After a full year’s consideration of the entire outlook, in January, 1894, I announced my resignation as pastor of the Tabernacle, to take effect in the spring of that year.  I gave no other cause than that I felt that I had been in one place long enough.  An attempt was made by the Press to interpret my action into a private difference of opinion with the trustees of the church—­but this was not true.  All sorts of plans were proposed for raising the required sum of our expensive church management, in which I concurred and laboured heartily.  It was said that I resigned because the trustees were about to decide in favour of charging a nominal fee of ten cents to attend our services.  I made no objection to this.  My resignation was a surprise to the congregation because I had not indicated my plans or intimated to them my own private expectations of the remaining years of my life.

On Sunday, January 22, 1894, among the usual church announcements made from the pulpit, I read the following statement, which I had written on a slip of paper:—­

“This coming spring I will have been pastor of this church twenty-five years—­a quarter of a century—­long enough for any minister to preach in one place.  At that anniversary I will resign this pulpit, and it will be occupied by such person as you may select.

“Though the work has been arduous, because of the unparalleled necessity of building three great churches, two of them destroyed by fire, the field has been delightful and blessed by God.  No other congregation has ever been called to build three churches, and I hope no other pastor will ever be called to such an undertaking.

“My plans after resignation have not been developed, but I shall preach both by voice and newspaper press, as long as my life and health are continued.

“From first to last we have been a united people, and my fervent thanks are to all the Boards of Trustees and Elders, whether of the present or past, and to all the congregation, and to New York and Brooklyn.

“I have no vocabulary intense enough to express my gratitude to the newspaper press of these cities for the generous manner in which they have treated me and augmented my work for this quarter of a century.

“After such a long pastorate it is a painful thing to break the ties of affection, but I hope our friendship will be renewed in Heaven.”

There was a sorrowful silence when I stopped reading, which made me realise that I had tasted another bitter draft of life in the prospect of farewell between pastor and flock.  I left the church alone and went quietly to my study where I closed the door to all inquirers.

If my decision had been made upon any other ground than those of spiritual obligation to the purpose of my whole life I should have said so.  My decision had been made because I had been thinking of my share in the evangelism of the world, and how mercifully I had been spared and instructed and forwarded in my Gospel mission.  I wanted a more neighbourly relation with the human race than the prescribed limitations of a single pulpit.