``Week by week I preached there''--how
strange, now, to think of William Dean Howells
and the colonel-preacher!--``and after a while
the church was completed, and in that very
church, there in Lexington, I was ordained a
minister.''
A marvelous thing, all this, even without
considering the marvelous heights that Conwell has
since attained--a marvelous thing, an achievement
of positive romance! That little church
stood for American bravery and initiative and
self-sacrifice and romanticism in a way that well
befitted good old Lexington.
To leave a large and overflowing law practice
and take up the ministry at a salary of six hundred
dollars a year seemed to the relatives of Conwell's
wife the extreme of foolishness, and they did not
hesitate so to express themselves. Naturally
enough, they did not have Conwell's vision. Yet
he himself was fair enough to realize and to admit
that there was a good deal of fairness in their
objections; and so he said to the congregation
that, although he was quite ready to come for
the six hundred dollars a year, he expected them
to double his salary as soon as he doubled the
church membership.
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