Who Was T. De Witt Talmage? The Brooklyn Tabernacle Preacher
T. De Witt Talmage was an American preacher who lived from 1832 to 1902. For twenty-five years he preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York to some of the largest congregations in the country, and his sermons were printed every week in thousands of newspapers, so that millions of people in America, Britain and beyond read him on Monday morning. He was famous for vivid word pictures and startling titles, and he used both to bring hearers to Christ. His books include volumes of sermons, a life of Christ called From Manger to Throne, and an autobiography finished by his wife after his death.
Here's a fuller look at his life, his way of preaching, and which of his books to start with.
A farm boy from New Jersey
Thomas De Witt Talmage was born on January 7, 1832, at Gateville, near Bound Brook in Somerset County, New Jersey. He was the youngest of twelve children. His parents, David and Catherine, had come to faith in a revival in the plain meeting house at Somerville, and their farm home was a place of family prayer and Bible reading. In his autobiography he tells how his parents prayed for their children until every one of them was converted.
He was baptized as a baby and grew up surrounded by good books, but he was clear that a Christian home didn't save him. Christ did:
In after time I read Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," and all the religious books around my father's household; but that did not save me. But one day the voice of Christ came into my heart saying, "Repent, repent; believe, believe," and I accepted the offer of mercy.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, The Second Milestone
After a short try at studying law, he decided to preach. He graduated from the University of the City of New York in 1853 and trained for the ministry at the Reformed Dutch seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Belleville, Syracuse and Philadelphia
His first church was the Reformed Church in the village of Belleville, New Jersey, where he served three years he remembered as hard work and happy. Then he moved to Syracuse, New York, and in 1862 to Philadelphia, where his preaching began to draw crowds. He learned an early lesson about guidance when he was unsure whether to leave Syracuse:
It is always best to stay where you are until God gives you marching orders, and then move on.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, The Fourth Milestone
His personal life held deep sorrow. His first wife, Mary Avery, drowned in 1861. He married Susan Whittemore in 1863, and they were together more than thirty years. After her death he married Eleanor Collier, who wrote the last chapters of his life story.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle
In 1869 Talmage accepted a call to the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. The congregation grew so fast that it built a large Tabernacle, and then built again and again. Fire destroyed the Tabernacle three times, in 1872, 1889 and 1894. Each time the people rebuilt. He wrote about the fires without bitterness:
The destruction of any church, no matter how large or how popular, does not destroy our faith in God.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, The Seventeenth Milestone
He started a free college at the Tabernacle to train men for the ministry and pleaded for it from the pulpit. He also edited Christian papers, including the Christian Herald from 1890 until his death.
How he preached
Talmage preached the old gospel in a new way. He took an odd text or a bold image and made it a door into the good news. Jehoiakim's penknife cutting up Jeremiah's scroll became a warning against cutting up the Bible. The phrase "by the skin of the teeth" became a sermon on narrow escapes from sin. The great Chicago fire of 1871 became a call to mercy. His titles alone could fill a church: "Crossing the Bridge Before You Come to It," "Christian Hand-Shaking," "God Our Mother."
Underneath all the color, his message was simple. He wanted people to see Christ:
Be Christ the burden of our talk; Christ the inspiration of our prayers; Christ the theme of our songs; Christ now, and Christ forever.
Sermons, The A and the Z
He believed that a minister should preach the same gospel to a village church and to a crowd of thousands:
If a minister's gospel is not fit for fifty thousand people, then it is not fit for the few hundred members of his congregation.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, The Fifth Milestone
Some critics found him too theatrical. But ordinary people loved him, because he spoke to them about work, home, worry, grief and heaven in words they could see.
The Holy Land
In 1889 Talmage made a long trip to Egypt and Palestine. He preached on shipboard and in the cities along the way, in Athens, Jerusalem, Beirut, Vienna, Paris and London, and back home in Brooklyn. Those sermons were gathered as The Palestine Sermons. The trip also gave him the setting for From Manger to Throne, a life of Christ that he wrote, as his preface says, in many places, even in a tent by the Sea of Galilee. It ends with his answer to the question of why Christ died: as our substitute.
Washington and the last years
After the third fire Talmage left Brooklyn. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he served the First Presbyterian Church for several years, sharing the pulpit at first with its senior pastor, and resigned in 1899. He kept writing and traveling and preaching. In 1902 he went to Mexico to recover from illness, came home very sick, and died in Washington on April 12, 1902. He was buried in Brooklyn.
His autobiography, T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, was written for his children and arranged by "milestones." It was finished by his widow and published in 1912. Its preface sums up how he saw people:
God never repeats Himself, and He never intended two men to be alike, or two women to be alike, or two children to be alike.
T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him, Preface
Why he's still read
Talmage is still read because he's never dull. His sermons are full of pictures you remember, and every picture points to sin, grace, Christ and heaven. Preachers read him to learn how to make truth vivid. Ordinary readers find him warm, practical and often very funny, and then suddenly earnest, pleading with them to trust Christ today.
Where to start
TheWay Library has ten of his books, all free to read. Start with his Sermons, thirty-three of his best-known Brooklyn sermons. For more of his preaching, go on to Every-Day Religion, Old Wells Dug Out and New Tabernacle Sermons. If you'd like to read the life of Jesus with a preacher who walked the roads of Galilee, read From Manger to Throne. For his sermons from the Holy Land, try The Palestine Sermons. For his own story, read T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him. His sermons on marriage are in The Wedding Ring, and his lighter side shows in Around the Tea-Table and Crumbs Swept Up.
Our guide to T. De Witt Talmage's books explains each one, and our collection of T. De Witt Talmage quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the T. De Witt Talmage author page, and more great preaching in our list of the best classic sermon collections.