gain preaches and after which he shakes hands with several
hundred more and talks personally, in his study, with any who have need
of talk with him. He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it,
one evening, as having been a strenuous day, and he responded, with a
cheerfully whimsical smile: "Three sermons and shook hands with nine
hundred."

That evening, as the service closed, he had said to the congregation: "I
shall be here for an hour. We always have a pleasant time together after
service. If you are acquainted with me, come up and shake hands. If you
are strangers"--just the slightest of pauses--"come up and let us make
an acquaintance that will last for eternity." I remember how simply and
easily this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how impressive and
important it seemed, and with what unexpectedness it came. "Come and
make an acquaintance that will last for eternity!" And there was
a serenity about his way of saying this which would make strangers
think--just as he meant them to think--that he had nothing whatever to
do but to talk with them. Even his own congregation have, most of them,
little conception of how busy a man he is and how precious is his time.

One evening last June to take an evening of which I happened to know--he
got home from a journey of two hundred miles at six o'clock, and after
dinner and a slight rest went to the church prayer-meeting, which he
led in his usual vigorous way at such meetings, playing the organ
and leading the singing, as well as praying and talk-ing. After the
prayer-meeting he went to two dinners in succession, both of them
important dinners in connection with the close of the university year,
and at both dinners he spoke. At the second dinner he was notified
of the sudden illness of a member of his congregation, and instantly
hurried to the man's home and thence to the hospital to which he
had been removed, and there he remained at the man's bedside, or in
consultation with the physicians, until one in the morning. Next morning
he was up at seven and again at work.

"This one thing I do," is his private maxim of efficiency, and a
literalist might point out that he does not one thing only, but a
thousand things, not getting Conwell's meaning, which is that whatever
the thing may be which he is doing he lets himself think of nothing else
until it is done.

Dr. Conwell has a profound love for the country and particularly for the
country of his own youth. He l