, which are taken down by a stenographer and
typewritten for publication in the "Temple Review," he said, with
the utmost dejection, "Positively they make me sick. To think that I
should stand up and undertake to preach when I can do no better than
that"

He has ever that sense of defeat from which all great minds suffer
whose high ideals ever elude them.

In manner and speech, he is simple and unaffected, and approachable at
all times. When not away from the city lecturing, he spends a certain
part of the day in his study at the church, where any one can see
him on any matter which he may wish to bring to his attention. The
ante-room is thronged at the hour when it is known that he will be
there. People waylay him in the church corridors, and on the streets,
so well known is his kindly heart, his attentive ear, his generous
hand.

Not only do these visitors invade the church, but they come to his
home. Early in the morning they are there. They await him when he
returns late at night. As an instance of their number, one Saturday
afternoon late in June he had one hour free which he hoped to take for
rest and the preparation of the next morning's sermon. During that one
hour he had six callers, each staying until the next arrived. One of
these was a young man whom Dr. Conwell had never seen, a boy no more
than seventeen or eighteen. He had a few weeks before made a runaway
marriage with a girl still younger than himself. Her parents had
indignantly taken the bride home, and the young husband came to Dr.
Conwell to ask him to seek out these parents and persuade them to let
the child wife return to her husband.

He has a knack of putting everybody at ease in his presence, which
perhaps accounts for the freedom with which people, even utter
strangers, come to him and pour into his ear their life secrets. This
earnest desire to help people, to make them happier and better,
shines from his life with such force that one feels it immediately on
entering his presence and opens one's heart to him. He helps, advises,
and, because he is so preeminently a man of faith and believes so
firmly that all he has done has been accomplished by faith and
perseverance, he inspires others with like confidence in themselves.
They go away encouraged, hopeful, strengthened for the work that lies
ahead of them, or for the trouble they must surmount It is little
wonder the people throng to him for help.

His simple, informal view of life is s