chool of
experience. He had learned lessons there of infinitely more value in
helping humanity than any the theological seminary could teach him. He
knew what it was to be poor, to be utterly cast down and discouraged,
to be sick and suffering, to sit in the blackness of despair for the
loss of loved ones. From almost every human experience he could reach
the hand of sympathy and say, "I know. I have suffered." Such help
touches the heart of humanity as none other can. And when at the same
time, it points the way to the Great Comforter and says again, "I
know, I found peace," it is more powerful than the most eloquent
sermon. Nothing goes so convincingly to a man's heart as loving,
sympathetic guidance from one who has been through the same bitter
trial.

He was ordained in the year 1879, the council of churches, called for
his ordination, met in Lexington, President Alvah Hovey of Newton
Seminary presiding. Among the members of the council was his life-long
friend, George W. Chipman, of Boston, the same good deacon who had
taken him a runaway boy into the Sunday School of Tremont Temple.
The only objection to the ordination was made by one of the pastors
present, who said, "Good lawyers are too scarce to be spoiled by
making ministers of them."

The ordination over, the large law offices in Boston were closed. He
gave his undivided time and attention to his work in Lexington. The
lawyer, speaker and writer ceased to exist, but the pastor was found
wherever the poor needed help, the sick and suffering needed cheer,
the mourning needed comfort, wherever he could by word or act preach
the gospel of the Christ he served.

His whole thought was concentrated in the purpose to do good. No one
who knew him intimately could doubt his entire renunciation of worldly
ambitions, the sacrifice was so great, yet so unhesitatingly made.
Buried from the world in one way, he yet lived in it in a better way.
Large numbers of his former legal, political and social associates
called his action fanaticism. Wendell Phillips, meeting Colonel
Conwell and several friends on the way to church, one Sunday morning,
remarked that "Olympus has gone to Delphi, and Jove has descended to
be an interpreter of oracles."

His salary at the start was six hundred dollars a year, little more
than ten dollars a week. But it was enough to live on in a little New
England village and what more did he need? The contrast between it
and the ten thousand dolla