! Another
man would have left it that prophets were coming down from a high place,
which would not have seemed at all alive or natural, and here, suddenly,
Conwell has flashed his picture of the singers coming down from the
little old church on the hill! There is magic in doing that sort of
thing.

And he goes on, now reading: "'Thou shalt meet a company of singers
coming down from the little old church on the hill, with a psaltery, and
a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, and they shall sing.'"

Music is one of Conwell's strongest aids. He sings himself; sings as if
he likes to sing, and often finds himself leading the singing--usually
so, indeed, at the prayer-meetings, and often, in effect, at the church
services.

I remember at one church service that the choir-leader was standing
in front of the massed choir ostensibly leading the singing, but that
Conwell himself, standing at the rear of the pulpit platform, with his
eyes on his hymn-book, silently swaying a little with the music and
unconsciously beating time as he swayed, was just as unconsciously the
real leader, for it was he whom the congregation were watching and with
him that they were keeping time! He never suspected it; he was merely
thinking along with the music; and there was such a look of contagious
happiness on his face as made every one in the building similarly happy.
For he possesses a mysterious faculty of imbuing others with his own
happiness.

Not only singers, but the modern equivalent of psaltery and tabret and
cymbals, all have their place in Dr. Conwell's scheme of church service;
for there may be a piano, and there may even be a trombone, and there is
a great organ to help the voices, and at times there are chiming bells.
His musical taste seems to tend toward the thunderous--or perhaps it
is only that he knows there are times when people like to hear the
thunderous and are moved by it.

And how the choir themselves like it! They occupy a great curving
space behind the pulpit, and put their hearts into song. And as the
congregation disperse and the choir filter down, sometimes they are
still singing and some of them continue to sing as they go slowly out
toward the doors. They are happy--Conwell himself is happy--all the
congregation are happy. He makes everybody feel happy in coming to
church; he makes the church attractive just as Howells was so long ago
told that he did in Lexington.

And there is something more than happiness; the