But the work was not yet done.  By rule of that excellent denomination, of which I was then a member, the call of a church must be read and approved before it can be lawfully accepted.  The call from that dear old church at Belleville was read, and in it I was provided with a month’s summer vacation.  Dr. Hardman rose, and said that he thought that a month was too long a vacation, and he proposed two weeks.  Then Dr. Scott arose and said, if any change were made he would have the vacation six weeks; “For,” said he, “that young man does not look very strong physically, and I believe he should have a good long rest every summer.”  But the call was left as it originally read, promising me a month of recuperation each year.

At the close of that meeting of Classis, Dr. Scott came up to me, took my right hand in both his hands, and said, “I congratulate you on the opportunity that opens here.  Do your best, and God will see you through; and if some Saturday night you find yourself short of a sermon, send down to Newark, only three miles, and I will come up and preach for you.”  Can anyone imagine the difference of my appreciation of Dr. Hardman and Dr. Scott?

Only a few weeks passed on, and the crisis that Dr. Scott foresaw in my history occurred, and Saturday night saw me short of a sermon.  So I sent a messenger to Dr. Scott.  He said to the messenger, “I am very tired; have been holding a long series of special services in my church, but that young Talmage must be helped, and I will preach for him to-morrow night.”  He arrived in time, and preached a glowing and rousing sermon on the text, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost?” As I sat behind him in the pulpit and looked upon him I thought, “What a magnificent soul you are!  Tired out with your own work, and yet come up here to help a young man to whom you are under no obligation!” Well, that was the last sermon he ever preached.  The very next Saturday he dropped dead in his house.  Outside of his own family no one was more broken-hearted at his obsequies than myself, to whom he had, until the meeting of Classis, been a total stranger.

I stood at his funeral in the crowd beside a poor woman with a faded shawl and worn-out hat, who was struggling up to get one look at the dear old face in the coffin.  She was being crowded back.  I said, “Follow me, and you shall see him.”  So I pushed the way up for her as well as myself, and when we got up to the silent form she burst out crying, and said, “That is the last friend I had in the world.”

Dr. Hardman lived on.  He lived to write a letter when I was called to Syracuse, N.Y., a letter telling a prominent officer of the Syracuse Church that I would never do at all for their pastor.  He lived on until I was called to Philadelphia, and wrote a letter to a prominent officer in the Philadelphia Church telling them not to call me.  Years ago he went to his rest.  But the two men will always stand in my memory as opposites in character.  The one taught me a lesson never to be forgotten about how to treat a young man, and the other a lesson about how not to treat a young man.  Dr. Scott and Dr. Hardman, the antipodes!