HIS SPLENDID EFFICIENCY
CONWELL has a few strong and efficient executive helpers who have long been associated with him; men and women who know his ideas and ideals, who are devoted to him, and who do their utmost to relieve him; and of course there is very much that is thus done for him; but even as it is, he is so overshadowing a man (there is really no other word) that all who work with him look to him for advice and guidance the professors and the students, the doctors and the nurses, the church officers, the Sunday-school teachers, the members of his congregation. And he is never too busy to see any one who really wishes to see him.
He can attend to a vast intricacy of detail, and answer myriad personal questions and doubts, and keep the great institutions splendidly going, by thorough systematization of time, and by watching every minute. He has several secretaries, for special work, besides his private secretary. His correspondence is very great. Often he dictates to a secretary as he travels on the train. Even in the few days for which he can run back to the Berkshires, work is awaiting him. Work follows him. And after knowing of this, one is positively amazed that he is able to give to his country-wide lectures the time and the traveling that they inexorably demand. Only a man of immense strength, of the greatest stamina, a veritable superman, could possibly do it. And at times one quite forgets, noticing the multiplicity of his occupations, that he prepares two sermons and two talks on Sunday!
Here is his usual Sunday schedule, when at home. He rises at seven and studies until breakfast, which is at eight-thirty. Then he studies until nine-forty-five, when he leads a men's meeting at which he is likely also to play the organ and lead the singing. At ten-thirty is the principal church service, at which he preaches, and at the close of which he shakes hands with hundreds.
He dines at one, after which he takes fifteen minutes' rest and then reads; and at three o'clock he addresses, in a talk that is like another sermon, a large class of men--not the same men as in the morning. He is also sure to look in at the regular session of the Sunday-school. Home again, where he studies and reads until supper-time. At seven-thirty is the evening service, at which he again preaches and after which he shakes hands with several hundred more and talks personally, in his study, with any who have need of talk with him.
He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it, one evening, as having been a strenuous day, and he responded, with a cheerfully whimsical smile:
``Three sermons and shook hands with nine hundred.''
That evening, as the service closed, he had said to the congregation: ``I shall be here for an hour. We always have a pleasant time together after service. If you are acquainted with me, come up and shake hands. If you are strangers''--just the slightest of pauses--``come up and let us make an acquaintance that will last for eternity.'' I remember how simply and easily this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how impressive and important it seemed, and with what unexpectedness it came. ``Come and make an acquaintance that will last for eternity!''
And there was a serenity about his way of saying this which would make strangers think--just as he meant them to think--that he had nothing whatever to do but to talk with them. Even his own congregation have, most of them, little conception of how busy a man he is and how precious is his time.
One evening last June to take an evening of which I happened to know--he got home from a journey of two hundred miles at six o'clock, and after dinner and a slight rest went to the church prayer-meeting, which he led in his usual vigorous way at such meetings, playing the organ and leading the singing, as well as praying and talk-ing. After the prayer-meeting he went to two dinners in succession, both of them important dinners in connection with the close of the university year, and at both dinners he spoke. At the second dinner he was notified of the sudden illness of a member of his congregation, and instantly hurried to the man's home and thence to the hospital to which he had been removed, and there he remained at the man's bedside, or in consultation with the physicians, until one in the morning. Next morning he was up at seven and again at work.
``This one thing I do,'' is his private maxim of efficiency, and a literalist might point out that he does not one thing only, but a thousand things, not getting Conwell's meaning, which is that whatever the thing may be which he is doing he lets himself think of nothing else until it is done.
Dr. Conwell has a profound love for the country and particularly for the country of his own youth.
He loves the wind that comes sweeping over the hills, he loves the wide-stretching views from the heights and the forest intimacies of the nestled nooks. He loves the rippling streams, he loves the wild flowers that nestle in seclusion or that unexpectedly paint some mountain meadow with delight. He loves the very touch of the earth, and he loves the great bare rocks.
He writes verses at times; at least he has written lines for a few old tunes; and it interested me greatly to chance upon some lines of his that picture heaven in terms of the Berkshires:
_ The wide-stretching valleys in colors so fadeless, Where trees are all deathless and flowers e'er bloom_.
That is heaven in the eyes of a New England hill-man! Not golden pavement and ivory palaces, but valleys and trees and flowers and the wide sweep of the open.
Few things please him more than to go, for example, blackberrying, and he has a knack of never scratching his face or his fingers when doing so. And he finds blackberrying, whether he goes alone or with friends, an extraordinarily good time for planning something he wishes to do or working out the thought of a sermon. And fishing is even better, for in fishing he finds immense recreation and restfulness and at the same time a further opportunity to think and plan.
