to my church. The lecture platform
has been to me a pastoral visitation. It has given me an opportunity of
meeting hundreds of thousands of people to whom, through the press, I
have for many years administered the Gospel.

People have often asked me how much money I received for my lectures.
The amounts have been a great surprise to me, often.

For many years I have been paid from $400 to $1,000 a lecture. The
longer the journey the bigger the fee usually. The average remuneration
was about $500 a night. In Cleveland and in Cincinnati I received $750.
In Chicago, $1,000. Later I was offered $6,000 for six lectures in
Chicago, to be delivered one a month, during the World's Fair, but I
declined them.

My expenses in many directions have been enormous, and without a large
income for lectures I could not have done many things which I felt it
important to do. I have always been under obligation to the press.
Sometimes it has not intended to help me, but it has, being hard pressed
for news.

During the Civil War, when news was sufficiently exciting for the most
ambitious journalist, they used to come to my church for a copy of my
Sermons. News in those days was pretty accurate, but it sometimes went
wrong.

On a Sabbath night, at the close of a preaching service in Philadelphia,
a reporter of one of the prominent newspapers came into my study
adjoining the pulpit and asked of me a sketch of the sermon just
delivered, as he had been sent to take it, but had been unavoidably
detained. His mind did not seem to be very clear, but I dictated to him
about a column of my sermon. He had during the afternoon or evening been
attending a meeting of the Christian Commission for raising funds for
the hospitals, and ex-Governor Pollock had been making a speech. The
reporter had that speech of the ex-Governor of Pennsylvania in his hand,
and had the sketch of my sermon in the same bundle of reportorial notes.
He opened the door to depart and said, "Good evening," and I responded,
"Good evening." The way out from my study to the street was through a
dark alley across which a pump handle projected to an unreasonable
extent. "Look out for that pump handle," I said, "or you may get hurt."
But the warning did not come soon enough. I heard the collision