But he was original and he was popular, and therefore there were misunderstanding and jealousy. His Easter services, for example, years ago, became widely talked of and eagerly anticipated because each sermon would be wrought around some fine symbol; and he would hold in his hand, in the pulpit, the blue robin's egg, or the white dove, or the stem of lilies, or whatever he had chosen as the particular symbol for the particular sermon, and that symbol would give him the central thought for his discourse, accented as it would be by the actual symbol itself in view of the congregation. The cross lighted by electricity, to shine down over the baptismal pool, the little stream of water cascading gently down the steps of the pool during the baptismal rite, the roses floating in the pool and his gift of one of them to each of the baptized as he or she left the water--all such things did seem, long ago, so unconventional. Yet his own people recognized the beauty and poetry of them, and thousands of Bibles in Philadelphia have a baptismal rose from Dr. Conwell pressed within the pages. His constant individuality of mind, his constant freshness, alertness, brilliancy, warmth, sympathy, endear him to his congregation, and when he returns from an absence they bubble and effervesce over him as if he were some brilliant new preacher just come to them. He is always new to them. Were it not that he possesses some remarkable quality of charm he would long ago have become, so to speak, an old story, but instead of that he is to them an always new story, an always entertaining and delightful story, after all these years. It is not only that they still throng to hear him either preach or lecture, though that itself would be noticeable, but it is the delightful and delighted spirit with which they do it. Just the other evening I heard him lecture in his own church, just after his return from an absence, and every face beamed happily up at him to welcome him back, and every one listened as intently to his every word as if he had never been heard there before; and when the lecture was over a huge bouquet of flowers was handed up to him, and some one embarrassedly said a few words about its being because he was home again. It was all as if he had just returned from an absence of months--and he had been away just five and a half days!