lips were as tightly shut as though they had never been opened. He was
animated enough when drawn out in discussion religious, educational, or
political, but he had great powers of silence. I once took him to see
General Grant, our reticent President. On that occasion they both seemed to
do their best in the art of quietude. The great military President with his
closed lips on one side of me, and my brother with his closed lips on the
other side of me, I felt there was more silence in the room than I ever
before knew to be crowded into the same space. It was the same kind of
reticence that always came upon John when you asked him about his work. But
the story has been gloriously told in the heavens by those who through his
instrumentality have already reached the City of Raptures. When the roll of
martyrs is called before the Throne of God, the name of John Van Nest
Talmage will be called. He worked himself to death in the cause of the
world's evangelization. His heart, his brain, his lungs, his hands, his
muscles, his nerves, all wrought for others until heart and brain, and
lungs and hands, and muscles and nerves could do no more.

He sleeps in the cemetery near Somerville, New Jersey, so near father and
mother that he will face them when he rises in the Resurrection of the
Just, and amid a crowd of kindred now slumbering on the right of him, and
on the left of him, he will feel the thrill of the Trumpet that wakes the
dead.

Allelujah! Amen!

BROOKLYN, June, 1894.