Part six of Acres of Diamonds. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell. Part six. II. The Beginning at Old Lexington. It was not because he was a minister that Russell Conwell is such a force in the world. He went into the ministry because he was sincerely and profoundly a Christian, and because he felt that as a minister he could do more good in the world than in any other capacity. But being a minister is but an incident, so to speak. The important thing is not that he is a minister, but that he is himself. Recently I heard in New Yorker, the head of a great corporation, say, I believe that Russell Conwell is doing more good in this world than any man who has lived since Jesus Christ. And he said this in a serious and unexaggerated earnest. Yet Conwell did not readily get into his life work. He might have seemed almost a failure until he was well on toward forty, for although he kept making successes they were not permanent successes, and he did not settle himself into a definite line. He restlessly went westward to make his home, and then restlessly returned to the east. After the war was over he was a lawyer. He was a lecturer. He was an editor. He went around the world as a correspondent. He wrote books. He kept making money and kept losing it. He lost it through fire, through investments, through aiding his friends. It is probable that the unsettledness of the years following the war was due to the unsettling effect of the war itself, which thus in its influence broke into his mature life after breaking into his years at Yale. But however this may be, those seething, changing, stirring years were years of vital importance to him. For in the myriad experiences of that time he was building the foundation of the Conwell that was to come. Abroad he met the notables of the earth. At home he made hosts of friends and loyal admirers. It was worth noting that as a lawyer he would never take a case, either civil or criminal, that he considered wrong. It was basic with him that he could not and would not fight if he thought he was on the wrong side.  Yet he laughs, his quiet infectious characteristic laugh, as he tells of how once he was deceived, for he defended a man's charge with stealing a watch, who was so obviously innocent, that he took the case in a blaze of indignation, and had the fellow proudly exonerated. The next day, the wrongly accused, one came to his office and shamefully took out the watch which he had been charged with stealing. I want to send it to the man I took it from, he said. And he told with a sort of shame-faced pride of how he had gotten the good old deacon to give in all sincerity the evidence which exculpted him. And, say Mr. Conwell, I want to thank you for getting me off. I hope you'll excuse my deceiving you, and I won't be any worse for not going to jail. And Conwell likes to remember that thereafter the young man lived up the pride of exoneration, and though Conwell does not say it or think it, one knows that it was the Conwell influence that inspired to honesty, for always he is the inspirer. Conwell even kept certain hours for consultation with those too poor to pay any fee. And at one time, while still an active lawyer, he was guardian for over sixty children. The man has always been a marvel, and always won to come upon such romantic facts as these. That it was the curious thing about him, how much there was of romance in his life. Worship to the end by John Ring, left for dead all night at Kineshaw Mountain, calmly singing, nearer, my God, to thee, to quiet the passengers on a supposedly sinking ship, saving lives even when a boy never disappointing a single audience of thousands of audiences he has arranged to address during all his years of lecturing. He himself takes little pride in this last point, and it is a characteristic of him that he has actually forgotten that just once he did fail to appear. He was quite forgotten that one evening on his way to a lecture, he stopped a runaway horse to save two women's lives, and went in consequence to the hospital instead of the platform. And it was typical of him to forget that sort of thing. The emotional temperament of Conwell has always made him responsive to the great, the striking, the patriotic. He was deeply influenced by knowing John Brown, and his brief memories of Lincoln are intense, though he saw him but three times in all. The first time he saw Lincoln was on the night when the future president delivered his address, which afterwards became so famous in Cooper Union, New York. The name of Lincoln was then scarcely known, and it was by mere chance that young Conwell happened to be in New York on that day. But being there and learning that Abraham Lincoln from the West was going to make an address he went to hear him. He tells how uncouthly Lincoln was dressed, even with one trouser's leg higher than the other, and of how awkward he was, and of how poorly at first he spoke, and with what apparent embarrassment the chairman of the meeting got Lincoln a glass of water, and Conwell thought it was from the personal desire to help him and keep him from breaking down. But he loves to tell how Lincoln became a change man as he spoke, how he seemed to feel ashamed of his brief embarrassment and pulling himself together and putting aside the written speech which he had prepared, spoke freely and powerfully, with splendid conviction, as only a born orator speaks, to Conwell it was a tremendous experience. The second time he saw Lincoln was when he went to Washington to plead for the life of one of his men who had been condemned to death for sleeping on post. He was still a captain, his promotion to the Colonel Lee was still to come. A youth, and was awed by going into the presence of a man he worshipped, and his voice trembles a little, even now, as he tells how pleasantly Lincoln looked up from his desk and how cheerfully he asked his business with him, and how absorbedly Lincoln then listened to his tail. So it appeared he already knew of the main outline. It will be all right, said Lincoln when Conwell finished, but Conwell was still frightened. He feared that in the municipality of public matters, this mere matter of the life of the mountain boy, a private soldier might be forgotten till too late. It's almost the time set, he faltered, and Conwell's voice almost breaks, man of emotion that he is, to tell how Lincoln said with stern gravity, go and telegraph that soldier's mother that Abraham Lincoln never signed a warrant to shoot a boy under 20 and never will. That was the one and only time that he spoke with Lincoln, and it remains an indelible impression. The third time he saw Lincoln was when as officer of the day he stood for hours besides the dead body of the President as it lay in state in Washington. In those hours he stood rigidly as the throng when shuffling sorrowfully through an immense impression came to Colonel Conwell of the work and worth of the man who lay there dead, and that impression has never departed. John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, old revolutionary Lexington, how Conwell's life is associated with famous men in places. And it was actually at Lexington that he made the critical decision as to the course of his life. And it seems to me that it was, although quite unconsciously, because of the very fact that it was Lexington that Conwell was influenced and decide and to act as he did. Had it been some other kind of place, some merely ordinary place, some quite usual place, he might not have taken that important step. But it was Lexington, it was brave old Lexington inspiring Lexington, and he was inspired by it. For the man himself inspires nobly is always the one who upon himself is open to noble inspiration. Lexington inspired him. When I was a lawyer in Boston, and almost thirty-seven years old, he told me, thinking slowly back into the years, I was consulted by a woman who asked my advice in regards to disposing of a little church in Lexington whose congregation had become unable to support it. I went out and looked at the place, and told her how the property could be sold, but it seemed a pity to me that the church should be given up. However, I advised a meeting of church members and I attended the meeting. I put the case to them. It was only a handful of men and women, and there was silence for a little. Then a little old man rose in a quivering voice, said the matter was quite clear, that there evidently was nothing to do but sell, and he would agree with the others in the necessity, but as the church had been his church home from boyhood, so he quivered and quivered on. He begged that they would excuse him from actually taking part in disposing of it, and in a deep silence he went haltingly out of the room. The men and women looked at one another, still silent, sadly impressed, but not knowing what to do, and I said to them, why not start over again, and go on with the church after all? Typical conwellion that, first the impulse to help those who need helping, then the inspiration and leadership. But the building is entirely too tumbled down to use, said one of the men, sadly, and I knew it was right for I had examined it. But I said, let us meet tomorrow morning and get to work on building ourselves and put it in shape for the service next Sunday. It made them seem pleased and encouraged and so confident that a new possibility was opening, that I never doubted that each one of those presence and many friends besides would be at the building in the morning. I was there early with a hammer and ax and crowbar I had secured, ready to go to work, but no one else showed up. He has a rueful appreciation of the humor of it, as he pictured the scene, and one knows also that in that little town of Lexington, where Americans had so bravely faced the impossible, Russell Conwell also braced himself to face the impossible. A pettier man would have instantly given up the entire matter when those who were most interested failed to respond, but one of the strongest features of in the Conwell character is his ability to draw even doubters and weaklings into line, his ability to stir even those who have given up. I looked over that building, he goes on whimsically, and I saw that repair really seemed out of the question, nothing but a new church would do. So I took the ax that I had brought with me and began chopping the place down. And a little while a man, not one of the church members, came along and he watched me for a time and said, What are you going to do there? I instantly replied, Tear down this old building and build a new church here. He looked at me, but the people won't do that, he said. Yes, they will, I said cheerfully, keeping at my work, whereupon he watched me a few minutes longer and said, Well, you can put me down for one hundred dollars for the new building, come up to my livery stable and get it this evening. All right, I'll surely be there, I replied. And a little while another man came along and stopped and looked, and he rather jibbed at the idea of a new church. And when I told him of the livery stable man contributing one hundred dollars, he said, But you haven't got the money yet.  You'll never get it, he said. He's not that sort of a man. He's not even a church man. But I just went quietly on with the work without answering.  Well, if he does give you that one hundred dollars, come to me and I'll give you another hundred. Conwell smiles in genial reminiscence and without any apparent sense that he is telling of a great personal triumph and goes on. Those two men both paid the money and, of course, the church people themselves, who had first not quite understood that I could be an earnest and joined in and helped with work and money. And while the new church was building, it was particularly important to get and to keep the congregation together as they had ceased to have a minister of their own. I used to run out from Boston and preach for them in a room we hired. And it was there in Lexington in 1879 that I determined to become a minister. I had had a good law practice, but I determined to give it up for many years I had felt more or less the call to ministry. And here at length was the definite time to begin 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 to express themselves. Naturally enough, they did not have Conwell's vision. Yet he himself was fair enough to realize and to admit there was a good deal of fairness in their objections. And so he said to the congregation that he was quite ready to come for six hundred dollars a year. He expected them to double his salary as soon as he doubled the church membership. That seemed to them a good deal like a joke. But they answered in perfect earnestness that they would be quite willing to do the doubling as soon as he did the doubling. And in less than a year his salary was doubled accordingly. I asked him if he found it hard to give up the lucrative law for a poor ministry and his reply gave a delightful impression of his capacity for humorous insight into human nature. For he said with a genial twinkle. Oh yes, it was a wrench, but there was sort of a romance of self sacrifice, you know. I rather suppose the old time martyrs rather enjoyed themselves in being martyrs. Conwell did not stay very long in Lexington, a struggling little church in Philadelphia heard what he was doing. And so an old deacon went up to see and hear him. And an invitation was given. And as the Lexington church seemed so prosperously on its feet and the needs of the Philadelphia body keenly appealed to Conwell's imagination. A change was made, and a salary of eight hundred dollars a year. He went, in 1882, to a little struggling Philadelphia congregation, and of the congregation he is still pastor. Only it ceased to be a struggling congregation a great many years ago. And long ago it began paying him more thousands every year than it first gave him hundreds. Dreamer as Conwell is, in conjunction with his immense practicality, and moved as he is by the spiritual influences of life. It is more than likely that not only did Philadelphia's need appeal, but also the fact that Philadelphia as a city meant so much to him. Coming north wounded from the battlefield of the Civil War, it was Philadelphia that he has cared for until his health and strength recovered. Thus it came that Philadelphia had early become dear to him. And here is an excellent example of how dreaming great dreams may go hand in hand with winning superb results. For that little struggling congregation now owns and occupies a great new church building that seats more people than any other Protestant church in America. And Dr. Conwell fills it. 3. Story of the fifty-seven cents. At every point in Conwell's life one sees that he wins through his wonderful personal influence on old and young. Every step forward, every triumph achieved, comes not alone from his own enthusiasm, but because of his putting that enthusiasm into others. And when I learned how it came that the present church buildings were begun, it was another one of those marvellous tales of fact that are stranger than any imagination could make them. And yet the tale was so simple and sweet and sad and unpretending. When Dr. Conwell first assumed charge of that little congregation that led him to Philadelphia it was really a little church, both in its numbers and in the size of the building it occupied. But it quickly became so popular under his leadership that the church services and Sunday school services were alike so crowded that there was no room for all who came. And always there were people turned from the doors. One afternoon a little girl, who would eagerly wish to go, turned back from the Sunday school door crying bitterly because they had told her that there was no more room, but a tall black-haired man met her and noticed her tears and stopping ask why she was crying and sobbingly she replied that it was because they could not let her into Sunday school. I lifted her to my shoulder, says Dr. Conwell, in telling of this. And after hearing the story elsewhere I asked him to tell it to me himself, for it seemed almost too strange to be true. I lifted her to my shoulder and one realizes the pretty scene it must have made for the little girl to go through the crowd of people crying her tears and writing proudly upon the shoulders of this kindly tall, dark man. I said to her that I would like to take her in a room big enough for all who came. I said to her that I would take her in, and I did so. And I said to her that we someday have a room big enough for all who should come. And when she went home she told her parents, I only learned this afterwards, that she was going to save money to help build the larger church and Sunday school that Dr. Conwell wanted. Her parents pleasantly humored her in the idea and let her run errands and do little tasks to earn pennies. And she began dropping pennies into her bank. She was a lovable little thing, but in only a few weeks after that she had taken suddenly ill and died, and at the funeral her father told me quietly of how his little girl had been saving money for a building fund, and there at the funeral handed me what she had saved. Just fifty-seven cents in pennies. Dr. Conwell does not say how deeply he was moved after this. After all, a man of very few words, as to his own emotions, but a deep tenderness had swept into his voice. At the meeting of the church trustees, I told of this gift a fifty-seven cents, this first gift toward the proposed building fund of the new church that was some time to exist. For until then the matter had barely been spoken of, as the new church building had simply been a possibility for the future. The trustees seemed much impressed, and it turned out that they were far more impressed than I possibly could have hoped. For in a few days one of them came to me and said that he thought it would be an excellent idea to buy a lot on Broad Street, the very lot in which the building now stands. It was characteristic of Dr. Conwell that he did not point out what everyone would understand, that it was his own inspiration to put into the trustees which resulted in this quick and definite move on the part of one of them. I talked the matter over with the owner of the property and told him of the beginning of the fund, the story of the little girl. The man was not one of our church, nor, in fact, was he a churchgoer at all, but he enlisted intimately to the tale of the fifty-seven cents and simply said, he was quite ready to go ahead and sell us that piece of land for ten thousand dollars, taking, and the unexpectedness of this deeply touched me, taking the first payment of just fifty-seven cents and letting the entire building stand on a five percent mortgage. And it seemed to me that it would be the right thing to accept this unexpectedly liberal proposition, and I went over the entire matter on that basis with the trustees and some of the other members, and all of the people would soon be talking of having a new church. But it was not done in that way, after all, for fine though that way would it been, there was one still, finer. Not long after my talk with the man who owned the land, his surprisingly good-hearted proposition and exchange was arranged, for me one evening, with a Mount Holly church, and my wife went with me. We came back late, and it was cold and wet and miserable, but as we approached our home we saw that it was all lighted from top to bottom, and there it was clear that it was full of people. I said to my wife that they seemed to be having a better time than we had had, and we went in. Curious to know what this was all about. And as it turned out, in our absence, which had been intentionally arranged that the church people had gathered in our home to meet us on our return, and we were utterly amazed for the spokesman told me that the entire ten thousand dollars had been raised, and that the land for the church that I wanted was free of debt, and all had come so quickly and directly from this dear little girl's fifty-seven cents. Didn't it seem like a fairy tale? But then this man has all his life been making fairy tales into realities. He inspired the child, he inspired the trustees, he inspired the owner of the land, he inspired the people. The building of this great church, the Temple Baptist Church, as it is termed, was a great undertaking for the congregation, even though it had been swiftly growing from the day of Dr. Conwell's taking charge of it. It was something far ahead of what, except for the eyes of the enthusiast, that they could possibly complete and pay for and support. Nor was it an easy task. Ground was broken for the building in 1889. In 1891 it was opened for worship. Then came years of raising money to clear it. But it was long ago placed completely out of debt, and with only a single large subscription, one of ten thousand dollars for the church, is not in a wealthy neighborhood nor is the congregation made up of the great and rich. The church had built of stone, and its interior is a great amphitheater. Special attention has been given to the fresh air and light. There is nothing of the dim religious light that goes on with medieval churchliness. Behind the pulpit are tears of seats for the great chorus choir. There is a large organ. The building is peculiarly adapted for hearing and seeing. And if it is not, strictly speaking, beautiful in itself. It is beautiful when it is filled with encircling rows of men and women. Men have feeling that is. And one who appreciates the importance of symbols, Dr. Conwell, had a heart of olive wood built into the front of the pulpit, for the wood was from the olive tree in the garden of Gethsemane, and the amber-colored tiles in the inner wall of the church bare under their glaze the names of thousands of his people, every one young and old, who helped the building, even to the giving of a single dollar, has his name inscribed there. For Dr. Conwell wished to show that it is not only the house of the Lord, but also in a keenly personal sense the house of those who build it. The church has a possible seating capacity of 4,200, although only 3,135 chairs have been put into it. For it is the desire not to crowd the space needlessly. There is also a great room for Sunday school and extensive rooms for the Young Men's Association, the Young Women's Association and for a kitchen, for executive offices, for meeting places for church officers, and boards and committees. It is a spacious and practical and complete church home. And many people feel at home there. You see again, said Dr. Conwell musingly, the advantage of aiming at big things that building represents $109,000 above ground. It is free from debt. Had we built a small church, it would now be heavily mortgaged. End of Part 6 Part 7 of Acres of Diamonds This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Acres of diamonds by Russell H. Conwell Part 7 4. His power as orator and preacher Even as a young man, Conwell won local fame as an orator. At the outbreak of the Civil War he began making patriotic speeches that gained enlistments. After going to the front he was sent back home for a time on furlough to make more speeches and draw more recruits. For his speeches were so persuasive, so powerful, so full of homely and patriotic feeling, that the men who heard them thronged into the ranks. And as a preacher he uses persuasion power, simple and homely eloquence, to draw men to the ranks of Christianity. He is an orator born, and he has developed this inborn power by the hardest of study and thought and practice. He is one of those rare men, who always seize and hold the attention, when he speaks men listen. It is quality temperament control. The word is immaterial, but the fact is very material indeed. Some quarter of a century ago Conwell published a little book for students on the study and practice of oratory, that clear-cut articulation is the charm of eloquence, is one of his insisted upon statements. And it well illustrates his lifelong practice of the man himself. For every word as he talks can be heard in every part of a large building, yet he always speaks without apparent effort. He avoids elocution. His voice is soft-pit and never breaks. Even now, when he is over seventy, because as he explains that he always speaks in his natural voice, there is never a straining after-effect. A speaker must possess a large-hearted regard for the welfare of his audience, he writes, and here again we see Conwell explaining Conwellism. Enthusiasm invites enthusiasm is another of his points of importance, and one understands that it is by deliberate purpose, and not by chance, that he tries with such tremendous effort to put enthusiasm into the hearers, with every sermon and every lecture that he delivers. It is easy to raise a laugh, but dangerous for it is the greatest test of an order's control of his audience to be able to land them again on solid earth of sober thinking. I have known him, at the very end of a sermon, to have a ripple of laughter sweep 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 without taking away from the strength of what he is saying, but with a vivid increase of impressiveness.  It seems such as the skill of the man that he is just letting them know of something humorous that they can enjoy it with him. Be absolutely truthful and scrupulously clear, he writes, and with delightful 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 of illustrations of the impressions and incidences of his long and varied life. And whatever it is, it has direct and instant bearing upon the progress of his discourse. He will refer to something that he heard a child say in a train yesterday. In a few minutes he will speak of something that he saw, or someone whom he met last month or last year, or ten years ago, in Ohio and California, in London, in Paris, in New York, in Bombay. In each memory, each illustration is a hammer with which he drives home a truth. The vast number of places he has visited and people he has met, the infinite variety of things his observant eyes have seen, give him his ceaseless flow of illustrations. And his memory and his skill make admirable use of them. It is seldom that he uses an illustration from what he has read. Everything is characteristically his own. Only M. Stanley, who knew him well, referred to him as that double-sided Yankee, who could see at a glance all that there is and all there ever was, and never was there a man who supplements with personal reminiscence the place or the person that has figured in the illustration. When he illustrates with the story of the discovery of California gold at Sutter's, he almost parenthetically remarks, I delivered this lecture on that very spot a few years ago. That is, in the town that arose on that very spot. And when he illustrates by the story of the invention of the sewing machine, he adds, I suppose that if any of you were asked, who was the inventor of the sewing machine, you would say that it is Elias Howe. But that would be a mistake. I was with Elias Howe in the Civil War, and he often used to tell me how he had tried for fourteen years to invent the sewing machine, and then his wife, feeling that something really had to be done, invented it in a couple years. Listening to him, you begin to feel in touch with everybody and everything, and in a friendly and intimate way. Always, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, as in private conversation, there is an absolute simplicity about the man and his words, a simplicity and earnestness, a complete honesty. And when he sits down in his book on oratory, no man has the right to use words carelessly. He stands for that respect, for word craftmanship that every successful speaker or writer must feel. Be intensely in earnest, he writes, and in writing this he sets down a prime principle not only of his oratory but of his life. A young minister told me that Dr. Conwell once said to him with deep feeling, Always remember as you preach that you are striving to save at least one soul with every sermon. And to one of his close friends, Dr. Conwell said, in one of his self revealing conversations, I feel whenever I preach that there is always one person in the congregation to whom in all probability I shall never preach again. And therefore I feel that I must exert my utmost power in that last chance. And in this, even if this were all, one sees why each sermon is so impressive and why his energy never lags. Always with him is the feeling that he is in this world to do all the good he possibly can do. Not a moment, not an opportunity must be lost. The moment he rises and steps in front of his pulpit, he has the attention of everyone in the building, and this attention he closely holds till he is through.  I want to preach so simply that you will not think of it as preaching, but you will think of it as listening to a friend. I remember him saying, one Sunday morning, as he began his sermon, and then he went on, just as such homely, kindly, friendly words promised, and how efficiently. He believes that everything should be put as to be understood by all, and this belief applies not only to his preaching, but to the reading of the Bible, whose description he not only visualizes to himself, but makes vividly clear to his hearers, and often makes fascination in result. For example, he is reading the tenth chapter of First Samuel, he begins, Thou shall meet the company of prophets. Singers, it should be translated, he puts in lifting his eyes from the page and looking out over his people, then he goes on, taking this chains as a matter of course. Thou shall meet a company of singers, coming down from the high place, whereupon he again interrupts himself, and in irresistible explanatory aside, which instantly raises the desired picture in the mind of every one, he says, that means, from the little old church on the hill, you know, and how plain and clear and real and interesting, most of all interesting it is from this moment. Another man would have left it at the prophets coming down from the high place, which would not have seemed at all alive or natural, and here suddenly Conwell has flashed his picture of the singers coming down from the little old church on the hill. There is a magic in doing that sort of thing. And he goes on reading, Thou shall meet a company of singers coming down from that little old church on the hill, with a sultry and a tibret, and a pipe and a harp, and they shall sing. Music is one of Conwell's strongest aids, he sings himself, he sings as if he likes to sing, and often finds himself leading the singing, usually so indeed at the prayer meetings, and often in effect at the church services. I remember at one church service that the choir leader was standing in front of the masked choir, ostensibly leading the singing, but Conwell himself standing at the rear of the pulpit platform, with his eyes on the hymnbook silently swaying a little from the music and unconsciously beating time as he swayed, was just as unconsciously the real leader, for it was he whom the congregation was watching, and with them they were keeping time. He never suspected it, he was merely thinking along with the music, and there was such a look of contagious happiness on his face as everyone as he made everyone in the building similarly happy, for he possesses a mysterious faculty in imbuing others with his own happiness. Not only singers, but the modern equivalent of sultry and tibret and cymbals all have their place in Dr. Conwell's scheme of a church service, for there may be a piano, and there may even be a trombone, and there is a giant organ to help the voices, and at times there are chiming bells, his musical taste seems to tend toward the thunderous, or perhaps that is how he knows that there are times when people like to hear thunderous and are moved by it, and how the choir themselves like it. They occupy a great curving space behind the pulpit, and put their hearts into song, and as the congregation disperses and the choir filters down, sometimes they are still singing, and some of them continue to sing as they go slowly out toward the doors. They are happy, Conwell himself is happy, all the congregation is happy. He makes everybody feel happy in coming to church, he makes the church attractive, just as Howells was so long ago told that he did in Lexington. And there is something more than happiness, there is a sense of ease, of comfort, of general joy, that is quite unmistakable. There is nothing of stiffness or constraint, and with it all there is full reverence. It is no wonder that he is accustomed to fill every seat of that great building. His gestures are usually very simple, now and then, when he works up to an emphasis he strikes one fist in the palm of the other hand. When he is through you do not remember that he has made any gestures at all, but the sound of his voice remains with you, and the look of his wonderful eyes. And though he has passed the three score years and ten, he looks out over his people with eyes that still have the very look of youth. Like all great men, he not only does big things but keeps in touch with myriad details, when his assistants announcing the funeral of an old member hesitates about the street and number, and says that they can be found in the telephone directory. Dr. Conwell's voice breaks quietly in with such a number, giving it Dauphin Street quietly and in a low tone, yet everyone in the church hears distinctively every syllable of that low voice. His fund of personal anecdote or personal reminiscence is constant and illustrative of his preaching, just as it is when he lectures, and the reminiscence sweeps through many years, and at times a really startling in the vivid and home-like pictures they present of the famous folk of the past that he knew. One Sunday evening he made an almost casual reference to the one time he first met Garfield, then a candidate for the presidency. I asked Major McKinley, who I had met in Washington, and whose home was in Northern Ohio, as was that of Mr. Garfield, to go with me to Mr. Garfield's home and introduce me. When we got there a neighbor had to find him. Jim, Jim, he called. You see, Garfield was just plain old Jim to his neighbors. It's hard to recognize a hero over your back, France. He paused a moment, or the appreciative ripple to subside, and went on. We three talked together. What a rare talking it must have been, McKinley, Garfield, and Conwell. We talked together, and after a while we got to the subject of hymns. And those two great men both told me of how deeply they loved the old hymn, the old-time religion. Garfield especially loved it. So he told us, because the good old man who brought him up as a boy, and to whom he owed such gratitude, used to sing it, at the pasture bars outside of the boy's window every morning, and young Jim knew, whenever he heard that old tune that had meant it was time for him to get up. He said that he had heard the best concerts and the finest operas in the world, but had never heard anything he loved as he still loved the old-time religion. I forgot what a reason there was for McKinley's especially liking it. But he, as Garfield, liked it immensely. What followed was a striking example of Conwell's intentness on losing no chance to fix an impression in the hearer's mind. And at the same time, it was really an astounding proof of his power to move and sway, for a new expression came over his face and he said, as if the idea had only at that moment occurred to him, as it most probably had. I think it's in our hymnal. And in a moment he announced the number, and the great organ struck, and every person in the great church, every man, woman, and child, joined in the swinging rhythm of verse after verse, as they could never tire of the old-time religion. It is a simple melody, more than a single line of almost monotone music. It was good enough for mother, and it's good enough for me. It was good enough on the fiery furnace, and it's good enough for me. Thus it went on, with never-wearing iteration, each time with a refrain, more and more rhythmic and swaying. The old-time religion, the old-time religion, the old-time religion, it's good enough for me. That it was good enough for the Hebrew children, that it was good enough for Paul and Silas, that it will help you when you're dying, and it will show you the way to heaven. All these, and still other, lines were sung with a sort of wailing softness, a curious monotone, a depth of earnestness. And the man who had worked this miracle of control, by evoking out of the past his memory of a meeting, with two of the vanished great ones of the earth, stood before his people, leading them, singing with them, his eyes aglow with an inward light. His magic had suddenly set them upon the spirit of the old camp-meeting days. The days of pioneering and hardship, when religion met so much to everybody, and even those who knew nothing of such things, felt them, even if but vaguely. Every heart was moved and touched, and every old tune will sing in the memory of all who heard it, and sung it as long as they live. END OF PART 7 PART 8. GIFT FOR INSPIRING OTHERS The constant earnestness of Conwell his desires to let no chance slip by of helping a fellow man puts often into his voice when he preaches a note of eagerness, of anxiety, but when he prays, when he turns to God, his manner undergoes a subtle and unconscious change. A load has slipped off his shoulders, and has been assumed by a higher power. Into his bearing dignified, though it was, there comes an unconscious increase of the dignity. Into his voice, firm as it were before, there comes a deeper note of firmness. He is apt to fling his arms widespread as he prays, in a fine gesture that he never uses at other times. And he looks upward with the dignity of a man who is talking to a higher being, is proud of being friend and confidant. One does not need to be a Christian to appreciate the beauty and fineness of Conwell's prayers. He is likely at any time to do the unexpected. And he is so great a man, and he has such control that whatever he does seems to everybody a perfectly natural thing. His sincerity is so evident. And whatever he does is done, so simply and naturally, that it is just a matter of course. I remember during one church service, while the singing was going on that he suddenly rose from his chair and kneeling beside it. On the open pulpit, with his back to the congregation, remained in that posture for several minutes. No one thought it strange. I was likely enough. The only one who noticed it. His people are used to his sincerities. And at the time it was merely that he had a few words to say quietly to God, and turned aside for a few moments to say them. His earnestness of belief in prayer makes him a firm believer in the answers to prayer and, in fact, to what may be termed the direct interposition of providence. Doubtness, the mystic strain inherited from his mother, also has much to do with this. He has a typically homely way of expressing it, by one of his favorite maxims. One that he loves to repeat encouragingly to friends who are in difficulties themselves, or who know of the difficulties that are his. And this hardening maxim is, trust in God and do the next thing. At one time in the early days of his church work in Philadelphia, a payment of a thousand dollars was absolutely needed to prevent a lawsuit in regard to a debt for the church organ. In fact, it was worse than a debt. It was a note signed by himself personally that had become due. He was always ready to assume personal responsibilities for debts of his church, and failure to meet the note would meet a measure of disgrace as well as mock church discouragement. He had tried all the sources that seemed open to him, but in vain he could not openly appeal to the church members, in this case, for it was in the early days of his pastorate, and his zeal for the organ, his desire for determination to have it, as a necessary part of the church equipment, had outrun the judgment of some of his best friends, including that of the deacon who had gone to Massachusetts for him. They had urged a delay till other expenses were met, and he had acted against their advice. He had tried such friends as he could, and had tried prayer, but there was no sign of aid, whether supernatural or natural. And again, literally on the very day which the holder of the note was to begin proceedings against him, a check precisely for the needed $1,000 came to him by mail, from a man in the West, a man who was a total stranger to him. It turned out that the man's sister, who was one of the temple membership, had written to her brother of Dr. Conwell's work. She knew nothing of any special need for money, knew nothing, whatever, of any note, or of the demand for $1,000. She merely outlined to her brother what Dr. Conwell was accomplishing, and with such enthusiasm that the brother at once sent the opportune check. At a later time the sum of $10,000 was importantly needed. It was due, payment had been promised. It was for some of the construction work of the Temple University buildings. The last day had come, and Conwell and the very few who knew of the emergencies were in the depth of gloom. It was too large a sum to ask the church people to make up, for they were not rich, and they had already been giving splendidly of their slender means. For the church, and then for the university. There was no rich man to turn to. The men famous for enormous charitable gifts have never let themselves be interested in any of the work of Dr. Conwell. It would be unkind, and gratuitous to suggest that it is because their names could not be personally attached, or because the work of an unprecentious kind among unprecentious people. It need merely be said that neither they nor their agents have carried to aid, except that one of the very richest, whose name is the most distinguished in the entire world, as a giber, did once in response to a strong personal application give $3,500, this being the extent of the association of the wealthy, that any of the varied Conwell work. So when it absolutely necessary to have $10,000, the possibilities of money had been exhausted, whether from congregation or individuals. Russell Conwell, in spite of his superb optimism, is also a man of deep depressions, and this is because of the very fire and fervor of his nature, for always in such a nature there is a balancing. He believes in success, success must come, success in itself, almost a religion with him, success for himself and for all the world who will try for it. But there are times when he is sad and doubtful over some particular possibilities. And he immensely believes in prayer, faith can move mountains, but always he believes that it is better not to wait for the mountains thus to be moved, but to go right out and get to work at moving them. And once in a while there comes a time when the mountain looms too threatening, even after the bravest efforts and the deepest trust, such a time has come, the $10,000 debt was a looming mountain that he tried in vain to move. He could still pray and he did, but it was one of the times when he could only think that something had gone wrong. The Dean of the University, who has been closely in touch with all of his work for many years, told me of how in a discouragement, which was more notable through contrast with his usual unfailing courage, he left the executive offices for his home a couple of blocks away. He went away with everything looking dark before him. It was Christmas time, but the very fact it being Christmas only added to his depression. Christmas was such an unnatural time for unhappiness. But in a few minutes he came flying back radiant overjoyed, sparkling with happiness, waving a slip of paper in his hand, which was a check for precisely $10,000. For it had just been drawn out of an envelope handed to him as he reached home by the mail carrier, and it has come so strangely and so naturally for the check was from a woman who was profoundly interested in his work, and who had sent the check knowing that in a general way it was needed, but without the least idea that there was any immediate need. That was eight or nine years ago, but although the donor was told of the time that Dr. Conwell and all of us were most grateful for the gift, it was not until very recently that she was told of how opportunit was, and the change it made in Dr. Conwell. For he is a great man for maxims, and all of us who were associated with him know that one of his favorites is that it will all come out right some time, and of course we had a rare opportunity to tell him that he ought never be discouraged, for it is seldom that he is. When the big new church building, the members of the church were vaguely disturbed by noticing when the structure reached the second story that at its height on one side toward the vacant and undoubt land adjoining, there were several doors built that opened literally into nothing but space. When asked about those doors and their purpose, Dr. Conwell would make some casual reply generally to the effect that they might be excellent as fire escapes, to no one for quite a while did he broach even a hint of the greatest plan that was something on his mind, which was that the buildings of the university some day would stand on the land immediately joining the church. And at that time the university, the temple university as it is now called, was not even a college, although it was probably called a college, Conwell had organized it, and it consisted of a number of classes and teachers meeting in highly inadequate quarters in two little houses. But the imagination of Conwell early picture great new buildings with accommodations for thousands. At the time the dream was realized, the imagination became a fact. And now those second floor doors actually opened from the temple church into the temple university. You see, he always thinks big. He dreams big dreams and wins big success. All his life he has talked and preached success. And it is very real and a very practical belief with him that it is just as easy to do a large thing as a small one and in fact a little easier. And so he naturally does not see why one should be satisfied with the small things in life. If your rooms are big and the people will come and fill them, he likes to say the same effort that wins small success would rightly directed have won a great success. Think big things and then do them. Most favorite of all maxims with this man of maxims is let patients have their perfect work over and over. He loves to say it and his friends laugh about his love for it. And he knows that they will do and laughs about it himself. I tire them all, he says, for they hear me say it every day. But he says it every day because it means so much to him. It stands in his mind as a constant warning against anger and impatience or overhaste, false to which his impetuous temperament is prone, though few have ever seen him either angry or impatient or hasty. So well does he exercise self control. Those who have long known him well have said to me that they have never heard him censure anyone that his forbearance and kindness are wonderful. He is a sensitive man beneath his composure. He has suffered and keenly when he has been unjustly attacked. He feels pain of that sort for a long time, too. For even the passing of the years does not entirely deaden it. When I have been hurt, or when I have talked with annoying cranks, I have tried to let patients have their perfect work. For those very people who have patience with them may, after word, be of help. And he went on to talk a little of his early years in Philadelphia, and he said with sadness that it had pained him to meet with opposition, and it had even come from ministers of his own denomination. For he had been so misunderstood and misjudged. But he added, the momentary somberness feeling, even his bitter enemies, had been won over with patience. I could understand a good deal of what he meant. For one of the Baptist ministers of Philadelphia had said to me, with some shame, that at first he actually used to be the case that when Dr. Conwell would enter one of the regular ministers' meeting, all would hold a loop, not a single one stepping forward to meet or greet him. And it was through our jealousy of his success, said the minister vehemently. He has come to this city a stranger, and has one instant popularity. And we couldn't stand it. So we pounced upon things that he did that were altogether unimportant. The rest of us were so jealous of his winning throngs, that we wouldn't see the good in him. And it hurt Dr. Conwell so much that for ten years he did not come to our conferences. But all this was changed long ago.  And I don't believe that there has ever been a single time since he started coming again, that he has not been asked to say something to us. We got over our jealousy long ago, and we all love him. Nor is it only that the clergyman of his own denomination admire him. Not long ago, such having been Dr. Conwell's triumph in the city of his adoption, that the rector of the most powerful and aristocratic church in Philadelphia voluntarily paid lofty tribute to his aims and ability, his work and his personal worth. He is an inspiration to his brothers in the ministry of Jesus Christ. So this Episcopalian Lecter wrote, For he is a friend of all that is good in a foe that is all of evil, a strength to the weak, a comforter to the sorrowing, a man of God. These words came from the heart of one who loves honors and reverences him, for his character and his deeds. Dr. Conwell did some beautiful and unusual things in his church, instituted some beautiful and unusual customs, and one can see how narrow and hasty criticism charged him long ago with sensationalism. Charges long since forgotten, except through the hurt still felt by Dr. Conwell himself. They used to charge me with making a circus of the church, as if it were possible for me to make a circus of the church. And his tone was one that grieved amusement after all these years. But he was original and he was popular, and therefore there were misunderstandings and jealousy. His Easter services, for example, years ago, became widely talked of and eagerly anticipated, because each sermon would be wrought around some fine symbol, and he would hold in his hand, in the pulpit of Lou Robin's egg, or a white dove, or a stem of lilies, or whatever he had chosen as this particular symbol for the particular sermon. And that symbol would give him the central thought of his discourse, accented as it would be by the actual symbol of self in view of the congregation, the cross lighted by electricity to shine down over the baptismal pool, the little stream of water cascading gently down the steps of the pool during the baptismal right, the flowers floating in the pool, and his gift of one of them to each of the baptized, as he or she left the water. All things did seem long ago so unconventional, yet his own people recognize the beauty and poetry of them, and thousands of Bibles in Philadelphia have a baptismal rose from Dr. Conwell pressed within the pages, his constant individuality of mind, his constant freshness, alertness, brilliancy, warmth, sympathy, endearing to the congregation. And when he returns from an absence, they bubble with effervescence over him, as if he were some brilliant new preacher who had just come to them. He has always new to them. Were it not that he possesses some unremarkable quality of charm, he would long ago have become, so to speak, an old story. But instead of that, he is to them always a new story, an always entertaining and delightful story after all these years, that it is not only that they still throng to hear him either preach or lecture, though that himself would be noticeable. But it is the delightful and delighted spirit with which they do it. Just the other evening I heard him lecture in his own church, and just after his return from an absence, and every face being happily up to him to welcome him back home, and everyone listened so intently to his every word as if he had never been heard before. And when the lecture was over, a large bouquet of flowers was handed up to him, and someone embarrassly said a few words about its being, because he was home again. It was all that he had just returned from an absence of months, and he had just been away five and a half days. End of part eight. Part nine of Acres of Diamonds. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell. Part nine. Six. Millions of hearers.  One almost comes to think of his pastorate of a great church as even a minor matter besides the combined importance of his educational work, his lecture work, his hospital work, his work in general, as a helper to those who need help. For my own part, I should say that he is like some of the old time prophets, the strong ones who found a great deal to attend to in addition to the matters of religion, the power, the ruggedness, the physical and mental strength, the positive grandeur of the man. All these are like the general conceptions of the big old testament prophets. The suggestion is given only because it is often recurred, and therefore with the feeling that there is something more fanciful than the comparison, and yet after all the comparison fails in one important particular, for none of the prophets seems to have had a sense of humor. It is perhaps better and more accurate to describe him as the last of the old school of American philosophers, the last of those sturdy-bodied, high-thinking, achieving men who in the old days did their best to set American humanity on the right path. Such man as Emerson, Alcott, Go, Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Barard Taylor, Beecher, men who Conwell knew and admired in the long ago, and all of whom have long since passed away. And Conwell, in his going up and down the country, inspiring his thousands and thousands, is the survivor of that old-time group who used to travel about dispensing wit and wisdom and philosophy and courage to the crowded benches of country lyceums and the chairs of schoolhouses and town halls, or the larger and more pretentious gathering places of the city. Conwell himself is amused to remember that he wanted to talk in public from his boyhood, and that very early he began to yield to his inborn impulse. He laughs when he remembers the variety of country fairs and school commencements and anniversaries, and even sewing circles, where he tried his youthful powers, and all for experience alone, in the first few years, except for possibly such a thing as a ham or a jack-knife. The first money that he ever received for speaking was, so he remembers with glee, seventy-five cents, and even that was not for the talk, but for horse hire. But at the same time there is more than amusement in recalling those experiences, for he knows that they were invaluable to him as training. And for over half a century he has affectionately remembered John B. Go, who, in the height of his own power and success, saw resolution and possibilities in the ardent young hill man, and actually did him the kindness and the honor of introducing him to an audience in one of the Massachusetts towns. And it was really a great kindness and a great honor from a man who had won his fame to a young man who was just beginning his oratorical career. Conwell's lecturing had been considering everything, the most important work of his life. For by it he has come into close touch with so many millions, literally millions of people. I ask him once if he had any idea how many he had talked to in the course of his career. And he tried to estimate how many thousands of times he had lectured, and the average attendance for each. But destined when he saw that it ran into the millions of hearers.  I ask the same question of his private secretary, and found that no one ever kept any sort of record. But as careful an estimate as could be made gave a conservative result at fully eight million hearers of his lectures, and adding the number to whom he has preached, who have been over five million, there is a total of well over thirteen million who have listened to Russell Conwell's voice. And this staggering total is of anything an underestimate. The figuring was done cautiously and was based upon the facts that, as he now addresses an average of forty five hundred in his Sunday services, an average would be higher if it were not for his sermons in the vacation time or usually delivered in little churches. When at home, at the temple, he addresses three meetings every Sunday, and that he lectures throughout the entire course of each year, including sick nights a year, lecturing during vacation time. What a power is wielded by a man who has held over thirteen million people under the spell of his voice.  And the total is steadily mounting, for he is a man who has never known the meaning of rest. I think it is almost certain that Dr. Conwell has never spoken to any one of what, to me, is the finest point of his lecture work. And that is that he still goes gladly and for small fees to the small towns that are never visited by other men of great reputation. He knows that it is the little places, the out of way places, the submerged places, that most need the pleasure and a stimulus. And he still goes out, man of well over seventy that he is, to tiny towns in distant states. He lists of the discomforts of traveling, of the poor little hotels that seldom have visitors, of the oftentimes hopeless cooking, and the uncleanness of the hardship and the discomforts of the unventilated and overheated or underheated halls. He does not think of claiming the relaxation earned by a lifetime of labor, or, if he ever does, the thought of the sword of John Ring restores instantly to his fevered earnestness. How he does it, how he can possibly keep up is one of the greatest marvels of all. I have before me a list of his engagements for the summer weeks of the year, 1915, and I shall set it down, because it will specifically show far more clearly than the general statements of the kind of work he does. The list is the itinerary of his vacation, vacation lecturing every evening, but Sunday, and on Sunday preaching in the town where he happens to be. June 24th, Ackley, Iowa. July 11th, Brookings, South Dakota. 25th, Waterloo, Iowa. 12th, Pipestone, Minnesota. 26th, Decora, Iowa. 13th, Howard in Iowa. 27th, Walken, Iowa. 14th, Canton, South Dakota. 28th, Red Wing, Minnesota. 15th, Cherokee, Iowa. 29th, Red River Falls, Wisconsin. 16th, Pocahontas, Iowa. 30th, Northfield, Minnesota. 17th, Glidden, Iowa. July 1st, Faribault, Minnesota. 18th, Boone, Iowa. Second, Spring Valley, Minnesota. 19th, Dexter, Iowa. 3th, Blue Earth, Minnesota. 20th, Indianola, Iowa. 4th, Fairmont, Minnesota. 21st, Croydon, Iowa. 5th, Lake Crystal, Minnesota. 22nd, Essex, Iowa. 6th, Redwood Falls. 23rd, Sydney, Minnesota. 24th, Falls City, Nebraska. 7th, Wilmer, Minnesota. 25th, Hiawatha, Kansas. 8th, Dawson, Minnesota. 26th, Frankfurt, Kansas. 9th, Redfield, South Dakota. 27th, Greenleaf, Kansas. 10th, Huron, South Dakota. 28th, Osborn, Kansas. July 29th, Stockton, Kansas. August 14th, Honesdale, Pennsylvania. 30th, Phillipsburg, Kansas. 15th, Honesdale, Pennsylvania. 31st, Mankato, Kansas. 16th, Carbondale, Pennsylvania. In route to the next date on. 17th, Montrose, Pennsylvania. Circuit. 18th, Tocanic, Pennsylvania.  Preach on Sunday. And all these hardships, all this traveling and lecture, which would test the endurance of the youngest and strongest, this man of over 70 assumes without receiving a particle of personal gain. For every dollar, he makes by it is given away in helping those who need helping. The Dr. Conwell is immensely modest, is one of the curious features of his character. He sincerely believes that to write his life would be in the main, just to tell what people have done for him. He knows and admits that he works unwarredly, but in profound sincerity, he ascribes to success of his plans of those who have seconded and assisted him. It is just the way that he looks upon every phase of his life, when he is reminded of the devotion of his old soldiers. He remembers that only with a sort of pleased wonder that they gave the devotion to him, and quite forgets that they loved him because he was always ready to sacrifice, ease or risk his own life for them. He depreciates praise. If anyone likes him, the liking need not be shown in words, but in helping along a good work. That his church has succeeded has been because of the devotion of the people that the university have succeeded is because of the splendid work of the teachers and pupils, that the hospitals have done so much has been because of the noble services of physicians and nurses. To him as he himself expresses it, realizing that success has come to his plans, it seems as if the realities are but dreams. He is astonished by his own success. He thinks mainly of his own shortcomings. God and man have never been very patient with me. His depression is at times profound, when he compares the actual results with what he would like them to be. For always he hopes to have soaring far in advance of achievement, that is, the hitch your chariot to a star idea. His modesty goes hand in hand with kindness, and I have seen him let himself be introduced in his own church to his congregation when he is going to deliver a lecture there, just because a formal pupil of the university, who is present, con well know, is ambitious to say something inside the temple walls. And this seemed to be the only opportunity. I have noticed when he travels, that the face of the news boys brighten, as he buys a paper from him, that the porter is all happiness, the conductor and breakman are devotedly anxious to be of age. Everywhere the man wins love. He loves humanity and humanity responds to the love. He has always won the affection of those who knew him. Bayard Taylor is one of the many. He and Bayard Taylor loved each other for a long acquaintance and fellow experience as worldwide travelers. Back in the years when comparatively few Americans visited the Nile or the Orient or even Europe. When Taylor died there was a memorial service in Boston at which Conwell was asked to preside. And as he wished for something more than addresses, he went to Longfellow and asked him to write and read a poem for the occasion. Longfellow had not thought of writing anything, and he was too ill to be present at the services. But there was always doing something contagiously inspiring about Russell Conwell when he wishes something to be done. The poet promised he could do what he could. And he wrote and sent the beautiful lines beginning, dead he lie among his books. The peace of God was in his books. Many men of letters, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, were present at the service. And Dr. Conwell induced Oliver Wendell Holmes to read the lines. And they were listened to amid profound silence to the fine ending. Conwell in spite of his widespread hold on millions of people has never won fame, recognition, or general renown, compared with many men of minor achievements. This seems like an impossibility, yet it is not an impossibility but a fact. Great numbers of men of education and culture are entirely ignorant of him and his work in the world. Men these who deem themselves in touch with world affairs and with the ones who make and move the world. It is inexplicable this except that never was there a man more devoid of the faculty of self-exploitation, self-advertising than Russell Conwell. Nor is there a mere reading of him. Do his words appeal with anything like the force of the same words uttered by himself? For always with his spoken words is his personality. Those who have heard Russell Conwell or have known him personally recognize the charm of the man and his immense forcefulness. But there were many among them, those who control publicity through books and newspaper, who thought they ought to be in the warmest in their enthusiasm, have never felt drawn to hear him. And if they know him at all, think of him as one who pleases in the simple way the commoner folk, forgetting in their pride that every really great man pleases the common ones, and that simplicity and directness are attributes of real greatness. But Russell Conwell has always won the admiration of the really great, as well as the humbler millions. It is only a supposedly cultured class in between that has not thoroughly acquainted with what he has done. Perhaps, too, this is owing to his having cast in his lot with the city of all cities, which, consciously or unconsciously, looks most closely to family and place of resident as criterion of merit, a city in which it is almost impossible for a stranger to become affiliated, or a Philadelphia-tized, as might be expressed, and Philadelphia, in spite of all that Conwell has done, has been under the thrall of the fact that he went north of Market Street, that fatal fact understood by all who know Philadelphia, and that he made no efforts to make friends in Rittenhouse Square. Such considerations seem absurd in this twentieth century, but in Philadelphia there are still potent tens of thousands of Philadelphians love him, and he is honored by its greatest men. But there is a class of the pseudo-cultured who do not know him or appreciate him, and it needs also to be understood that, outside of his own beloved temple, he would prefer to go to a little church or a little hall, and to speak to the forgotten people in the hopes of encouraging and inspiring them, and filling them with a hopeful glow, rather than speak to the rich and comfortable. His dearest hope is one of the few who are close to him, told me, is that no one shall come into his life without being benefited. That he does not say this publicly, nor does for a moment believe that such a hope could be fully realized, but it is very dear to his heart, and no man spurred by such a hope, and thus bending all his thoughts toward the poor and hardworking, the unsuccessful, is in a way to win honor from the scribes. For we have scribes now that are quite as much when they were classed with the Pharisees, and it is not the first time in the world history that scribes have failed to give their recognition to one whose work is not among the great and wealthy, that Conwell himself has seldom taken any part whatever in politics except as good citizen standing for good government, that as he expresses it he has never held any political office except for he was once on a school committee, and he also does not identify himself with the so-called movements that from time to time catch public attention, but aims only to be consistently at the quiet betterment of mankind, may be mentioned as additional reasons why his name and fame have not been steadily blazoned. He knows and will admit that he works hard, and all of his life has worked hard. Things keep turning my ways because I am on the job as he whimsically expressed it one day, but that is about all so it seems to him, and he sincerely believes that his life in itself been without interest, that it has been an essentially commonplace life with nothing of the interesting or eventful to tell. So frankly surprised that there was even a desire to write about him, he really has no idea of how fascinating are the things that he has done. His entire life has been of positive interest from a variety of things accomplished, and the unexpectedness of which he has accomplished them. Never, for example, was there such an organizer. In fact, organization and leadership have always been as the breath of life to him. As a youth, he organized debating societies and before the war, a local military company. While on garrison duty in the Civil War, he organized what was believed to have been the first free school for colored children in the south. One day, Minneapolis happened to be spoken of and Conwell happened to remember that he organized. When he was a lawyer in that city, what would become the first YMCA branch there? And he even started a newspaper, and it was a natural that the organizing instinct as the years advanced should lead him to greater and greater things, such as his church with the numerous association form within itself. Therefore, his influence in the university, the organizing of the university, being itself an achievement of positive romance, a life without interest. Why, when I happened to ask one day how many presidents he had known since Lincoln, he replied quite casually that he had written the lives of most of them in their own homes. And by this he meant either personally or in collaboration with the American biographer Abbott. The many sideness of Conwell is one of the things that is always fascinating. After you have got the feeling that he is peculiarly a man of today lecturing on today's possibilities to the people of today, you happen once again some fact that he has attracted the attention of the London Times through a lecture on Italian history at Cambridge in England or that on the evening of the day on which he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, he gave a lecture in Washington on the curriculum of the prophets in ancient Israel. The man's life is a succession of delightful surprises. An odd trait of his character is his love for fire. He could have easily been a veritable fire worshiper instead of an orthodox Christian. He has always loved a blaze and he says reminiscently, for there is no single thing he was punished so much for as a child as building bonfires. And after securing possession, as he did in the middle age of a house where he was born and of the great acreage around, he had most of the enjoyable times of his life tearing down old buildings that needed to be destroyed and heaping up fallen trees and rubbish and piling in great heaps of wood and setting the great piles of blaze. You see it as one of those secrets of his strength. He has never lost the capacity for fiery enthusiasm, always to in these later years. He is showing his strength and enthusiasm in a positively noble way. He has for years been a keen sufferer from rheumatism and neuritis, but he has has never permitted it to interfere with his work or plans. He makes little of his suffering. And when he slowly makes his way bent and twisted downstairs, he does not want to be noticed. I'm all right, he will say if anyone offers to help. And at such a time comes his nearest approach to impatience. He wants his suffering ignored. Strength has always been to him so precious a belonging. He will not relinquish it while he lives. I'm all right. And he makes himself believe that he is all right, even though the pain becomes so severe as to demand massage. And he will still even when suffering talk calmly or write his letters or attend to whatever matters come before him. It is the Spartan boy hiding the pain from the knowing Fox. And he has never let pain interfere with his presence on the pulpit or the platform. He has once in a while gone to a meeting on crutches and then by the force of will be inspired by what he is about to do stood there before his audience and congregation, a man full of strength and fire and life. End of Part 9. Part 10 of Acres of Diamonds. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell. Part 10. 7. How a University Was Founded. The story of the foundation and rise of Temple University is an extraordinary story. It is not only extraordinary but inspiring. It is not only inspiring but full of romance. For the University came out of nothing, nothing but the need of a young man and the fact that he told the need to one who throughout his life felt the impulse to help anyone in need, and has always obeyed the impulse. I asked Dr. Conwell at his home in the Berkshires to tell me himself just how the University began, and he said it began because it was needed and succeeded of the loyal work of the teachers. And when I asked for details, he was silent for a while, looking off into the brooding twilight as it lie over the waters and the trees and the hills, and then he said, It was all so simple. It came about so naturally. One evening after a service a young man of the congregation came to me, and I saw that he was disturbed about something. I had him sit down by me, and knew that in the few moments he would tell me what was troubling him. Dr. Conwell, he said abruptly, I earn but little money, and I see no immediate chance of earning more. I have to support not only myself, but my mother. It leaves me nothing at all. Yet my longing is to be a minister. It is my one ambition in life. Is there anything that I can do? Any man, I said to him, with the proper determination and ambition, can study sufficiently at night to win his desire. I have tried to think so, said he, but I have not been able to see anything clearly. I want to study, and I am ready to give every spare minute to it. But I don't know how to get at it. I thought a few minutes, and I looked at him. He was strong in his desire, and in his ambition to fulfill it, strong enough physically and mentally, for work of the body and of the mind, and he needed something more than generalizations of sympathy. Come to me one evening a week, and I will begin teaching you myself, I said, and at least you will in that way make a beginning. And I named the evening. His face brightened, and he eagerly said that he would come and left me. But in a little while he came hurrying back and said, may I bring a friend with me, he said. I told him to bring as many as he wanted to, for more than one would be an advantage. And when the evening came, there were six friends with him, and that first evening I began to teach them the foundations of Latin. He stopped as if the story were over. He was looking out thoughtfully over the waning light, and I knew that his mind was busy in those days of the beginning of the institution he so loves. And whose continued success means so much to him. In a little while he went on. That was the beginning of it, and there was little more to tell. By the third evening the number of pupils had increased to forty. Others joined in helping me.  From a few students and teachers we became a college. After a while our buildings went up on Broad Street alongside the Temple Church. And after another while we became a university. From the first our aim. I notice how quickly it had become our instead of my. Our aim was to give an education to those who were unable to get it through the usual channels. And so that was really all there was to it. That was typical of Russell Conwell, to tell of brevity of what he has done, to point out the beginnings of something and quite omit to elaborate as to the results. And that when we come to know him as precisely what he means you to understand. That it is the beginning of anything that is important, and that if the thing is but earnestly begun, and you set it on the right way, it may just as easily develop the big results as little results. But his story was very far from being all there was to it. He had quite omitted to state the extraordinary fact that beginning with those seven pupils coming to his library in the evening in 1884, the Temple University has numbered up to the commencement time in 1950, 88,821 students, nearly 100,000 students, and in the lifetime of the founder. Really the magnitude of such a work cannot be exaggerated nor the vast importance of it when it is considered that most of those 88,000 students would not have received their education had it not been for Temple University. And it all came from the instant response of Russell Conwell to the immediate need presented by a young man without money. And there was something else I wanted to say, said Dr Conwell unexpectedly. I want to say more fully than a mere casual word how nobly the work was taken up by volunteer helpers, professors from the University of Pennsylvania and teachers from the public schools and other local institutions gave freely of what time they could until the new venture was firmly on its way. I honor those who came so devotedly to help. And it should be remembered that in those early days the need was even greater than it would now appear. For there were no night schools or manual training schools. Since then the city of Philadelphia has gone into such work. And as fast as it has taken up, certain branches, the Temple University, has put its energy into the branches just higher. And there seems no lessening of the need for it, he added, ponderingly. No, there is certainly no lessening of the need for it. The figures of the annual catalog would alone show that, as early as 1887, just three years after the beginning of the Temple College, as it was for the first time called, issued its first catalog, which set forth the stirring words that the intent of its foundation was to provide such instruction as shall best be adopted to the higher education of those who are compelled to labor at their trade while engaged in study, cultivate a taste for higher education and the most useful branches of learning, awaken the character of young laboring men and women, a determined ambition to be useful to their fellow man. The college, the university, as it is in time came to be, early broadened its scope. But it was from the first continued to aim at the needs of those unable to secure education without such hope as, through its methods, it affords. It was chartered in 1888, at which time its numbers reached almost six hundred, and it has ever had such a constant flood of applicants. It is demonstrated, as Dr. Conwell put it, that those who work for a living have time for study, and he thought he does not, himself, add this, has given the opportunity. He feels a special pride to the features by which lectures and resuscitations are held at practically any hour which best suits the convenience of the students, if any ten students join in a request for any hour from nine in the morning until ten at night a class is arranged for them, to meet that request. This involves the necessity for a much larger number of professors and teachers than otherwise would be necessary. But it is deemed a slight consideration in comparison with the immense good done by the meeting of the need of workers. Also, President Conwell, for of course, he is the president of the university, is proud of the fact that the privilege of graduation depends entirely upon knowledge gained, that graduation does not depend on having listened to any set number of lectures, or upon having attended for so many terms or years. If a student can do four years work in two years or three years, he is encouraged to do it. If he cannot do it in four, he can have no diploma. Obviously, there is no place at Temple University for students who care for only a few years of leisured ease. It is a place for workers, and not of all of those who merely wish to be able to boast that they attended a university. The students have come largely from among the railroad clerk, bank clerks, bookkeepers, teachers, preachers, mechanics, salesmen, drug clerks, city and United States government employees, widows, nurses, housekeepers, breakmen, firemen, engineers, motormen, conductors, and shophands. It was when the college became strong enough and sufficiently advanced in scholarship and standing, and brought enough in scope to win the name of university, that this title was officially granted to it by the State of Pennsylvania in 1907. And now its educational plan includes three distinct school systems. First, it offers a high school education to the student who has to quit school after leaving the grammar school. Second, it offers a full college education with the branches taught at long-established high grade colleges to the student who has quit on leaving the high school. Third, it offers further scientific or professional education to the college graduate who must go to work immediately on quitting college, but who wishes to take up some of the course such as law, medicine, or engineering. Out of last year's enrollment of 3,654, it is interesting to notice that the law claimed 141, theology 182, medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry combined 357, civil engineering 37. Also, that the teacher's college with normal courses on such subjects as household arts and science, kindergarten work, and physical education took 174. And still more interesting in a way to see that 269 students were enrolled for the technical and vocational courses, such as cooking and dressmaking, millinery, manual crafts, school gardening, and storytelling. There were 511 in high school work and 243 in elementary education. There were 79 studying music and 68 studying to be trained nurses. There were 606 in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Commercial Education. There were 987, for it is a university that offers both scholarship and practicality. Temple University is not in the least a charitable institution. Its fees are low, and its hours are for the convenience of the students themselves. But it is a place of absolute independence. It is indeed a place of far greater independence. So one of the professors pointed out, then are the great universities which received millions and millions of money in private gifts and endowment. Temple University in its early years was solely in need of money, and often there were thrills of expectancy when some man of mighty wealth seemed on the point of giving, but not a single one ever did. And now the temple likes to feel that it is glad of it. The temple, to quote in its own words, is an institution for strong men and women who can labor with both mind and body. And the management is proud to be able to say that although great numbers have come from distant places, not one of the many thousands ever failed to find an opportunity to support himself, even in the early days when money was needed for the necessary buildings, the buildings of which Conwell dreamed, and left the secondary doors in his church. The university, college as it was then called, had one devotion from those who knew that it was a place where neither time nor money was wasted, and where idleness was a crime and in the donations for the work were many such items as four hundred dollars from factory workers who gave fifty cents each, or two thousand dollars from policemen who gave a dollar each. Within two to three years past the state of Pennsylvania has begun giving in a large sum annually, and this state aid is public recognition of the temple university as an institute of high public value. The state money invested in the brains and hearts of the ambitious. So eager is Dr. Conwell to place the opportunity of education before everyone, that even his servants must go to school. He is not one of those who can see needs that are far away, but not those that are right at home. His belief in education and in the highest attainable education is profound, and it is not only on account of his abstract pleasure and value of education, but its power of increasing the actual earning power and thus making a worker of more value to both himself and the community. Many a men and women, while continuing to work for some firmer factory, has taken temple technical courses, and thus fitted himself or herself for the advanced position with the same employer. The temple has known of many such who have won prominent advancement, and it knows of teachers while continuing to teach, have fitted themselves through the temple courses or professorships, and it knows of many a case of the rise of the temple student that reads like an Arabian knight's fancy, of advance from bookkeeper to editor, from office boy to bank president, from kitchen maid to school principal, from street cleaner to mayor. The temple university helps them that helps themselves. President Conwell told me personally, of one case that especially interests him, because it seemed to exhibit, in a special degree, the temple possibilities, and it particularly interests me because it also showed in high degree the methods and personalities of Dr. Conwell himself. One day a young woman came to him and said she had earned only three dollars a week, and she desired very much to make more. Can you tell me how to do it, she said. He liked her ambition and her directness, but there was something he felt doubtful about, and that was that she looked too expensive for three dollars a week. Now, Dr. Conwell is a man, you would never suspect of giving a thought to the hat of a man or woman, but as a matter of fact there is very little that he does not see. But though that hat seemed too expensive for three dollars a week, Dr. Conwell is not a man who makes snap judgments harshly, and in particular he would be the last man to turn away hastily when who sought him out for help. He never felt nor could possibly urge upon anyone contentment with the humble lot. He stands for advancement. He has no sympathy with that dictum of the smug that has come to us from a nation tight bound for centuries by its gentry and aristocracy, about being contented with the position in which God has placed you, for he points out that the Bible itself holds up advancement and success as things desirable, and as the young woman before him developed through discreet inquiry, viled by frank discussion of her case, that she had made the expensive-looking hat herself, whereupon not only did all of the doubtfulness and hesitation vanish, but he saw at once that she could better herself. He knew that a woman who could make a hat like that herself could make hats for other people, and so go into millinery as a business, he advised. Oh, if only I could, she exclaimed, but I know that I don't know enough. Take the millinery course in Temple University, he responded. She had not even heard of such a course, and when he went on to explain that she could take it, and at the same time continue at her present work until the course was concluded, she was positively ecstatic. It was also unexpected, this opening of the view of a new and broader life. She was an unusual woman, concluded Dr. Conwell, and she worked with enthusiasm and tirelessness. She graduated, went to an upstate city that seemed to offer a good field, opened a millinery establishment there, and with her own name above the door became prestigious. It was only a few years ago, and recently I had a letter from her telling me last year she netted a clear profit of three thousand six hundred dollars. I remember a man himself of distinguished positions, saying of Dr. Conwell, it was difficult to speak in tempered language of what he has achieved, and that just expresses it. The temptation is to consistently use superlatives, for superlatives fit. And, of course, he has succeeded for himself and succeeded marvelily in his rise from the Rocky Hill farm. But he has done so vastly more than inspiring such hosts of others to succeed. A dreamer of dreams, a seer of visions, and what realizations have come. And it interested me profoundly not long ago when Dr. Conwell talking of the university unexpectedly remarked that he would like to see such institutions scattered throughout every state in the union. He carried on at slight expense to the students and at ours to suit all sorts of working men and women. He added after a pause and then abruptly, I should like to see the possibility of higher education offered to everyone in the United States who works for a living. There was something superb in this very imagining of such a nationwide system, but I did not ask whether or not he had planned any details of such an effort. I knew that thus far it might only be one of his dreams, but I also knew that his dreams had a way of becoming realities. I had a fleeting glimpse of his soaring vision. It was amazing to find a man of more than three score and ten, thus dreaming of more worlds to conquer. And I thought what could the world have accomplished if Methuselah had been a Conwell or far better? What wonders what could have been accomplished if Conwell could have been a Methuselah? He has all his life been a great traveler. He is a man who sees vividly and who can describe vividly, yet often his letters, even from places of the most profound interest, are mostly concerned with affairs back home. It is not that he does not feel and feel intensely the interest of what he is visiting, but that his tremendous earnestness keeps him always concerned about his work at home. There could be no stronger example than what I noticed in the letter he wrote from Jerusalem. I am in Jerusalem and here at Gethsemane and at the tomb of Christ. Reading thus far one expects that any man, and especially a minister, is sure to say something regarding the associations of the place and the effect of those associations on his mind. But Conwell is always the man who is different, and here at Gethsemane and at the tomb of Christ, I pray especially for the temple university. That is Conwellian, that he founded a hospital, a work in itself, great enough for even a great life, but it is among the most striking incidents of his career. And it came about through perfect naturalness, for he came to know through his pastoral work and through his growing acquaintance with the needs of the city that there was a vast amount of suffering and wretchedness and anguish, because of the inability of the existing hospitals to care for all who needed care. There was so much sickness and suffering to be alleviated. There were so many deaths that could be prevented. So he decided to start another hospital. And like everything with him, the beginning was small. That cannot too strongly be set down as a way of this phenomenally successful organizer. Most men would have to wait until a big beginning could be made. And so would most likely never make a beginning at all. But Conwell's way is to dream of the future business. But be ready to begin at once, no matter how small or insignificant the beginning may seem to others. Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient. That was the humble beginning in 1891 of what has developed into the Great Samaritan Hospital. In a year, there was an entire house fitted up with wards and operating rooms. Now it occupies several buildings, including and adjoining the first one, and a great new structure is planned. But even if it is, it has 170 beds, is fitted with all modern hospital appliances, and has a large staff of physicians, and the number of surgical operations performed there is very large. It is open to sufferers of any race or creed. And the poor never refused admission, the rule being the treatment is free for those who cannot pay. But that such as can afford it shall pay according to their means. And the hospital has a kindly feature that endears it to patients and their relatives alike. And that is that by Dr Conwell's personal order, that it is not only the usual weekday hours for visiting, but also one evening a week and one Sunday afternoon. For otherwise, as he says, many would be unable to come as they could not get away from their work. A little over eight years ago, another hospital was taken in charge, the Gerritzen, not founded by Conwell, this one, but acquired and promptly expanded in its usefulness. Both the Samaritan and the Gerritzen are part of Temple University. The Samaritan Hospital has treated since its foundation up to the middle of 1915, 29,301 patients. The Gerritzen and its shorter life, 5,923, including dispensary cases as well as house patients. The two hospitals alone under the headship of President Conwell have handled over 400,000 cases. How Conwell can possibly meet the multifarist designs upon his time is in itself a miracle. He is the head of a great church. He is the head of a university. He is the head of the hospitals. He is the head of everything with which he is associated. And he is not only, not only, but actively, the head. End of part 10.


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