hen the grace of God
appeared to him, and he had begun his study for the ministry, he said one
day, "Mother! Do you remember that many years ago I said, 'I am going to be
a missionary'?" She replied, "Yes! I remember you said so." "Well," said
he, "I am going to keep my promise." And how well he kept it millions of
souls on earth and in heaven have long since heard. But his chief work is
yet to come. We get our chronology so twisted that we come to believe that
the white marble of the tomb is the mile-stone at which a good man stops,
when it is only a mile-stone on a journey, the most of the miles of which
are yet to be travelled.

The Dictionary which my brother prepared with more than two decades of
study, the religious literature he transferred from English into Chinese,
the hymns he wrote for others to sing, although himself could not sing at
all, (he and I monopolizing the musical incapacity of a family in which all
the rest could sing well), the missionary stations he planted, the life he
lived, will widen out, and deepen and intensify through all time and all
eternity.

I am glad that those competent to tell of his magnificent work have
undertaken it. You could get nothing about it from him at all. Ask him a
question trying to evoke what he had done for God and the church, and his
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.