“Do you think,” I said, “that it is more difficult for a preacher to
become a power in a nation than it is for a merchant, a lawyer, or a
politician?”
“Rather hard to say,” he answered. “There are prejudices against and
sympathies in favor of every class and profession. I think, however,
that a preacher is more like a doctor in his career. He is likely
to make a strong local impression, but not apt to become a national
figure. Given powerful convictions, an undertaking of things as they
are to-day, and steady work in the direction of setting things right,
and you may be sure a man is at least heading in the direction of
public favor, whether he ever attains it or not.”
“How did you manage to do the work you have done, in so short a time?”
“In the first place, I don’t think I have done so very much; and, in
the second place, the time seems rather long for what I have done. I
have worked hard, however.
“I thought to be a lawyer in my youth, and did study law and oratory.
My father was a country lawyer at Chesterfield, Ohio, where I was born,
and was a member of the Ohio Legislature during the war. He was a very
effective public speaker himself and thought that I ought to be an
orator. So he did everything to give me a bent in that direction, and
often took me as many as twenty miles to hear a good oration.”