Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, was the fourth son in a family of seven brothers and five sisters. Four of the brothers devoted themselves to the gospel ministry. Of these Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage is most widely known. The father of Rev. David M. Talmage was graduated from the college and seminary at New Brunswick and became a noted missionary in the far East, going to Amoy, China, in 1847. His life has been written by Rev. John G. Fagg under the title of Forty Years in South China. He died at Bound Brook, N. J., in 1892. Rev. David M. Talmage is the eldest of five children. His two sisters, Katharine Murray and Mary Elizabeth Talmage, have been missionaries brother, John S. Talmage, is a rice merchant in New Orleans. The other of the Reformed Church ac 311163 for more than twenty-five years. One brother, George Edwin Talmage, is the pastor of the Second Deformed Church in Schenectady, N. Y.

Rev. David M. Talmage was graduated from Rutgers College, New Church at New Brunswick in 1877. In the fall of the latter year he went out as a missionary of the Reformed Church to Amoy, China, and after three years' service there returned on account of ill health, arriving in New York in March, 1881. For two years he was settled over the Reformed Church at Bound, Brook, N. J., and fur three and a hall years over the Reformed Church of Clarkstown, Rockland County, N. 1. In April, 1888, Brunswick, in 1874, and from the Theological seminary of the Reformed he became the settled pastor of the Reformed Church at Westwood, N. J., where he still remains. During his ministry Mr. Talmage has gained a high reputation. He is strong and fearless in his utterances and in every sense of the word a devout Christian, beloved by all who know him.