He believes that everything should be so put as to be understood by all,
and this belief he applies not only to his preaching, but to the reading
of the Bible, whose descriptions he not only visualizes to himself, but
makes vividly clear to his hearers; and this often makes for fascination
in result.
For example, he is reading the tenth chapter of I Samuel, and begins,
"'Thou shalt meet a company of prophets.'"
"'Singers,' it should be translated," he puts in, lifting his eyes from
the page and looking out over his people. Then he goes on, taking this
change as a matter of course, "'Thou shalt meet a company of singers
coming down from the high place--'"
Whereupon he again interrupts himself, and in an irresistible
explanatory aside, which instantly raises the desired picture in the
mind of every one, he says: "That means, from the little old church on
the hill, you know." And how plain and clear and real and
interesting--most of all, interesting--it is from this moment! 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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