By the time John Talmage's school days at Bound Brook were completed he had
determined to prepare for college. Preparatory schools then were few and
far away. They were expensive. John made an arrangement with his senior
brother, Rev. James R. Talmage, then pastor at Blawenburgh, New Jersey, to
put him through the required course. Here he joined the Church at the age
of seventeen. From Blawenburgh his brother Goyn and he went to New
Brunswick, New Jersey, joining the Sophomore class in Rutgers College. John
and Goyn roomed together, swept and garnished their own quarters and did
their own cooking. Father Talmage would come down every week or two with
provisions from the farm, to replenish the ever-recipient larder. Both John
and Goyn were diligent students and graduated with honorable recognition
from Rutgers College in 1842, and from New Brunswick Theological Seminary
in 1845.

John Talmage had made such substantial attainments in Hebrew and Greek,
that when some years afterward the distinguished Dr. McClelland resigned as
professor of these languages in the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick,
he was talked of as Dr. McClelland's successor, and but for the conviction
that he ought not to be removed from the Amoy Mission, his appointment
would have been earnestly advocated by the General Synod.

John Talmage had read missionary biographies when a boy in the
Sunday-school at Bound Brook. He had been specially touched by the life of
Henry Martyn. While at college he kept himself supplied with missionary
literature. His parents were already interested in foreign missions. In
secret before God his mother had devoted John to this very work. John did
not know it. The determining word for him was that spoken in a missionary
address, by Rev. Elihu Doty, one of the pioneers of the Amoy Mission. It
was plain that he must go to the "regions beyond." He must break the news