J. Everist Cathell: lecturer

              J. EVERIST CATHELL

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J. EVERIST CATHELL, Lecturer
Management MIDLAND LYCEUM BUREAU CHICAGO   DES   MOINES   KANSAS CITY



DR. J. EVERIST CATHELL
No better introduction to the work of Dr. Cathell could be given than this charming letter from Secretary Leslie M. Shaw:

I have learned that the Reverend J. Everist Cathell, S. T. D., is about to enter the popular lecture field.

I have known Doctor Cathell more than ten years and after listening to him repeatedly I believe he can conduct the Episcopal service with greater grace, more unction and in every way more satisfactorily, than any other man living.

He is a good thinker and his mind runs true. There is no yellow in his make-up and no guile in his bosom.  In addition, he is a most interesting speaker, and an effective orator in the better sense of the term.  Public speakers are not always competent to instruct, and none can instruct if they fail to interest.  Dr. Cathell will interest his hearers and instruct them also and the instruction he imparts will be wholesome.

Very sincerely yours,
L. M. ShAW

Carnegie Trust Co., New York, June 1, 1907.

Let us add just one more thought to the above:

Dr. Cathell not only interests, instructs, enthuses, inspires and elevates, but his lectures sparkle and bubble all through with wit.  At the most unexpected places, in short intervals of times, a story crops up, a bit of effervescent English bubbles over, but the lecture moves on undisturbed or unchanged by the incidental wit.  Yet Dr. Cathell lays no claim to being a humorist.

MIDLAND LYCEUM BUREAU



SUBJECTS

Reminiscences of the Civil War and its Personnel
Jews and Jewels
Some Pleasantries of a Serious Calling
The Meaning of Education




Endorsement of Prominent Persons

A GREAT GAIN TO ALL CONCERNED
I have just noticed in the Register and Leader, of this city, that you have been invited to lecture before a number of Chautauquas during the coming summer season.

I want to congratulate the Chautauquas of this country that shall be able to secure you for some of the splendid addresses which I know are in store for them.  It is not saying too much to assure you that no one has been received more enthusiastically by the students and the faculty of Drake University than you in everyone of the numerous strong addresses with which you have kindly favored us at different times in the past.  Indeed, I feel that it is great gain to all concerned that you have consented to deliver these lectures before large audiences, such as assemble at Chautauqua meetings.  I am sure there is need of just such a gospel as you will preach in these lectures which you will deliver with such great acceptability.

I most heartily congratulate both you and your prospective auditors in this step which you have taken.

Very sincerely yours,
HILL M. BELL President Drake University

Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, May 15, 1907



HOLDS ATTENTION TO A REMARKABLE DEGREE
I have been for several years a member of the congregation worshiping at St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church and am well aquainted with the Rector, Rev. J. Everist Cathell, S. T. D.

Dr. Cathell is regarded as one of the strongest pulpit orators in our city.  His language is unusually choice and forceful, his arguments are formulated in concise and clear cut sentences, and he holds the attention of his audience to a remarkable degree.  He knows how to point an argument or a moral in a vein of pleasantry, or by a well told story.  I look for Dr. Cathell to prove an instructive and attractive feature on the Chautauqua platform during the coming season.  I commend him earnestly to those who desire the services of a strong man.

HENRY SABIN Ex-Supt. of Public Instruction for Iowa.

Des Moines, Iowa, May 15, 1907.



EQUAL POWER OF HEART AND BRAIN
The announcement that Dr. J. Everist Cathell, so well and popularly known in religious and literary circles in Iowa and throughout the West and largely in a national sense also, is going to accept of the many offers coming to him to go into the Chautauqua work will be hailed with pleasure by all people who believe in the great benefits of the Chautauqua work and who know of the fine acquirements of Dr. Cathell.  One of the most notable things to the benefit of our national life in the higher sense has been the evolution of the Chautauqua work.  In the years of the popularity of the lecture system, some thirty years ago, when the greater intellects of the nation were delivering lectures in all the cities and towns of the United States and such great spirits as Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, Julia Ward Howe and Anna Dickinson were going close to the people and inspiring them to higher things, everybody knew and felt the great value of their work.  Such years were in my active years as an editor, when I was closely noting all the agencies which tended to the entertainment and the uplifting of the great body of the people.  I am satisfied that no other thing did so much to stimulate our American people to a higher sense of all good things and to higher ambition in all great things as these lecture courses which were so popular in the years immediately following the Civil War.  There is something in the human contact, in the people at large being brought directly under the voice and into the presence of great speakers which does more for the strengthening and the inspiration of mankind than any other agency which can be invoked.  I have been rejoiced to see this great agency, which has been abandoned for years, brought back through the Chautauqua and other systems.  I am equally pleased to see that Dr. Cathell, who is especially gifted both in natural qualifications and in his trained experience for the most superior kind of work on this high line, has been induced to enter into this best of all good labors.  He has the charm of oratory and the winning power of knowledge and experience; he understands human nature and human needs thoroughly, and understands, also, the value and the influence of the greater messages which they are waiting to receive from men who have equal power of heart and brain.  In my judgment it is the duty of men who are given the grace and power of speech and who are illuminated with the love of their fellow men, as Dr. Cathell has been given and endowed, to extend the field of their work as far as their strength will take them; and the great Chautauqua work will be made richer, more useful and more popular as it shall have the wisdom to gather into its service all men who have the strength, the grace, and the sincerity of Dr. Cathell.

JAMES S. CLARKSON Surveyor of the Port

United States Customs Service Port of New York, June 7, 1907





COMMENT of the PRESS
(ON LEARNING OF DR. CATHELL'S DECISION TO ENTER THE POPULAR LECTURE FIELD)


A Chautauqua Star

One of the new stars in the Chautauqua field this year is to be Rev. J. Everist Cathell, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church at Des Moines.  He will devote the months of July and August to these popular summer gatherings, having made all the engagements he can fill.  One of his lectures is entitled Some Pleasantries of a Serious Calling, and others are: Reminiscences of the Civil War, and Jews and Jewels.
Dr. Cathell is quite well known in Davenport as he is in other cities of Iowa.  In the pulpit he is eloquent as well as earnest and sincere; on the platform he will be no less eloquent, earnest and sincere, but he will have opportunity to indulge in anecdote and story telling to emphasize and drive home his points and lessons.  There are some 100 Iowa Chautauquas, more of them than can be found in any other one state, and those who do not put Dr. Cathell on their lists will miss one of the best attractions the state has to offer.—

Editorial Davenport Democrat May 30, 1907



Eloquent Speaker

Dr. Cathell is an eloquent speaker, earnest and sincere, and what he said last evening was directly to the point.  He is a man of pleasing personality and had won the hearts of his audience the minute he uttered the first word.  The address, which was largely reminiscences, bubbled over with mirth, now and then shadowed with pretty passages of pathos.  Possessing a wonderful dramatic ability, the stories of his youth were so clearly drawn, and the pictures so brightly painted, that the audience followed him word by word, drinking in every syllable that dropped from his lips.  For more than an hour and a half, he held the closest attention of everyone present, and when he drew near the close with his remarks concerning the club, it seemed as if he had scarcely risen to his feet.—
Editorial Muscatine Tribune



Rarest Skill

Dr. J. Everist Cathell, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal church for the past ten years, has accepted a number of invitations from Chautauqua societies and will fill a number of dates in July and August.  The expectation of his friends is that this means that he will enter the Chautauqua work permanently.  He has been in the ministry thirty years.  He has never allowed his manner of speech to take on any stiffness.  He has never so handled his voice as to put to death the music naturally belonging in it.  His voice is beautiful for public speech.  It is musical and inspiring.  He can tell a story or apply an illustration with the rarest skill.  His natural good nature and good humor are strong characteristics.  He will be superior to nine-tenths of the talent now in the Chautauqua work.  He enters a field where such men are in demand.  Bureaus and associations are looking for them, looking for those who can make good.  They have found such a man in Dr. Cathell.  He has a number of lectures strongly prepared and which he delivers with grace and force.  In the Chautauqua work and on the lecture platform he will succeed on his merits.  If he shall enter the work to stay, his friends predict a brilliant career.  He is already known to the leading men of his denomination throughout the entire country.  Therefore he will not go forth among strangers.—
Editorial Des Moines Daily Capital June 4, 1907



A Superb Voice

Rev. J. Everist Cathell, S. T. D., rector of St. Paul's Church of this city, has been invited to do Chautauqua work during the coming season.  Dr. Cathell is a mnch esteemed and much admired clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal church, and the announcement of his appearance on the lecture platform will be received with general favor.  His original gifts, his accomplishments, and his experience as a writer and orator, are not ordinary.  Besides an attractive person, a vigorous and quick mind, a brilliant and forcible style, a cultivated taste, and a superb voice for public use, he has also the peculiar apprehension of the wants and spirit of an audience, with the magnetic charm, good humor and general cleverness which invariably assures him the attention and applause of his hearers.  The News has no doubt of his marked success.—
Editorial Des Moines Daily News June 3, 1907



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