the work of Christ.

At last came the deciding event. In 1879, a young woman visited
Colonel Conwell, the lawyer, and asked his advice respecting the
disposition of a Baptist Meeting House in Lexington. He went to
Lexington and called a meeting of the members of the old church,
for the purpose of securing legal action on the part of that body
preparatory to selling the property. He got some three or four old
Baptists together and, as they talked the business over, "they became
reluctant to vote, either to sell, destroy, keep, or give away the
old meeting-house," says Burdette, in "Temple and Templars." "While
discussing the situation with these sorrowful old saints--and one good
old deacon wept to think that 'Zion had gone into captivity,'--the
preacher came to the front and displaced the lawyer. It was the crisis
in his life; the parting of the ways. In a flash of light the decision
was made. 'It flashed upon me, sitting there as a lawyer, that there
was a mission for me there,' Dr. Conwell has often said, in speaking
of his decision to go into the ministry. He advised promptly and
strongly against selling the property. 'Keep it; hold service in it;
repair the altar of the Lord that is broken down; go to work; get
God to work for you, and work with Him; 'God will turn again your
captivity, your months shall be filled with laughter and your tongues
with singing." They listened to this enthusiastic lawyer whom they had
retained as a legal adviser, in dumb amazement 'Is Saul also among the
prophets?' But having given his advice, he was prompt to act upon it
himself. 'Where will we get a preacher?' 'Here is one who will serve
you until you can get one whom you will like better, and who can
do you more good. Announce preaching in the old meeting house next
Sunday!'

"It was nothing new for Colonel Conwell to preach, for he was engaged
in mission work somewhere every Sunday; so when the day came, he was
there. Less than a score of hearers sat in the moldy old pews. The
windows were broken and but illy repaired by the curtaining cobwebs.
The hand of time and decay had torn off the ceiling plaster in
irregular and angular patches. The old stove had rusted out at the
back, and the crumbling stove-pipe was a menace to those who sat
within range of its fall. The pulpit was what Mr. Conwell called a
'crow's perch,' and one can imagine the platform creaking under the
military tread of the tall lawyer who stepped into its lofty h