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Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. by Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
page 19 of 183 (10%)
down, almost knocking the life out of those who gather it; for in his case
the right hand knew not what the left hand did. The churches of God in
whose service he toiled, have arisen as one man to declare his faithfulness
and to mourn their loss. He stood in the front of the holy war, and the
courage which never trembled or winced in the presence of temporal danger
induced him to dare all things for God. In church matters he was not
afraid to be shot at. Ordained, not by the laying on of human hands, but
by the imposition of a Saviour's love, he preached by his life, in official
position, and legislative hall, and commercial circles, a practical
Christianity. He showed that there was such a thing as honesty in
politics. He slandered no party, stuffed no ballot box, forged no
naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no
principle, countenanced no demagogism. He called things by their right
names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement or
hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his
views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those
miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing
line and be on neither, yet even in the excitements of election canvass,
when his name was hotly discussed in public journals, I do not think his
integrity was ever assaulted. Starting every morning with a chapter of the
Bible, and his whole family around him on their knees, he forgot not, in
the excitements of the world, that he had a God to serve and a heaven to
win. The morning prayer came up on one side of the day, and the evening
prayer on the other side, and joined each other in an arch above his head,
under the shadow of which he walked all the day. The Sabbath worship
extended into Monday's conversation, and Tuesday's bargain, and Wednesday's
mirthfulness, and Thursday's controversy, and Friday's sociality, and
Saturday's calculation.

"Through how many thrilling scenes had he passed! He stood, at Morristown,
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