The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-02-23
SOME OF THE GREATEST
PREACHERS in AMERICA

'''.NA " ~ oiiN. iAoA Nv siiC ts'o'ASs W
IT, No. Where was he going to get 1T?
The lawyer didn't know: and swung the
pickaX over his head once more.
Then and there the first 500 towards the
erection of the new church was subscr.b-
ed. That day 1850 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 Q
thousand dollars.
When he had assured to the Lexington
Baptists u new church. Lawyer Conwell.
having decided that the seven should not
be without a preacher while the new build
ms was 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 5000. but when 1t learned that
he was to preach on Sunday, only twenty
seven townspeople 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. stiil. 1t 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..
P%arkhurst was receiving his call to New
YORK. 1t was Lawyer Conwell no longer,
but the Rev. Russell H. Conwell, his or
dination as a Baptist minister speedily
following the inception of his remarkable
bit of church work while merely a lay
man.
One Secret of Dr.. conweIrs Success
One of the secrets Of DR.. Conwell's hold
on people has undoubtedly been his un-
conventional way Of appealing to the re-
l1gious instinct through the aroused hu-
man sympathies. His method Of resusci-
Eating 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
Or. Converts second church. In the course
OF a few years he built 1t up from a faintly
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 in the basement, DR..
Conwell 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'll
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
died she confided to her parents her dear
est secret. She had remembered w, at the
preacher had SAID to her as he sealed 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
and offered to give $57 toward the new
church. Another person fastened to sub
scribe $50. From all over the church came
a mood of subscriptions, nearly every offer
having in 1t the same combination, the
two magical figures. five and seven. 1t
was the money thus subscribed that
pOA6IiS tilS " vi MllCN I10 IenDlG
stands.
sixty-Four and Works Like a Horse
Another secret of DIR. Converts phenom-
email success is his keeping everlasting at a
thing until 1t Is accomplished. once he
feels that he is in the light and has the
Lord on his side.
He is q prodigious worker. Every aux
iliary institution connected with his
church has his personal direction-the COL
lppa the hn0nifQ1 Yha o1,o ,{toLl1
ton, the usual young peoples societies,
besides many others. He lectures through
out 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 still works with all
the tireless energy of a physically perfect
and mentally alert man of 80. But this is
to be expected of a man who for a stretch
of fourteen years was so busy that he
could not find the time TO spend a single
evening in his own home with his family.
If You are fortunate enough to secure a
ticket of admission to DR.. Conwell's
church the next time You are in Philadel-
phia, don't expect to hear a. man who will
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. u~nvarnished heart
to-heart talk that will make you put in
the collection plate the largest church con-
tribution that you ave made in years.
Big Work for a Boy of Nineteen.
Many persons who are acquainted with
the meteor-like 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
marveled at the success that~has attended
him from the very beginning Of his pas
toral work. This was in Peoria, in 1887,
where he built a fine new church a year
after going there. He was then 80 years
old.
Perhaps the explanation is partially
found in the circumstances that while still
at his books. young Hills gained a whole
lot of valuable experience organizing I'M
ion Sunday schools.
While he was attending the academy
which his father helped to found at Grin
sell. Ia, going out from Yale for thai pur-
pose, he determined to become a preacher.
This decision was reached largely through
the influence of Henry Ward Beacher's
sermons on the boy; and in this connection
1t Is interesting to note that the preacher
who is today filing Beecher's old pulpit IS
none other than Newell Dwight Hills. On