Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1906-02-23
OF THE
PREACHERS I'm AMERICA

build a new one. Had he the money for
It? No. Where was he going to get III
The lawyer didn't know; and swung the
pickax over his head once more.
Then and there the first 800 towards the
erection OF the new church was subscr.b-
ed. Tha day $500 were subscribed by
passersby Who had had first their curiosity
and then their interest and religious en-
thusiasm or admiration for the lawyer
aroused. One woman alone subscribed .
thousand dollars.
When he had assured to the Lexington
Baptists a new church. Lawyer Conwell.
having decided thai the seven should not
be without a preacher while the new build
ing vas under way, volunteered TO preach
TO them until! they could secure a regular
pastor.
Lexington was all gossip about the ex-
traordinary manner in which the lawyer
had raised $1,000. but when 1t learned that
he was to preach on Sunday. only twenty
seven t~ownspeople took enough interest In
the announcement to turn up for services,
What the preacher said during the
course of his initial pulpit talk has not
been handed down. Still, IL was effective
enough to fill the church the following
Sunday. and on the third Sunday there
was not even standing room.
In this unconventional way, the thoughts
OF the lawyer were turned towards the
ministry, and about the time that DR..
Parkhurst was receiving his call TO New
York. It was Lawyer Conwell no longer,
but the Rev. Russell Fl. Conwell. his or
dination az a Baptist minister speedily
following the inception OF his remarkable
bit OF church work while merely q lay
man.
One Secret Of DR.. conweli's Success
One Of the secrets OF DR.. Conwell's hold
on people has undoubtedly been his un-
conventional way OF appealing to the re-
ligious instinct through the aroused hui
man sympathies. His method OF resusci-
tating the Lenox church is a case in point:
and so is the way in which he started the
movement that led to the building of that
great institutional church, the Temple, the
largest Protestant church In America.
Grace Baptist church. Philadelphia, was
DR.. Conweli's second church. In the course
OF a few years he built II up from a family
struggling organization into a powerfully
militant one. Then the church building
became far too small for the people who
tried to get inside.
One Sunday. while on his way to the
Sunday school room I'm the basement, DIR.
Conwel noticed a little girl trying to force
her way through the crush to the school.
Her determined but Intellectual struggles
appealed to him. STOPPING down. he picked
her up, placed her on his shoulders and so
carried her into the Sunday school room.
As he seated her on a window sill he re-
marked:
Never mind, Hattie, some day we'Il
have a church big enough to hold every
body who wants to get In"
A few weeks later DR.. Conwell told the
little incident in his pulpit. And he added
the sequel. A short while after, little
Hattie Watt had died, but before she
she confided to her parents her dear
est secret. She had remembered what the
preacher had said to her as he seated her
that Sunday afternoon. She had so longed
to help him get the church where every
body who wanted to could get In, and here
was her pocketbook and the money she
had collected among her ~playmates for the
new church. And wouldn't father and
mother give the money to the preacher,
because she was going to go TO heaven and
couldn't, but she had meant TO when she
had got a little more.
Hattie's last request was granted, and
on that Sunday morning the man whom
she had planned to help showed his hear
ers the little red book and the ffty-seven
cents that the child had collected.
That was all-and then-then how Hattie
helped her preacher! One man jumped UP
offered to give $57 toward tho new
church. Another person hastened to sub
scribe $50. From all over the church came
a flood OF subscriptions. nearly every offer
having In 1t the same combination, the
two magical figures. five and seven. It
was the money thus subscribed tina
bought the lot on which the Temple
stands.
Sixty and Works Like q Horse
Another secret of DR.. Conwell's phenom-
email success Is his keeping everlasting at n
thing until II Ca accommodates -
feels that he Is In the right and has tho
Lord on his side.
He Is a prodigious worker. Every aux
Hilary institution connected with his
church has his personal direction-the col
lege. the hospital, the charitable o~rganiza-
ton. the usual young peoples societies.,
besides many others. He lectures through
the country and frequently takes an
active part In political and other questions
before his city. Not only a few days short
of GA years OF age, he stu works with all
the ~tireiess energy OF a physically perfect
and mentally alert man of 30. But this Is
to be expected OF q man who for q stretch
of fourteen years was so busy that he
not find the time 10 spend a single
In his own home with his family.
III you are fortunate enough TO secure a
ticket OF admission to DR.. Conwell's
church the next time you are In PhlladeI-
IhAab NoAA = NAPNSN. W iCdE a. HAL WIG MIL
gain your admiration by a scholarly SER
mon. though you may disagree with his
views. as In DR.. Parkhurst's case. Instead,
look out for a simple. unvarnished heart
to-heart talk that will make you put In
the collection plate the largest church con-
that you ave made In years.
Big Work for a Boy Of Nineteen.
Many persons who are acquainted with
the meteor-likc ministerial career of New
ell Dwight Hills, who first came promi-
nently before the country as the successor
Of the late Professor David Swing in the
pulpit OF Central church. Chicago, have
at the success that has attended
him from the very beginning OF his pas
toral work. This was In Peoria. In 1857,
going there. He was then 30 years
old.
Perhaps the explanation Is partially
in the circumstance that while still
at his books. young Hills gained a whole
ion Sunday schools.
While he was attending the academy
lis father helped TO found at Grin
sell. Ia. going out from Yale fer that pur-
pose, ne determined TO become a preacher.
This decision was reached largely through
the influence OF Henry Ward Beacher's
m on the boy: and in this connection
IL Is interesting 10 note that the preacher
who is today filling Beecher's old pulpit -
none other than Newell Dwight Hills. On
leaving the academy he was imbued with
the idea OF forming Sunday schools in
places where they did not exist. and to
end he boarded a c., II. X Q. train
and did not leave IL until the Jumping off