“If in humility it may be done without violence to the feelings of our Presbyterian brethren--whose particular funeral it is--we feel called upon to inquire if it be not nearly time for the reign of ordinary propriety to set in as to the Talmage business. It was bad enough to have a lot of old sermons weekly stereotyped through the land on Monday mornings during his late tour to the Holy Land, as having been delivered by him on the previous day on Mars Hill and elsewhere; and to have accounts so gorgeous as to be manifestly fictitious in their coloring, sent abroad as the great man’s intercourse by the way with kindred great men. But now that this dazzling pulpit light is once more shining and shimmering at home, we think the world at large could manage, without overwhelming grief, to dispense with Mr. Louis Klopsch’s Boswellian columns, detailing the amazing Talmage experiences, and recounting the tremendous Talmage remarks at various places along that route, which has been beatified and forevermore advertised as that of his travels.” _The Toledo Blade_, one of the papers which published Talmage’s sermons during this Palestine tour, came out with a frank explanation that none of them were cabled, and that they were all prepared before the doctor left home. _The Blade_ further made matters interesting by admissions that some of them, including the one credited to Mars Hill, were never delivered at all. What cares Dr. Talmage for all this? He has his public, that he has educated, adamantine in its faith in him. He is said to be the richest minister in the world, and he has _earned_ it all himself. Charles H. Spurgeon was, to me, a name, next to that of Beecher, to conjure with. When I arrived in London for the first time, June 3, 1879, and started out to see the sights, the first place I instructed my “cabby” to drive to was Spurgeon’s Tabernacle. [Illustration] It was about sunset when I first set eyes on the famous building. I know I felt a disappointment. It was not what I expected to see. The surroundings were not attractive. The high iron gates suggested more a prison than an invitation to go up to the house of the Lord. I made no stop, but directed my driver to show me the City Temple, on Holburn Viaduct, where the great Dr. Joseph Parker preached. It was in the gloaming that I first saw this famous “church.” It was not as large as I expected. In most of our cities it would be considered a very ordinary, comfortable house of worship. “Do you call that a large church?” I asked the cabby.