'' I have known
him at the very end of a sermon have a ripple of
laughter sweep freely over the entire congregation,
and then in a moment he has every individual
under his control, listening soberly to his words.
He never fears to use humor, and it is always
very simple and obvious and effective. With him
even a very simple pun may be used, not only with-
out taking away from the strength of what he is
saying, but with a vivid increase of impressiveness.
And when he says something funny it is
in such a delightful and confidential way, with
such a genial, quiet, infectious humorousness, that
his audience is captivated. And they never think
that he is telling something funny of his own;
it seems, such is the skill of the man, that he is
just letting them know of something humorous
that they are to enjoy with him.
``Be absolutely truthful and scrupulously clear,''
he writes; and with delightfully terse common
sense, he says, ``Use illustrations that illustrate''--
and never did an orator live up to this injunction
more than does Conwell himself. Nothing is more
surprising, nothing is more interesting, than the
way in which he makes use as illustrations of the
impressions and incidents of his long and varied
life, and, whatever it is, it has direct and instant
bearing on the progress of his discourse.
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