eal builders. Wechsler
and Abraham were among the first to contribute $100, "Texas Siftings"
through J. Amory Knox sent $25, and "Judge" forwarded a cheque for the
same amount, with the declaration that all other periodicals in the
United States ought to go and do likewise. A.E. Coates sent $200, E.M.
Knox $200, A.J. Nutting $100, Benjamin L. Fairchild $100, Joseph E.
Carson $100, Haviland and Sons $25, Francis H. Stuart, M.D., $25, Giles
F. Bushnell $25, and Pauline E. Martin $25.

Even the small children, the poor, the aged, sent in their dollars.
About one thousand dollars was contributed the first day. Everything was
done by the trustees and the people, to expedite the plans of the New
Tabernacle so that in two weeks from the date of the fire I broke ground
for what was to be the largest church in the world of a Protestant
denomination, on the corner of Clinton and Greene Avenues. That
afternoon of October 28, 1889, when I stood in the enclosure arranged
for me, and consecrated the ground to the word of God, was another
moment of supreme joy to me. It was said that those who witnessed the
ceremony were impressed with the importance of it in the course of my
own life and in the history of Christianity. To me it was akin to those
pregnant hours of my life through which I had passed in great exaltation
of spiritual fervour.

My words of consecration were brief, as follows:

"May the Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joshua, and
Paul, and John Knox, and John Wesley, and Hugh Latimer, and Bishop
McIlvaine take possession of this ground and all that shall be built
upon it."

Before me was a vision of that church, its Gothic arches, its splendour
of stained-glass windows, its spires and gables, and, as I saw this our
third Tabernacle rise up before me, I prayed that its windows might look
out into the next world as well as this. I was glad that I had waited to
turn that bit of God-like earth on the old Marshall homestead in
Brooklyn, for it filled my heart with a spiritual promise and potency
that was an invisible cord binding me during my pilgrimage to Jordan
with my congregation which I had left behind.

With Mrs. Talmage and my daughter, May Talmage, I sailed on the "City of
Paris," on October 30, 1889, to complete the plan I had dreamed of for
years. I had been reverently anxious to actually see the places
associated with our Lord's life and death. I wanted to see Bethlehem and
Nazareth, and Jerusale