As one of Jowett's friends in the ministry said of him, "With the greatest ease he could turn his bright lamp upon the hidden things of Scripture, wrest the truth from ancient Oriental figures and symbols and make it simpler, beautiful and seductive to Western modern minds."

What was the secret of his power? Was it his fine presence, his consummate art, his flawless diction, his pellucid style? No doubt these helped but Jowett touched the heart as perhaps no other preacher did because of his constant proclamation of the Gospel in all its urgency and winsomeness--'the wooing note" as he called it.

Redeeming grace was the center of his message, the great theme to which he returned again and again. He said: "I have but one passion and I have lived for it--the absorbingly arduous yet glorious work of proclaiming the grace and work of our Lord."

His Yale lectures on "The Preacher: His Life and Work," reveal to us his method in the study and in the pulpit. Bible study occupied his best hour, the early morning hours. He began at 6 a.m. He told his New York congregation that if working people can rise at six in order to earn their daily bread, much more should a minister be at his desk at the same hour, because he is concerned with the bread of life.

Jowett mapped out each hour of his day and each day of the week. He said: "If the study is a lounge, the pulpit will be an impertinence."

He read hard, and widely, the daily papers and the religious press as well as theology and general literature. Preparation for his Sunday sermons began on Tuesday morning and two days were spent in thinking and writing out each sermon.

The best sermons, he said, are not made: they grow. He carried with him a tiny notebook in which he jotted down subjects for sermons or suggestive texts, and made a brief outline.

He would not work on a sermon until he could put into a sentence the central idea he wanted to present. He confessed that getting that sentence was the most exacting and at the same time the most essential element in his sermon preparation.

Two further mental exercises followed. Jowett made it a habit to ask himself how other preachers would deal with the subject he had chosen. This broadened his conception of the theme, clarified his own mind and expanded his vision. The second mental exercise was to keep in view an invisible circle of typical men and women in his congregation, varying in education, temperament, social standing and spiritual experience. For every one of them each sermon ought to provide some soul nutriment according to their several needs.

Once the sermon had been completely thought out Jowett began to commit to paper It was a slow work with him, done without haste and at the cost of infinite labor.

"Pay sacred heed to the ministry of style," he said to the students at Yale, and he practiced what he preached. He was fastidious about the use of words and had a passionate interest in word study. "A well-ordered, well-shaped sentence, carrying a body and weight of truth, will strangely influence even the uncultured hearer."