and Terra del Fuegans, and Arabs, and a few Indians, and possibly even some Spaniards and Portuguese.  All things are possible with God.  We shall have all these sorts of people in heaven; but, alas! in getting them we shall lose the society of Dr. Talmage.  Which is to say, we shall lose the company of one who could give more real “tone” to celestial society than any other contribution Brooklyn could furnish.  And what would eternal happiness be without the Doctor?  Blissful, unquestionably—­we know that well enough but would it be ‘distingue,’ would it be ‘recherche’ without him?  St. Matthew without stockings or sandals; St. Jerome bare headed, and with a coarse brown blanket robe dragging the ground; St. Sebastian with scarcely any raiment at all—­these we should see, and should enjoy seeing them; but would we not miss a spike-tailed coat and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient:  “These are well enough, but you ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn.”  I fear me that in the better world we shall not even have Dr. Talmage’s “good Christian friend.”

For if he were sitting under the glory of the Throne, and the keeper of the keys admitted a Benjamin Franklin or other labouring man, that “friend,” with his fine natural powers infinitely augmented by emancipation from hampering flesh, would detect him with a single sniff, and immediately take his hat and ask to be excused.

To all outward seeming, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage is of the same material as that used in the construction of his early predecessors in the ministry; and yet one feels that there must be a difference somewhere between him and the Saviour’s first disciples.  It may be because here, in the nineteenth century, Dr. T. has had advantages which Paul and Peter and the others could not and did not have.  There was a lack of polish about them, and a looseness of etiquette, and a want of exclusiveness, which one cannot help noticing.  They healed the very beggars, and held intercourse with people of a villainous odour every day.  If the subject of these remarks had been chosen among the original Twelve Apostles, he would not have associated with the rest, because he could not have stood the fishy smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of Galilee.  He would have resigned his commission with some such remark as he makes in the extract quoted above:  “Master, if thou art going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this work of evangelization.”  He is a disciple, and makes that remark to the Master; the only difference is, that he makes it in the nineteenth instead of the first century.

Is there a choir in Mr. T.’s church?  And does it ever occur that they have no better manners than to sing that hymn which is so suggestive of labourers and mechanics: 

          “Son of the Carpenter! receive
          This humble work of mine?”

Now, can it be possible that in a handful of centuries the Christian character has fallen away from an imposing heroism that scorned even the stake, the cross, and the axe, to a poor little effeminacy that withers and wilts under an unsavoury smell?  We are not prepared to believe so, the reverend Doctor and his friend to the contrary notwithstanding.