Thus Dr. Conwell weaves practical sense and spiritual truths together in a way that helps people for the span of life they live in this world, for the eternal life beyond. He never forgets the soul and its needs. That is his foremost thought. But he recognizes also that there is a body and that it lives in a practical world. And whenever and wherever he can help practically, as well as spiritually, he does it, realizing that the world needs Christians who have the means as well as the spirit to carry forward Christ's work.
Speaking of his methods of preaching, Rev. Albert G. Lawson, D.D., says:
"He has been blessed in his ministry because of three things: He has a democratic, philosophic, philanthropic bee in his bonnet, a big one, too, and he has attempted to bring us to see that churches mean something beside fine houses and good music. There must be a recognition of the fact that when a man is lost, he is lost in body as well as in soul One needs, therefore, as our Lord would, to begin at the foundations, the building anew of the mind with the body; and I bless God for the democratic, and the philosophic, and the philanthropic idea which is manifest in this strong church. I hope there will be enough power in it to make every Baptist minister sick until he tries to occupy the same field that Jesus Christ did in his life and ministry; until every one of the churches shall recognize the privilege of having Jesus Christ reshaped in the men and women near them."
CHAPTER XXXII
THESE BUSY LATER DAYS
A Typical Week Day. A Typical Sunday. Mrs. Conwell. Back to the
Berkshires in Summer for Rest.
By the record of what Dr. Conwell has accomplished may be judged how busy are his days.
In early youth he learned to use his time to the best advantage. Studying and working on the farm, working and studying at Wilbraham and Yale, told him how precious is each minute. Work he must when he wanted to study. Study he must when he needed to work. Every minute became as carefully treasured as though it were a miser's gold. But it was excellent training for the busy later days when work would press from all sides until it was distraction to know what to do first.
"Do the next thing," is the advice he gives his college students. It is undoubtedly a saving of time to take the work that lies immediately at hand and despatch it. But when the hand is surrounded by work in a score of important forms, all clamoring for recognition, what is "the next thing" becomes a question difficult to decide.
Then it is that one must plan as carefully to use one's minutes as he does to expend one's income when expenses outrun it.