a sort
of shamefaced pride of how he had got a good old deacon to give, in all
sincerity, the evidence that exculpated him. "And, say, Mr. Conwell--I
want to thank you for getting me off--and I hope you'll excuse my
deceiving you--and--I won't be any worse for not going to jail." And
Conwell likes to remember that thereafter the young man lived up to the
pride of exoneration; and, though Conwell does not say it or think
it, one knows that it was the Conwell influence that inspired to
honesty--for always he is an inspirer.

Conwell even kept certain hours for consultation with those too poor
to pay any fee; and at one time, while still an active lawyer, he was
guardian for over sixty children! The man has always been a marvel, and
always one is coming upon such romantic facts as these.

That is a curious thing about him--how much there is of romance in his
life! Worshiped to the end by John Ring; left for dead all night at
Kenesaw Mountain; calmly singing "Nearer, my God, to Thee," to quiet the
passengers on a supposedly sinking ship; saving lives even when a boy;
never disappointing a single audience of the thousands of audiences he
has arranged to address during all his years of lecturing! He himself
takes a little pride in this last point, and it is characteristic of him
that he has actually forgotten that just once he did fail to appear:
he has quite forgotten that one evening, on his way to a lecture,
he stopped a runaway horse to save two women's lives, and went in
consequence to a hospital instead of to the platform! And it is typical
of him to forget that sort of thing.

The emotional temperament of Conwell has always made him responsive
to the great, the striking, the patriotic. He was deeply influenced
by knowing John Brown, and his brief memories of Lincoln are intense,
though he saw him but three times in all.

The first time he saw Lincoln was on the night when the future President
delivered the address, which afterward became so famous, in Cooper
Union, New York. The name of Lincoln was then scarcely known, and it
was by mere chance that young Conwell happened to be in New York on that
day. But being there, and learning that Abraham Lincoln from the West
was going to make an address, he went to hear him.

He tells how uncouthly Lincoln was dressed, even with one trousers-leg
higher than the other, and of how awkward he was, and of how poorly, at
first, he spoke and with what apparent embarrassment. The