T. De Witt Talmage Books: A Guide to All 10 and Where to Start
SermonsPreachingFamilyBiography
T. De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle for twenty-five years, and his sermons ran in newspapers all over the world. He published dozens of books, most of them collections of sermons. TheWay Library has ten of them, all free to read: five books of sermons, a series on marriage and the home, two books of light sketches and table talk, a life of Christ, and his autobiography. For his life story, see who was T. De Witt Talmage.
Where to start
Start with his Sermons. It's Talmage at his most typical, with thirty-three sermons from his Brooklyn years, and you can read one at a time. Then choose by what you want:
- For more of his preaching: Every-Day Religion, Old Wells Dug Out and New Tabernacle Sermons.
- For marriage and family life: The Wedding Ring.
- For something light and funny: Around the Tea-Table or Crumbs Swept Up.
- To read the life of Jesus: From Manger to Throne.
- For sermons set in the places of the Bible: The Palestine Sermons.
- For his own story: T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of T. De Witt Talmage quotes.
Books of sermons
Sermons
Thirty-three sermons from Talmage's early years in Brooklyn, and the titles tell you what kind of preacher he was. "Sundown" is a meditation on the end of life. "The Reckless Penknife" takes King Jehoiakim cutting up Jeremiah's scroll as a warning against cutting up God's word. "Crossing the Bridge Before You Come to It" rebukes the habit of borrowing trouble. "Christian Hand-Shaking" pleads for warmth among believers. "The Burning of Chicago" draws lessons from the fire of 1871, and "By the Skin of the Teeth" talks about narrow escapes from sin.
Others treat the resurrection, Thanksgiving, Christ in the home, Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the rainbow round the throne, Lazarus and the rich man, and God's tender care for the erring in "God Our Mother." The last, "The Almond-Tree in Blossom," is about old age. One sermon appeals for the free college he founded to train ministers.
A man's sin may be like a continent, but God's forgiveness is like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, bounding it on both sides.
Sermons, God Our Mother
This copy came from a scan, and several sermons are missing a first line or a few letters at the start. The rest reads cleanly. Read Talmage's Sermons.
Every-Day Religion
Thirty-three sermons that open with 1 Corinthians 10:31, "whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." The title sermon carries faith to the shop counter and the dinner table, and the next, "Life at Home," calls the home the place where everything else goes right or wrong. From there Talmage turns Bible scenes into gospel pictures: the old corn of Canaan, Naaman's snow-water, the scarlet cord in Rahab's window, Christ in the crimson coat of Isaiah 63. Some sermons answer the news of the day, such as a shipwreck or the duty of a Christian at the ballot-box. Others speak to mourners, including "Exasperating Comforters," on how Job's friends got it wrong.
It is no sign of weakness that men are overcome of their sorrows.
Every-Day Religion, Exasperating Comforters
Old Wells Dug Out
The title comes from Isaac clearing out the wells his father Abraham had dug, after the Philistines had stopped them up. Talmage means to dig out the old truths of sin, grace and the death of Christ, and the opening sermons set that theme. Stenographers took these sermons down as he preached without notes. Many are gospel appeals built on Bible scenes, like Joseph's wagons sent to fetch Jacob or the woman glad of crumbs under the table. Others are tied to events: the wreck of the Ville du Havre, the fire that burned the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and his case for free churches without pew rents.
The Christian printing-press is only the pulpit on cylinders.
Old Wells Dug Out, Preface
New Tabernacle Sermons
Twenty-seven sermons from the rebuilt Tabernacle, in his most pictorial style. Samson becomes a warning against wasted strength, the prophet Amos reading the stars leads to the God who turns shadow into morning, and Daniel's open windows toward Jerusalem shame the windows we open toward money and fashion. Several are direct appeals to trust Christ now, such as "The Ransomless" and "Castle Jesus." A later group takes up the questions of the day: capital and labor, overworked seamstresses, tobacco and opium, and why God permits Satan and sin.
We need, like Daniel, to open our windows toward God and religion.
New Tabernacle Sermons, Windows Toward Jerusalem
The Palestine Sermons
In 1889 and 1890 Talmage traveled to the Holy Land, and he preached all along the way. This book follows his route. He preaches on "Life's Great Voyage" as his steamer leaves New York, on Paul's voyage at Brindisi, in Athens, on Dorcas at Joppa, on the city's golden age in Jerusalem, on the storm while on the Sea of Galilee, on the wedding feast near Cana, and on the angels' song at Beirut at Christmas. On the way home he preaches in Vienna, Paris and London, where his sermon is "Salvation by Faith," and in Ireland on the name of Jesus.
The last sermons were preached back in Brooklyn: Rahab's house on the wall, the glorious Christ, a tribute to the Southern journalist Henry W. Grady, a plea about the revision of creeds, how we treat our parents, angels, and Easter.
The grace of God in the heart is a feeble spark, and Christ has to keep both hands over it lest it be blown out.
The Palestine Sermons, The Sky Anthem
The text is uncorrected OCR, and some sermon headings are garbled. Read The Palestine Sermons.
Marriage and the home
The Wedding Ring
Eighteen sermons Talmage preached as a series on marriage and home life. Each starts from a Bible household: Samson's parents, Ruth and Naomi, Nabal and Abigail, Hannah, Martha and Mary, old Jacob in Egypt. The first sermons counsel the unmarried. Choose a wife with prayer, he says, and don't marry a man of bad habits hoping to reform him. Then come the duties of husbands and wives, quarrels in marriage, the danger of easy divorce, mothers, sisters, the trials of housekeeping and the honor due to aged parents. It's warm, vivid and very practical.
Every mother gets full pay for all the prayers and tears in behalf of her children.
The Wedding Ring, Maternity
A good choice for a couple's reading or a marriage class. Start with The Choice of a Wife or The Choice of a Husband. Read The Wedding Ring.
Table talk and sketches
Around the Tea-Table
Eighty short talks framed as conversation at his family's evening tea-table. Imaginary guests carry the early chapters: the sour critic Mr. Givemfits, cheerful Dr. Butterfield and others. The talk ranges over church music, behavior at church, poor preaching, the "Mondayish feeling" of tired ministers, travel and country memories. From chapter sixty-five the tone turns to Sabbath-evening devotion: the warm heart of Christ, family prayers, half-hearted churches and comfort for parents who have lost children.
The load of life is so heavy it takes a team of two to draw it.
Around the Tea-Table, chapter LVII
Here you meet Talmage's wit and his pastor's heart side by side. Read Around the Tea-Table.
Crumbs Swept Up
Forty light pieces Talmage wrote for newspapers and magazines. This is Talmage the columnist, not the preacher. He remembers his first boots and the old family clock, pokes fun at envy, fashion and "Prayer-Meeting Killers" who talk meetings to death, and writes letters home from Scotland and Europe in 1870, just as the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Even here he finds a sermon in everyday things.
Life is too short, and the work too great, to allow disputation about non-essentials.
Crumbs Swept Up, The Hatchet Buried
The life of Christ
From Manger to Throne
This is Talmage's life of Jesus, written after his trip through Palestine. He opens with a long account of that trip, "the Christ-land," and what he saw is in every chapter that follows. Then he tells the story in order: Herod's bloody reign and what the Jews believed about the Messiah, the angel's message, Mary, the manger, the wise men, the boy Jesus, John the Baptist and the temptation. The ministry chapters cover Cana, the woman at the well, the call of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, Mary Magdalene, the storm on Galilee, the transfiguration, Bethany and the parables. The final chapters move through the last week: the widow's mite, the anointing, the Passover, Gethsemane, what he calls the "sham trial," the cross, the resurrection and the ascension.
The conclusion asks why Christ died, and answers in one word: substitution.
The principle is the dominant one in our religion — Christ the Martyr, Christ the celestial Hero, Christ the Defender, Christ the Substitute.
From Manger to Throne, Conclusion: Why This Martyrdom? Substitution!
It's a long book, forty chapters, but each chapter stands on its own. It works well for reading through the Gospels or for Advent and Holy Week. Read From Manger to Throne.
Autobiography
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him
Talmage wrote his life story for his children, because he wished he had such an account from his own father. He arranged it by "milestones" instead of chapters. He tells of his godly parents and their farm home in New Jersey, the family Bible that comforted them through every death, his schooling and his call to preach, his early churches in Belleville, Syracuse and Philadelphia, and then the Brooklyn years: the crowds, the newspapers that carried his sermons, public events, and the three fires that destroyed his Tabernacle. Later milestones describe his travels and his move to Washington.
He didn't finish it. The last milestones were written by his widow, Eleanor Talmage, who describes his study habits and closing years. The tone is personal and full of stories about people more than doctrine.
Everybody should get his call from God, and do his work in his own way.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, The Fifteenth Milestone
Read T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him.
Why read Talmage today
Talmage shows how to make old truths vivid. He talks about worry, money, marriage, old age and grief in pictures you can't forget, and every picture leads back to the cross and the hope of heaven. Begin with his Sermons, then read From Manger to Throne. For the home, keep The Wedding Ring close. All ten books are on the T. De Witt Talmage author page, and you'll find other great preachers in our list of the best classic sermon collections.