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