Forty Years in South China | Page 3

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