In March, 1898, Dr. Talmage was called West for lecture engagements, and I went with him.  What strange and delightful events that spring tour brought into my life!  The Doctor lectured every night in what was to me some new and undiscovered country.  We were always going to an hotel, to a train, to an opera house, to another hotel, another train, another opera house.  Our experiences were not less exciting than the trials of one-night stands.  I had never travelled before without a civilised quota of trunks; but the Doctor would have been overwhelmed with them in the rush to keep his engagements.  So we had to be content with our bags.  When we were not studying time tables the Doctor was striding across the land, his Bible under his arm, myself in gasping haste at his side.  What primitive hotels we encountered; what antiquated trains we had to take!  Frequently a milk train was the only means of reaching our destination, and, alas! a milk train always leaves at the trying hour of 4 a.m.  Once we had to ride on a special engine; and frequently the caboose of a freight train served our desperate purpose.  I began to understand something of the loneliness of the Doctor’s life in experiences like these.

I insisted upon sitting in the front row at every one of Dr. Talmage’s lectures, which I soon knew by heart.  He used to laugh when I would repeat certain parts of them to him.

Then he would beg me to stay away that I might not be bored by listening to the same thing over again.  I would not have missed one of his lectures for the world.  These were the great moments of his life; the combined resources of his character came to the surface whenever he went into the pulpit or on to the platform.  These were the moments that inspired his life, that gave it an ever-increasing vigour of human and divine perception.  The enthusiasm of his reception by the crowds in these theatres keyed me up so that each new audience was a new pleasure.  There were no preliminaries to his lectures.  Frequently he had time only to drop his hat and step on to the stage as he had come from the train.  After every lecture it was his custom to shake hands with hundreds of people who came up to the platform.  This was very exhausting, but these were to him the moments of fruition—­the spiritual harvest of the Christian seeds he had scattered over the earth.  They were wonderful scenes, dramatic in their earnestness, remarkable in the evidence they brought out of his universal influence upon the hearts of men and women.  Everywhere the same testimony prevailed: 

“You saved my father, God bless you!” “You saved my brother, thank God!” “You made a good woman of me!” “You gave me my first start in life!” In these words they told him their gratitude, as they grasped his hand.

On these occasions the Doctor’s face was wonderful to see as, with the silent pressure of his hand, he looked into the eyes that were filled with tears.  Sometimes people would come to me and whisper the same truths about him, and when I would tell him, his answer was characteristic:  “Eleanor, this is what gives me strength.  It is worth living to hear people tell me these things.”