Millions," the author will feel abundantly rewarded.

JOHN G. FAGG.

ARLINGTON, NEW JERSEY
October 1, 1894.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Rev. John Van Nest Talmage
Chinese Clan House
Buddhist Temple, Amoy
Pagoda near Lam-sin
Chinese Bride and Groom
Traveling Equipment in South China
Pastor Iap and Family
The Sio ke Valley
Glimpse of the Sio-ke River
Scene in the Hakka Region
Girl's School; The Talmage Manse; Woman's School. (Kolongsu, opposite Amoy)
Pastor Iap

CONTENTS

I. The Ancestral Home
II. Call to China and Voyage Hence
III. The City of the "Elegant Gate"
  Description of Amoy and Amoy Island
  Ancestral Worship
  Infanticide
  Is China to be won, and how?
  Worship of the Emperor
IV. Light and Shade
  The Chiang-chiu Valley
  Breaking and Burning of Idols
  The Chinese Boat Race and its Origin
  The Chinese Beggar System
  Two Noble Men Summoned Hence
V. At the Foot of the Bamboos
  Opium
  Romanized Colloquial
  Chinese Sense of Sin
  Primitive Lamps
  Zealous Converts
  The Term Question
  What it Costs a Chinese to become a Christian
  Persecuted for Christ's Sake
  "He is only a Beggar"
  Printing under Difficulties
  Carrier Pigeons
VI. The "Little Knife" Insurrection
  How the Chinese Fight
VII. The Blossoming Desert
  Si-boo's Zeal
  An Appeal for a Missionary
VIII. Church Union
  The Memorial of the Amoy Mission
IX. Church Union (continued)
X. The Anti-missionary Agitation
XI. The Last Two Decades
  Forty continuous Years in Heathenism
  Chinese Grandiloquence
XII. In Memoriam
  Dr. Talmage—The Man and The Missionary
    By Rev. W. S. Swanson, D.D.
  Venerable Teacher Talmage
    By Pastor Iap Han Chiong
  Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.
    By Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D.
  The Rev. J. V. N. Talmage, D.D.
    By Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., LL.D.
  Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.
    By Rev. John M. Ferris, D.D.
APPENDIX

I. THE ANCESTRAL HOME

John Van Nest Talmage was born at Somerville, New Jersey, August 18, 1819
He was the fourth son in a family of seven brothers and five sisters.

The roots of the Talmage genealogical tree may be traced back to the year 1630, when Enos and Thomas Talmage, the progenitors of the Talmage family in North America, landed at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and afterwards settled at East Hampton, Long Island.

Dr. Lyman Beecher represents the first settlers of East Hampton as "men resolute, enterprising, acquainted with human nature, accustomed to do business, well qualified by education, circumspect, careful in dealing, friends of civil liberty, jealous of their rights, vigilant to discover, and firm to resist encroachments; eminently pious."

In 1725 we find Daniel Talmage at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Daniel's grandson, Thomas, during the years between 1775 and 1834 shifts his tent to Piscataway, New Jersey, thence to New Brunswick, thence to Somerville, where the stakes are driven firmly on a farm "beautiful for situation." Thomas Talmage was a builder by trade, and erected some of the most important courthouses and public edifices in Somerset and Middlesex Counties. He was active in the Revolutionary war, holding the rank of major. It was said of him, "His name will be held in everlasting remembrance in the churches." He was the father of seven sons and six daughters.

The third son, David T., the father of John Van Nest Talmage, was born at Piscataway, April 21, 1783. He was married to Catharine Van Nests Dec. 19, 1803. David T. Talmage was rather migratory in his instincts. The smoke of the Talmage home now curled out from a house at Mill stone, now from a homestead near Somerville, then from Gateville; then the family ark rested for many years on the outskirts of Somerville and finally it brought up at Bound Brook, New Jersey. Though the family tent was folded several times, it was not folded for more than a day's wagon journey before it was pitched again. The places designated arc all within the range of a single New Jersey county.

In 1836 David T. Talmage was elected a member of the State Legislature and was returned three successive terms. In 1841, he was chosen high sheriff of Somerset County. Four of his sons entered the Christian ministry, James R., John Van Nest, Goyn, and Thomas De Witt. James R., the senior brother, rendered efficient service in pastorates at Pompton Plains and Blawenburgh, New Jersey, and in Brooklyn, Greenbush, and Chittenango, New York. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College, New Jersey, in 1864. John Van Nest gave his life to China. Goyn, a most winsome man and eloquent preacher, ministered with marked success to the churches of Niskayuna, Green Point, Rhinebeck, and Port Jervis, New York, and Paramus, New Jersey. He was for five years the Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Domestic Missions of the Reformed Church. Rutgers College honored herself and him by giving him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1876.

Thomas De Witt, the youngest son, still ministers to the largest church in Protestant Christendom. What a river of blessing has flowed from that humble, cottage well-spring. The wilderness and the parched land have been made glad by it. The desert has been made to rejoice and blossom as the rose. The courses thereof have gone out into all the earth, and the tossing of its waves have been heard to the end of the world.

In November, 1865, Dr. T. De Witt Talmage preached a sermon on "The Beauty of Old Age"[*] from the words in Eccles. xii. 5, "The Almond Tree shall flourish." It was commemorative of his father, David T. Talmage. He says: "I have stood, for the last few days, as under the power of an enchantment. Last Friday-a-week, at eighty-three years of age, my father exchanged earth for heaven. The wheat was ripe, and it has been harvested. No painter's pencil or poet's rhythm could describe that magnificent sun setting. It was no hurricane blast let loose; but a gale from heaven, that drove into the dust the blossoms of that almond tree.

[Footnote *: This sermon gives so graphic and tender a portrayal of the father of one of America's most distinguished ministerial families, that the author feels justified in making so lengthy an extract.]

"There are lessons for me to learn, and also for you, for many of you knew him. The child of his old age, I come to-night to pay an humble tribute to him, who, in the hour of my birth, took me into his watchful care, and whose parental faithfulness, combined with that of my mother, was the means of bringing my erring feet to the cross, and kindling in my soul anticipations of immortal blessedness. If I failed to speak, methinks the old family Bible, that I brought home with me, would rebuke my silence, and the very walls of my youthful home would tell the story of my ingratitude. I must speak, though it be with broken utterance, and in terms which seem too strong for those of you who never had an opportunity of gathering the fruit of this luxuriant almond tree.

"First. In my father's old age was to be seen the beauty of a cheerful spirit. I never remember to have heard him make a gloomy expression. This was not because he had no conception of the pollutions of society. He abhorred everything like impurity, or fraud, or