September 14, 1914 journal entry. Less than three years into his term as a member of Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in September 1914 Elder Talmage was finally able to commence his work on the project he would affectionately refer to as “the book,” what would eventually receive the title Jesus the Christ. In his journal entry on September 14 that year, Talmage relates some of the history behind the basis for this book, reasons for the delay in writing, and the urgency given the project at that time. Note Talmage’s mention of his direction “to occupy a room in the Temple where I will be free from interruption,” a room he would occupy nearly every day for the next seven months. While writing, Talmage met weekly with a committee made up of all available General Authorities to read his drafts of the work. For seven months he spent every day but Sunday writing by hand the manuscript for “the book.” On Sundays, he often wrote in his journal “in the Temple in Scriptural study.” Within two months, he was able to record in his journal on November 9, 1914: “I have devoted every spare hour to that labor [writing] and have at present in written form, though not all in revised condition, twenty chapters.”