I had made my plans for a wide glimpse of the earth and the people on it who knew me, but whom I had never seen.  I had made preparations to start on May 14, and the dates set for this jubilee were arranged on the eve of my farewell.  I was about to make a complete circuit of the globe, and whatever my friends expected me to do otherwise I approached this occasion with a very definite conclusion that it would be my farewell to Brooklyn.

I recall this event in my life with keen contrasts of feeling, for it is mingled in my heart with swift impressions of extraordinary joy and tragic import.  All of it was God’s will—­the blessing and the chastening.

The church had been decorated with the stars and stripes, with gold and purple.  In front of the great organ, under a huge picture of the pastor, was the motto that briefly described my evangelical career:—­

“Tabernacle his pulpit; the world his audience.”

The reception began at eight o’clock in the evening with a selection on the great organ, by Henry Eyre Brown, our organist, of an original composition written by him and called, in compliment to the occasion, “The Talmage Silver Anniversary March.”  On the speaker’s platform with me were Mayor Schieren, of Brooklyn, Mr. Barnard Peters, Rev. Father Sylvester Malone, Rev. Dr. John F. Carson, ex-Mayor David A. Boody, Rev. Dr. Gregg, Rabbi F. De Sol Mendes, Rev. Dr. Louis Albert Banks, Hon. John Winslow, Rev. Spencer F. Roche, and Rev. A.C.  Dixon—­an undenominational gathering of good men.  There is, perhaps, no better way to record my own impressions of this event than to quote the words with which I replied to the complimentary speeches of this oration.  They recall, more closely and positively, the sensibilities, the emotions, and the inspiration of that hour: 

“Dear Mr. Mayor, and friends before me, and friends behind me, and friends all around me, and friends hovering over me, and friends in this room, and the adjoining rooms, and friends indoors and outdoors—­forever photographed upon my mind and heart is this scene of May 10, 1894.  The lights, the flags, the decorations, the flowers, the music, the illumined faces will remain with me while earthly life lasts, and be a cause of thanksgiving after I have passed into the Great Beyond.  Two feelings dominate me to-night—­gratitude and unworthiness; gratitude first to God, and next, to all who have complimented me.

“My twenty-five years in Brooklyn have been happy years—­hard work, of course.  This is the fourth church in which I have preached since coming to Brooklyn, and how much of the difficult work of church building that implies you can appreciate.  This church had its mother and its grandmother, and its great-grandmother.  I could not tell the story of disasters without telling the story of heroes and heroines, and around me in all these years have stood men and women of whom the world was not worthy.  But for