Russell H. Conwell, Founder of the Institutional Church in America Part 21

In the pulpit, Dr. Conwell is as simple and natural as he is in his study or in the home. Every part of the service is rendered with the heart, as well as the understanding. His reading of a chapter from the Bible is a sermon in itself. The vast congregation follow it with as close attention as they do the sermon. He seems to make every verse alive, to send it with new meaning into each heart. The people in it are real people, who have lived and suffered, who had all the hopes and fears of men and women of to-day. Often little explanations are dropped or timely, practical applications, and when it is over, if that were all of the service one would be repaid for attending.

The hymns, too, are read with feeling and life. If a verse expresses a sentiment contrary to the church feeling, it is not sung. He will not have sung what is not worthy of belief.

The sermons are full of homely, practical ill.u.s.trations, drawn from the experiences of everyday life. Dr. Conwell announces his text and begins quite simply, sometimes with a little story to ill.u.s.trate his thought. If Bible characters take any part in it, he makes them real men and women. He pictures them so graphically, the audience sees them, hears them talk, knows what they thought, how they lived. In a word, each hearer feels as if he had met them personally. Never again are they mere names. They are living, breathing men and women.

Dr. Conwell makes his sermons human because he touches life, the life of the past, the life of the present, the lives of those in his audience. He makes them interesting by his word pictures. He holds attention by the dramatic interest he infuses into the theme. He has been called the "Story-telling Preacher" because his sermons are so full of anecdote and ill.u.s.trations. But every story not only points a moral, but is full of the interest that fastens it on the hearer's mind. Children in their teens enjoy his sermons, so vivid are they, so full of human, every day interest. Yet all this is but the framework on which is reared some helpful, inspiring Biblical truth which is the crown, the climax, and which because of its careful upbuilding by story and homely ill.u.s.tration is fixed on the hearer's mind and heart in a way never to be forgotten. It is held there by the simple things of life he sees about him every day, and which, every time he sees them, recall the truth he has heard preached. Dr. Thomas May Pierce, speaking of Dr. Conwell's method of preaching, says:

"Spurgeon sought the ma.s.ses and found them by preaching the gospel with homely ill.u.s.trations; Russell H. Conwell comes to Philadelphia, he seeks out the ma.s.ses, he finds them with his plain presentation of the old, old story."

Occasionally he paints word pictures that hold the audience enthralled, or when some great wrong stirs him, rises to heights of impa.s.sioned oratory that bring his audience to tears. He never writes out his sermons. Indeed, often he has no time to give them any preparation whatever. Sometimes he does not choose his text until he comes on the platform. n.o.body regrets more than Dr. Conwell this lack of preparation, but so many duties press, every minute has so many burdens of work, that it is impossible at times to crowd in a thought for the sermon. It is left for the inspiration of the moment. "I preach poor sermons that other men may preach good ones," he remarked once, meaning that so much of his time was taken up with church work and lecturing that he has little to give his sermons, and almost all of the fees from his lectures are devoted to the education of men for the ministry.

His one purpose in his sermons is to bring Christ into the lives of his people, to bring them some message from the word of G.o.d that will do them good, make them better, lift them up spiritually to a higher plane. His people know he comes to them with this strong desire in his heart and they attend the services feeling confident that even though he is poorly prepared, they will nevertheless get practical and spiritual help for the week.

When he knows that some one member is struggling with a special problem either in business, in the home circle, in his spiritual life, he endeavors to weave into his sermon something that will help him, knowing that no heart is alone in its sorrow, that the burden one bears, others carry, and what will reach one will carry a message or cheer to many.

"During the building of The Temple," says Smith in his interesting life of Dr. Conwell, "a devoted member, who was in the bookbinding business, walked to his office every morning and put his car-fare into the building fund. Dr. Conwell made note of the sacrifice, and asked himself the question, 'How can I help that man to be more prosperous?'

He kept him in mind, and while on a lecturing trip he visited a town where improved machines for bookbinding were employed. He called at the establishment and found out all he could about the new machines.

The next Sunday morning, he used the new bookbinder as an ill.u.s.tration of some Scriptural truth. The result was, the church member secured the machines of which his pastor had spoken, and increased his income many-fold. The largest sum of money given to the building of the new Temple was given by that same bookbinder.

"A certain lady made soap for a fair held in the Lower Temple. Dr.

Conwell advised her to go into the soap-making business. She hesitated to take his advice. He visited a well known soap factory, and in one of his sermons described the most improved methods of soap-making as an ill.u.s.tration of some improved method of Christian work. Hearing the ill.u.s.tration used from the pulpit, the lady in question acted on the pastor's previous advice, and started her nephew in the soap business, in which he has prospered.

"A certain blacksmith in Philadelphia who was a member of Grace Church, but who lived in another part of the city, was advised by Dr.

Conwell to start a mission in his neighborhood. The mechanic pleaded ignorance and his inability to acquire sufficient education to enable him to do any kind of Christian work. On Sunday morning Dr. Conwell wove into his sermon an historical sketch of Elihu Burritt, that poor boy with meagre school advantages, who bound out to a blacksmith, at the age of sixteen, and compelled to a.s.sociate with the ignorant, yet learned thirty-three languages, became a scholar and an orator of fame. The hesitating blacksmith, encouraged by the example of Elihu Burritt, took courage and went to work. He founded the mission which soon grew into the Tioga Baptist Church."

In addition to helping his own church members, this method of preaching had other results. Smith gives the following instance:

"A few years ago the pastor of a small country church in Ma.s.sachusetts resolved to try Dr. Conwell's method of imparting useful information through his ill.u.s.trations, and teaching the people what they needed to know. Acting on Dr. Conwell's advice, he studied agricultural chemistry, dairy farming, and household economy. He did not become a sensationalist and advertise to preach on these subjects, but he brought in many helpful ill.u.s.trations which the people recognized as valuable, and soon the meeting-house was filled with eager listeners.

After careful study the minister became convinced that the farmers on those old worn-out farms in Western Ma.s.sachusetts should go into the dairy business, and feed their cows on ensilage through the long New England winter. One bright morning he preached a sermon on 'Leaven,'

and incidentally used a silo as an ill.u.s.tration. The preacher did not sacrifice his sermon to his ill.u.s.tration, but taught a great truth and set the farmers to thinking along a new line. As a result of that sermon one poor farmer built a silo and filled it with green corn in the autumn; his cows relished the new food and repaid him splendidly with milk. That farmer Is the richest man In the country to-day. This is only one of a great many ways in which that practical preacher helped his poor, struggling parishioners by using the Conwell method.

What was the spiritual result of such preaching among the country people? He had a great, wide, and deep revival of religion, the first the church had enjoyed for twenty-five years."

Thus Dr. Conwell weaves practical sense and spiritual truths together in a way that helps people for the span of life they live in this world, for the eternal life beyond. He never forgets the soul and its needs. That is his foremost thought. But he recognizes also that there is a body and that it lives in a practical world. And whenever and wherever he can help practically, as well as spiritually, he does it, realizing that the world needs Christians who have the means as well as the spirit to carry forward Christ's work.

Speaking of his methods of preaching, Rev. Albert G. Lawson, D.D., says:

"He has been blessed in his ministry because of three things: He has a democratic, philosophic, philanthropic bee in his bonnet, a big one, too, and he has attempted to bring us to see that churches mean something beside fine houses and good music. There must be a recognition of the fact that when a man is lost, he is lost in body as well as in soul One needs, therefore, as our Lord would, to begin at the foundations, the building anew of the mind with the body; and I bless G.o.d for the democratic, and the philosophic, and the philanthropic idea which is manifest in this strong church. I hope there will be enough power in it to make every Baptist minister sick until he tries to occupy the same field that Jesus Christ did in his life and ministry; until every one of the churches shall recognize the privilege of having Jesus Christ reshaped in the men and women near them."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THESE BUSY LATER DAYS

A Typical Week Day. A Typical Sunday. Mrs. Conwell. Back to the Berkshires in Summer for Rest.

By the record of what Dr. Conwell has accomplished may be judged how busy are his days.

In early youth he learned to use his time to the best advantage.

Studying and working on the farm, working and studying at Wilbraham and Yale, told him how precious is each minute. Work he must when he wanted to study. Study he must when he needed to work. Every minute became as carefully treasured as though it were a miser's gold. But it was excellent training for the busy later days when work would press from all sides until it was distraction to know what to do first.

"Do the next thing," is the advice he gives his college students. It is undoubtedly a saving of time to take the work that lies immediately at hand and despatch it. But when the hand is surrounded by work in a score of important forms, all clamoring for recognition, what is "the next thing" becomes a question difficult to decide.

Then it is that one must plan as carefully to use one's minutes as he does to expend one's income when expenses outrun it.

His private secretary gave the following account, in the "Temple Magazine," of a week day and a Sunday in Dr. Conwell's life:

"No two days are alike in his work, and he has no specified hour for definite cla.s.ses of calls or kinds of work.

"After breakfast he goes to his office in The Temple. Here visitors from half a dozen to twenty await him, representing a great variety of needs or business.

"Visitors wait their turn in the ante-room of his study and are received by him in the order of their arrival. The importance of business, rank or social position of the caller does not interfere with this order.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHORUS OF THE BAPTIST TEMPLE]

"Throughout the whole day in the street, at the church, at the College, wherever he goes, he is beset by persons urging him for money, free lectures, to write introductions to all sorts of books, for sermons, or to take up collections for indigent individuals or churches. Letters reach him even from Canada, asking him to take care of some aunt, uncle, runaway son, or needy family, in Philadelphia.

Sometimes for days together he does not secure five minutes to attend to his correspondence. Personal letters which he must answer himself often wait for weeks before he can attend to them, although he endeavors, as a rule, to answer important letters on the day they are received. People call to request him to deliver addresses at the dedication of churches, schoolhouses, colleges, flag-raisings, commencements, and anniversaries, re-unions, political meetings, and all manner of reform movements. Authors urge him to read their work in ma.n.u.script; orators without orations write to him and come to him for address or sermon; applications flow in for letters of introduction highly recommending entire strangers for anything they want. Agents for books come to him for endors.e.m.e.nts, with religious newspapers for subscriptions and articles, and with patent medicines urging him to be 'cured with one bottle.'

"It is well known that he was a lawyer before entering the ministry, and orphans, guardians, widows, and young men entering business come to him asking him to make wills, contracts, etc., and to give them points of law concerning their undertakings. Weddings and funerals claim his attention. Urgent messages to visit the sick and the dying and the unfortunate come to him, and these appeals are answered first either by himself or the a.s.sociate pastor; the cries of the suffering making the most eloquent of all appeals to these two busy men."

Frequently he comes to the church again in the afternoon to meet some one by appointment. Both afternoon and evening are crowded with engagements to see people, to make addresses, to attend special meetings of various kinds, with College and Hospital duties.

"I am expected to preside at six different meetings to-night," he said smilingly to a friend at The Temple one evening as the membership began to stream in to look after its different lines of work.

Much, of the time during the winter he is away lecturing, but he keeps in constant communication with The Temple and its work. By letter, wire or telephone he is ready to respond to any emergency requiring his advice or suggestion. These lecture trips carry him all over the country, but they are so carefully planned that with rare exceptions he is in the pulpit Sunday morning. Frequently, when returning, he wires for his secretary to meet him part way, if from the West, at Harrisburg or Altoona; if from the South, at Washington or beyond. The secretary brings the mail and the remaining hours of the journey are filled with work, dictating letters, articles for magazines or press, possibly material for a book, whatever work most presses.

Pastoral calls in the usual sense of the term cannot be made in a membership of more than three thousand. But visits to the sick, to the poor, to the dying, are paid whenever the call comes. To help and console the afflicted, to point the way to Christ, is the work nearest and dearest to Dr. Conwell's heart and always comes first. Funerals, too, claim a large part of the pastor's time, seven in one day among the Grace Church membership calling for the services of both Dr.

Conwell and his a.s.sociate. Weddings are not an unimportant feature, six having been one day's record at The Temple.

Of his Sundays, his secretary says:

"From the time of rising until half-past eight, he gives special attention to the subject of the morning sermon, and usually selects his text and general line of thought before sitting down to breakfast.

After family prayers, he spends half an hour in his study, at home, examining books and authorities in the completion of his sermon.

Sometimes he is unable to select a text until reaching The Temple. He has, though rarely, made his selection after taking his place at the pulpit.

"At nine-thirty, he is always promptly in his place at the opening of the Young Men's prayer-meeting or at the Women's prayer-meeting in the Lower Temple. At the Young Men's meeting he plays the organ and leads the singing. If he takes any other part in the meeting he is very brief, in talk or prayer.

"At half-past ten he goes directly to the Upper Temple, where as a rule he conducts all the exercises with the exception of the 'notices'

and a prayer offered by the a.s.sociate pastor, or in his absence at an overflow service in the Lower Temple, by the dean of the College or chaplain of the Hospital. The pastor meets the candidates for baptism in his study before service, for conference and prayer. In administering the ordinance, he is a.s.sisted by the a.s.sociate pastor, who leads the candidates into the baptistry.

"The pastor reads the hymns. It is his custom to preach without any notes whatever; rarely, a sc.r.a.p of paper may lie on the desk containing memoranda or suggestions of leading thoughts, but frequently even when this is the case the notes are ignored.

"A prominent--possibly the prevailing--idea in the preparation of his sermons is the need of individuals in his congregation. He aims to say those things which will be the most helpful and inspiring to the unconverted seeking Christ, or to the Christian desiring to lead a n.o.bler spiritual life. It may be said of nearly all his ill.u.s.trations that they present such a variety of spiritual teaching that different persons will catch from them different suggestions adapted to needs of each.

"The morning service closes promptly at twelve o'clock; then follows an informal reception for thirty minutes or it may be an hour, for hundreds, sometimes a thousand and more, many of them visitors from other cities and states, press forward to shake hands with him. This, Dr. Conwell considers an important part of his church work, giving him an opportunity to meet many of the church members and extend personal greetings to those whom he would have no possible opportunity to visit in their homes.

"He dines at one o'clock. At two, he is in The Temple; again he receives more callers, and if possible makes some preparation for services of the afternoon, in connection with the Sunday-school work.