re is a sense of ease, of
comfort, of general joy, that is quite unmistakable. There is nothing of
stiffness or constraint. And with it all there is full reverence. It
is no wonder that he is accustomed to fill every seat of the great
building.

His gestures are usually very simple. Now and then, when he works up to
emphasis, he strikes one fist in the palm of the other hand. When he is
through you do not remember that he has made any gestures at all, but
the sound of his voice remains with you, and the look of his wonderful
eyes. And though he is past the threescore years and ten, he looks out
over his people with eyes that still have the veritable look of youth.

Like all great men, he not only does big things, but keeps in touch with
myriad details. When his assistant, announcing the funeral of an old
member, hesitates about the street and number and says that they can
be found in the telephone directory, Dr. Conwell's deep voice breaks
quietly in with, "Such a number [giving it], Dauphin Street"--quietly,
and in a low tone, yet every one in the church hears distinctly every
syllable of that low voice.

His fund of personal anecdote, or personal reminiscence, is constant and
illustrative in his preaching, just as it is when he lectures, and
the reminiscences sweep through many years, and at times are really
startling in the vivid and homelike pictures they present of the famous
folk of the past that he knew.

One Sunday evening he made an almost casual reference to the time when
he first met Garfield, then a candidate for the Presidency. "I asked
Major McKinley, whom I had met in Washington, and whose home was
in northern Ohio, as was that of Mr. Garfield, to go with me to Mr.
Garfield's home and introduce me. When we got there, a neighbor had to
find him. 'Jim! Jim!' he called. You see, Garfield was just plain Jim to
his old neighbors. It's hard to recognize a hero over your back fence!"
He paused a moment for the appreciative ripple to subside, and went on:

"We three talked there together"--what a rare talking that must have
been-McKinley, Garfield, and Conwell--"we talked together, and after a
while we got to the subject of hymns, and those two great men both told
me how deeply they loved the old hymn, 'The Old-Time Religion.' Garfield
especially loved it, so he told us, because the good old man who brought
him up as a boy and to whom he owed such gratitude, used to sing it at
the pasture bars outside of the