In looking over an old note-book I carried in that year I find, under date of March 22, 1869, the word “installed” written in my own handwriting.  It was written in pencil after the service of installation held in the church that Monday evening.  The event is recorded in the minutes of the regular meetings of the church as follows: 

“Monday evening, March 22, the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage having been received as a member of the Presbytery of Nassau, was this evening installed pastor of this church.  The Rev. C.S.  Pomeroy preached the sermon and proposed the constitutional questions.  Rev. Mr. Oakley delivered the charge to the pastor, and Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D.D., delivered the charge to the people; and the services were closed with the benediction by the pastor, and a cordial shaking of hands by the people with their new pastor.”

The old church stood on Schemerhorn Street, between Nevins and Power Streets.  It was a much smaller church community than the one I had left in Philadelphia, but there was a glorious opportunity for work in it.  I remember hearing a minister of a small congregation complain to a minister of a large congregation about the sparseness of attendance at his church.  “Oh,” said the one of large audience, “my son, you will find in the day of judgment that you had quite enough people for whom to be held accountable.”

My church in Brooklyn prospered.  In about three months from the date of my installation it was too small to hold the people who came there to worship.  This came about, not through any special demonstration of my own superior gifts, but by the help of God and the persecution of others.

During my pastorate in Brooklyn a certain group of preachers began to slander me and to say all manner of lies about me; I suppose because they were jealous of my success.  These calumnies were published in every important newspaper in the country.  The result was that the New York correspondents of the leading papers in the chief cities of the United States came to my church on Sundays, expecting I would make counter attacks, which would be good news.  I never said a word in reply, with the exception of a single paragraph.

The correspondents were after news, and, failing to get the sensational charges, they took down the sermons and sent them to the newspaper.

Many times have I been maligned and my work misrepresented; but all such falsehood and persecution have turned out for my advantage and enlarged my work.

Whoever did escape it?

I was one summer in the pulpit of John Wesley, in London—­a pulpit where he stood one day and said:  “I have been charged with all the crimes in the calendar except one—­that of drunkenness,” and his wife arose in the audience and said:  “You know you were drunk last night.”