as to how to make it fall. As he entered his study, his
private secretary handed him a letter. He opened it, and out fell a
check for $1,500 from an unknown man in Massillon, Ohio, who had once
heard Dr. Conwell lecture and felt strangely impelled to send him
$1,500 to use in The Temple work. Dr. Conwell prayed and rejoiced in
an ecstasy of gratitude. Three times he broke down during the sermon.
His people wondered what was the matter, but said he had never
preached more powerfully.

He is a man of prayer and a man of work. Loving, great-hearted,
unselfish, cheery, practical, hard-working, he yet draws his greatest
inspiration from that silent inner communion with the Master he serves
with such single-hearted, unfaltering devotion.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE MANNER OF THE MESSAGE

The Style of the Sermons. Their Subject Matter. Preaching to Help Some
Individual Church Member.

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 illustrations, drawn from
the experiences of everyday life. Dr. Conwell announces his text and
begins quite simply, sometimes with a little story to illustrate 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 th