In the summer of 1886, Doctor Pasteur’s inoculations against hydrophobia, and Doctor Ferron’s experiments with cholera, following many years after Doctor Jenner’s inoculations against small-pox, were only segments of the circle which promised an ultimate cure for all the diseases flesh is heir to.  Miracles were amongst us again.  I had much more interest in these medical discoveries than I had in inventions, locomotive or bellicose.  We required no inventions to take us faster than the limited express trains.  We needed no brighter light than Edison’s.  A new realm was opening for the doctors.  Simultaneously, with the gleam of hope for a longer life, there appeared in Brooklyn an impudent demand, made by a combination of men known as the Brewers’ Association.  They wanted more room for their beer.  The mayor was asked to appoint a certain excise commissioner who was in favour of more beer gardens than we already had.  They wanted to rule the city from their beer kegs.  In my opinion, a beer garden is worse than a liquor saloon, because there were thousands of men and women who would enter a beer garden who would not enter a saloon.  The beer gardens merely prepare new victims for the eventual sacrifice of alcoholism.  Brooklyn was in danger of becoming a city of beer gardens, rather than a city of churches.

On January 24, 1886, the seventeenth year of my pastorate of the Brooklyn Tabernacle was celebrated.  It was an hour for practical proof to my church that the people of Brooklyn approved of our work.  By the number of pews taken, and by the amount of premiums paid in, I told them they would decide whether we were to stand still, to go backward, or to go ahead.  We were, at this time, unable to accommodate the audiences that attended both Sabbath services.  The lighting, the warming, the artistic equipment, all the immense expenses of the church, required a small fortune to maintain them.  We had more friends than the Tabernacle had ever had before.  At no time during my seventeen years’ residence in Brooklyn had there been so much religious prosperity there.  The memberships of all churches were advancing.  It was a gratifying year in the progress of the Gospel in Brooklyn.  It had been achieved by constant fighting, under the spur of sound yet inspired convictions.  How close the events of secular prominence were to the religious spirit, some of the ministers in Brooklyn had managed to impress upon the people.  It was a course that I pursued almost from my first pastoral call, for I firmly believed that no event in the world was ever conceived that did not in some degree symbolise the purpose of human salvation.

When Mr. Parnell returned to England, I expected, from what I had seen and what I knew of him, that his indomitable force would accomplish a crisis for the cause of Ireland.  My opinion always was that England and Ireland would each be better without the other.  Mr. Parnell’s triumph on his return in January, 1886, seemed complete.  He discharged the Cabinet in England, as he had discharged a previous Cabinet, and he had much to do with the appointment of their successors.  I did not expect that he would hold the sceptre, but it was clear that he was holding it then like a true king of Ireland.