iiiilliPilI'^iil:IPiit;ii 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
« Cornell University 
 B Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029452467 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
%cuJi /^<n'tu;t^ 
 
ACRES 
 OF DIAMONDS 
 
 BY 
 
 RUSSELL H. CONWELL 
 
 PRESIDENT OF TEMPLE UNIVEIKITY 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT SHACKLETON 
 
 WITH AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
Acres of Diamonds 
 
 Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Published October, 1915 
 
 M-Q 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 Acres of Diamonds 3 
 
 HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 I. The Story of the Sword 63 
 
 II. The Beginning at Old Lexington 76 
 
 III. Story of the Fifty-seven Cents 88 
 
 IV. His Power as Orator and Preacher .... 94 
 
 V. Gift for Inspiring Others 106 
 
 VI. Millions of Hearers 1x8 
 
 VII. How a University was Founded 132 
 
 VIII. His Splendid Efficiency 148 
 
 IX. The Story of "Acres of Diamonds" .... 160 
 Fifty Years on the Lecture Platform . . . 171 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Russell H. Conwell Frontistuce 
 
 The Berkshire School-house Where Conwell 
 
 Taught Faanep. 66 
 
 Present Appearance of the Old Conwell Home " 66 
 The Sword that Sth-l Inspires Russell 
 
 Conwell " 66 
 
 Beside the Grave of John Ring " 128 
 
 The Old Meeting-house Near the Conwell 
 
 Home " 128 
 
 Russell Conwell in the Civil War .... " 166 
 
AN APPRECIATION 
 
 Though Russell H. Conwell's Acres of Dia- 
 monds have been spread all over the United States, 
 time and care have made them more valuable, 
 and now that they have been reset in black and 
 white by their discoverer, they are to be laid in the 
 hands of a multitude for their enrichment. 
 
 In the same case with these gems there is a 
 fascinating story of the Master Jeweler's life-work 
 which splendidly illustrates the ultimate unit of 
 power by showing what one man can do in one 
 day and what one life is worth to the world. 
 
 As his neighbor and intimate friend in Phila- 
 delphia for thirty years, I am free to say that 
 Russell H. Conwell's tall, manly figure stands 
 out in the state of Pennsylvania as its first citizen 
 and "The Big Brother" of its seven millions of 
 people. 
 
 From the beginning of his career he has been a 
 credible witness in the Court of Public Works to 
 the truth of the strong language of the New 
 Testament Parable where it says, "If ye have 
 faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto 
 
this mountain, 'Remove hence to yonder place,' 
 
 AND IT SHALL REMOVE AND NOTHING SHALL BE 
 IMPOSSIBLE UNTO YOU." 
 
 As a student, schoolmaster, lawyer, preacher, 
 organizer, thinker and writer, lecturer, educator, 
 diplomat, and leader of men, he has made his 
 mark on his city and state and the times in which 
 he has lived. A man dies, but his good work lives. 
 
 His ideas, ideals, and enthusiasms have inspired 
 tens of thousands of lives. A book full of the 
 energetics of a master workman is just what every 
 young man cares for. 
 
 4^ 1<i(k. ^tO^np- 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
Friends. — This lecture has been delivered under these circum- 
 stances: I visit a town or city, and try to arrive there early 
 enough to see the postmaster, the barber, the keeper of the hotel, 
 the principal of the schools, and the ministers of some of the 
 churches, and then go into some of the factories and stores, and 
 talk with the people, and get into sympathy with the local con- 
 ditions of that town or city and see what has been their history, 
 what opportunities they had, and what they had failed to do — 
 and every town fails to do something — and then go to the lecture 
 and talk to those people about the subjects which applied to 
 their locality. "Acres of Diamonds" — the idea — has continu- 
 ously been precisely the same. The idea is that in this country 
 of ours every man has the opportunity to make more of himself 
 than he does in his own environment, with his own skill, with 
 his own energy, and with his own friends. 
 
 Russell H. Conwell. 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 WHEN going down the Tigris and Euphrates 
 rivers many years ago with a party of 
 English travelers I found myself under the direc- 
 tion of an old Arab guide whom we hired up at 
 Bagdad, and I have often thought how that guide 
 resembled our barbers in certain mental char- 
 acteristics. He thought that it was not only his 
 duty to guide us down those rivers, and do what he 
 was paid for doing, but also to entertain us with 
 stories curious and weird, ancient and modern, 
 strange and familiar. Many of them I have for- 
 gotten, and I am glad I have, but there is one I 
 shall never forget. 
 
 The old guide was leading my camel by its 
 halter along the banks of those ancient rivers, and 
 he told me story after story until I grew weary 
 
 This is the most recent and complete form of the lecture. 
 It happened to be delivered in Philadelphia, Dr. Conwell's 
 home city. When he says "right here in Philadelphia," he means 
 the home city, town, or village of every reader of this book, just 
 as he would use the name of it if delivering the lecture there, 
 instead of doing it through the pages which follow. 
 
 3 
 
ACRES Of diamonds 
 
 of his story-telling and ceased to listen. I have 
 never been irritated with that guide when he 
 lost his temper as I ceased listening. But I 
 remember that he took off his Turkish cap and 
 swung it in a circle to get my attention. I could 
 see it through the comer of my eye, but I deter- 
 mined not to look straight at him for fear he would 
 tell another story. But although I am not a 
 woman, I did finally look, and as soon as I did he 
 went right into another story. 
 
 Said he, "I will tell you a story now which I 
 reserve for my particular friends." When he 
 emphasized the words "particular friends," I lis- 
 tened, and I have ever been glad I did. I really 
 feel devoutly thankful, that there are 1,674 young 
 men who have been carried through college by 
 this lecttire who are also glad that I did listen. 
 The old guide told me that there once lived not 
 far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by 
 the name of AH Hafed. He said that Ali Hafed 
 owned a very large farm, that he had orchards, 
 grain-fields, and gardens; that he had money at 
 interest, and was a wealthy and contented man. 
 He was contented because he was wealthy, and 
 wealthy because he was contented. One day 
 there visited that old Persian farmer one of those 
 ancient Buddhist priests, one of the wise men of 
 the East. He sat down by the fire and told the 
 old farmer how this world of ours was made. 
 He said that this world was once a mere bank of 
 fog, and that the Aknighty thrust His finger into 
 
 4 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 this bank of fog, and began slowly to move His 
 finger arotind, increasing the speed until at last 
 He^whirled this bank of fog into a solid ball of 
 fire. Then it went rolling through the universe, 
 burning its way through other banks of fog, and 
 condensed the moisture without, tintil it fell in 
 floods of rain upon its hot surface, and cooled 
 the outward crust. Then the internal fires btust- 
 ing outward through the crust threw up the moun- 
 tains and hills, the valleys, the plains and prairies 
 of this wonderful world of ours. If this internal 
 molten mass came bursting out and cooled very 
 quickly it became granite; less quickly copper, 
 less quickly silver, less quickly gold, and, after 
 gold, diamonds were made. 
 
 Said the old priest, "A diamond is a congealed 
 drop of sunUght." Now that is Hterally scien- 
 tifically true, that a diamond is an actual deposit 
 of carbon from the sun. The old priest told Ali 
 Hafed that if he had one diamond the size of 
 his thumb he could purchase the county, and if 
 he had a mine of diamonds he could place his 
 children upon thrones through the influence of 
 their great wealth. 
 
 Ali Hafed heard all about diamonds, how much 
 they were worth, and went to his bed that night 
 a poor man. He had not lost anything, but he 
 was poor because he was discontented, and dis- 
 contented because he feared he was poor. He 
 said, "I want a mine of diamonds," and he lay 
 awake alftiight. 
 
 S 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Early in the morning he sought out the priest. 
 I know by experience that a priest is very cross 
 when awakened early in the morning, and when 
 he shook that old priest out of his dreams, AH 
 Hafed said to him: 
 
 "Wni you tell me where I can find diamonds?" 
 
 "Diamonds! What do you want with dia- 
 monds?" "Why, I wish to be immensely rich." 
 "Well, then, go along and find them. That is 
 all you have to do ; go and find them, and then 
 you have them." "But I don't know where to 
 go." "Well, if you will find a river that runs 
 through white sands, between high mountains, 
 in those white sands you will always find dia- 
 monds." "I don't believe there is any such 
 river." "Oh yes, there are plenty of them. All 
 you have to do is to go and find them, and then 
 you have them." Said AH Hafed, "I will go." 
 
 So he sold his farm, coUected his money, left 
 his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he 
 went in search of diamonds. He began his search, 
 very properly to my mind, at the Mountains of 
 the Moon. Afterward he came around into Pales- 
 tine, then wandered on into Europe, and at last 
 when his money was all spent and he was in 
 rags, wretchedness, and poverty, he stood on the 
 shore of that bay at Barcelona, in Spain, when 
 a great tidal wave came rolHng in between the 
 pillars of Hercules, and the poor, afflicted, suffer- 
 ing, dying man could not resist the awful tempta- 
 tion to cast himself into that incoming tide, and 
 
 6 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise 
 in this life again. 
 
 When that old guide had told me that awfully 
 sad story he stopped the camel I was riding on 
 and went back to fix the baggage that was coming 
 off another camel, and I had an opportunity to 
 muse over his story while he was gone. I remem- 
 ber saying to myself, "Why did he reserve that 
 story for his 'particular friends'?" There seemed 
 to be no beginning, no middle, no end, nothing 
 to it. That was the first story I had ever heard 
 told in my life, and would be the first one I ever 
 read, in which the hero was killed in the first 
 chapter. I had but one chapter of that story, 
 and the hero was dead. 
 
 When the guide came back and took up the 
 halter of my camel, he went right ahead with the 
 story, into the second chapter, just as though 
 there had been no break. The man who pur- 
 chased AH Hafed's farm one day led his camel 
 into the garden to drink, and as that camel put 
 its nose into the shallow water of that garden 
 brook, AU Hafed's successor noticed a cvuious 
 flash of light from the white sands of the stream. 
 He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light 
 reflecting all the hues of the rainbow. He took 
 the pebble into the house and put it on the mantel 
 which covers the central fires, and forgot all about 
 it. 
 
 A few days later this same old priest came in 
 to visit Ali Hafed's successor, and the moment 
 
 2 7 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 he opened that drawing-room door he saw that 
 flash of light on the mantel, and he rushed up 
 to it, and shouted : "Here is a diamond! HasAK 
 Hafed retiirned?" "Oh no, AH Hafed has not re- 
 turned, and that is not a diamond. That is noth- 
 ing but a stone we fotmd right out here in our 
 own garden." "But," said the priest, "I tell you 
 I know a diamond when I see it. I know posi- 
 tively that is a diamond." 
 
 Then together they rushed out into that old 
 garden and stirred up the white sands with their 
 fingers, and lo! there came up other more beau- 
 tiful and valuable gems than the first. "Thus," 
 said the guide to me, and, friends, it is historically 
 true, "was discovered the diamond-mine of Gol- 
 conda, the most magnificent diamond-mine in 
 all the history of mankind, excelling the Kimberly 
 itself. The Kohinoor, and the Orloff of the crown 
 jewels of England and Russia, the largest on earth, 
 came from that mine." 
 
 When that old Arab guide told me the second 
 chapter of his story, he then took off his Ttirldsh 
 cap and swung it around in the air again to get 
 my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides 
 have morals to their stories, although they are 
 not always moral. As he swung his hat, he said 
 to me, "Had Ali Hafed remained at home and dug 
 in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat- 
 fields, or in his own garden, instead of wretched- 
 ness, starvation, and death by suicide in a strange 
 land, he would have had 'acres of diamonds.* 
 
 8 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 For every acre of that old farm, yes, every shov- 
 elful, afterward revealed gems which since have 
 decorated the crowns of monarchs." 
 
 When he had added the moral to his story I 
 saw why'he reserved it for "his particular friends." 
 But I did not tell him I could see it. It was that 
 mean old Arab's way of going around a thing 
 Hke a lawyer, to say indirectly what he did not 
 dare say directly, that "in his private opinion 
 there was a certain young man then traveling down 
 the Tigris River that might better be at home in 
 America." I did not tell him I could see that, 
 but I told him his story reminded me of one, and 
 I told it to him quick, and I think I will tell it to 
 you. 
 
 I told him of a man out in California in 1847, 
 who owned a ranch. He heard they had discovered 
 gold in southern California, and so with a passion 
 for gold he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter, and 
 away he went, never to come back. Colonel 
 Sutter put a mill upon a stream that ran through 
 that ranch, and one day his little girl brought 
 some wet sand from the raceway into their home 
 and sifted it through her fingers before the fire, 
 and in that falling sand a visitor saw the first 
 shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered 
 in CaUfomia. The man who had owned that 
 ranch wanted gold, and he could have secured it 
 for the mere taking. Indeed, thirty-eight millions 
 of dollars has been taken out of a very few acres 
 since then. About eight years ago I delivered 
 
 9 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 this lecture in a city that stands on that farm, 
 and they told me that a one-third owner for years 
 and years had been getting one hundred and 
 twenty dollars in gold every fifteen minutes, 
 sleeping or waking, without taxation. You and 
 I woiild enjoy an income like that — if we didn't 
 have to pay an income tax. 
 
 But a better illustration really than that oc- 
 curred here in our own Pennsylvania. If there 
 is anything I enjoy above another on the plat- 
 form, it is to get one of these German audiences 
 in Pennsylvania before me, and fire that at them, 
 and I enjoy it to-night. There was a man hving 
 in Pennsylvania, not unhke some Pennsylvanians 
 you have seen, who owned a farm, and he did 
 with that farm just what I should do with a 
 farm if I owned one in Pennsylvania — he sold it. 
 But before he sold it he decided to secure employ- 
 ment collecting coal-oil for his cousin, who was 
 in the business in Canada, where they first dis- 
 covered oil on this continent. They dipped it 
 from the running streams at that early time. 
 So this Pennsylvania farmer wrote to his cousin 
 asking for employment. You see, friends, this 
 farmer was not altogether a foolish man. No, 
 he was not. He did not leave his farm until he 
 had something else to do. Of all the simpletons 
 the stars shine on I don't know of a worse one tlian 
 the man who leaves one job before he has gotten an- 
 other. That has especial reference to my profes- 
 sion, and has no reference whatever to a man 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 seeking a divorce. When he wrote to his cousin 
 for employment, his cousin replied, "I cannot 
 engage you because you know nothing about the 
 oil business." 
 
 Well, then the old farmer said, "I will know," 
 and with most commendable zeal (characteristic 
 of the students of Temple University) he set 
 himself at the study of the whole subject. He 
 began away back at the second day of God's 
 creation when this world was covered thick and 
 deep with that rich vegetation which since has 
 turned to the primitive beds of coal. He studied 
 the subject imtil he found that the drainings really 
 of those rich beds of coal ftu-nished the coal-oil 
 that was worth piunping, and then he found how 
 it came up with the Hving springs. He studied 
 until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, 
 tasted like, and how to refine it. Now said he 
 in his letter to his cousin, "I understand the oil 
 business." His cousin answered, "All right, 
 come on." 
 
 So he sold his farm, according to the county 
 record, for $833 (even money, "no cents"). He 
 had scarcely gone from that place before the man 
 who pvirchased the spot went out to arrange for 
 the watering of the cattle. He found the previous 
 owner had gone out years before and put a plank 
 across the brook back of the barn, edgewise into 
 the surface of the water just a few inches. The 
 purpose of that plank at that sharp angle across 
 the brook was to throw over to the other bank a 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 dreadful-looking scum through which the cattle 
 would not put their noses. But with that plank 
 there to throw it all over to one side, the cattle 
 would drink below, and thus that man who had 
 gone to Canada had been himself damming back 
 for twenty-three years a flood of coal-oil which the 
 state geologists of Pennsylvania declared to us 
 ten years later was even then worth a hundred 
 millions of dollars to our state, and four years ago 
 oiir geologist declared the discovery to be worth 
 to our state a thousand millions of dollars. The 
 man who owned that territory on which the city 
 of Titusville now stands, and those Pleasantville 
 valleys, had studied the subject from the second 
 day of God's creation clear down to the present 
 time. He studied it until he knew all about it, 
 and yet he is said to have sold the whole of it 
 for $833, and again I say, "no sense." 
 
 But I need another illustration. I found it in 
 Massachusetts, and I am sorry I did because that 
 is the state I came from. This young man in 
 Massachusetts furnishes just another phase of my 
 thought. He went to Yale College and studied 
 mines and mining, and became such an adept as 
 a mining engineer that he was employed by the 
 authorities of the university to train students who 
 were behind their classes. Dtiring his senior year 
 he earned $15 a week for doing that work. When 
 he graduated they raised his pay from $15 to $45 
 a week, and offered him a professorship, and as 
 soon as they did he went right home to his mother. 
 
 12 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Ij they had raised that boy's pay from $15 to $15.60 
 he would have stayed and been proud of the place, 
 but when they put it up to $45 at one leap, he said, 
 "Mother, I won't work for $45 a week. The idea 
 of a man with a brain like mine working for $45 
 a week! Let's go out in California and stake out 
 gold-mines and silver-mines, and be immensely- 
 rich." 
 
 Said his mother, "Now, Charlie, it is just as 
 well to be happy as it is to be rich." 
 
 "Yes," said Charlie, "but it is just as well to 
 be rich and happy, too." And they were both 
 right about it. As he was an only son and 
 she a widow, of course he had his way. They 
 always do. 
 
 They sold out in Massachusetts, and instead 
 of going to California they went to Wisconsin, 
 where he went into the employ of the Superior 
 Copper Mining Company at $15 a week again, 
 but with the proviso in his contract that he should 
 have an interest in any mines he should discover 
 for the company. I don't believe he ever discov- 
 ered a mine, and if I am looking in the face of any 
 stockholder of that copper company you wish 
 he had discovered something or other. I have 
 friends who are not here because they could not 
 afford a ticket, who did have stock in that com- 
 pany at the time this young man was employed 
 there. This young man went out there, and I 
 have not heard a word from him. I don't know 
 what became of him, and I don't know whether 
 
 13 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 he found any mines or not, but I don't believe 
 he ever did. 
 
 But I do know the other end of the Hne. He 
 had scarcely gotten out of the old homestead be- 
 fore the succeeding owner went out to dig potatoes. 
 The potatoes were already growing in the ground 
 when he bought the farm, and as the old farmer 
 was bringing in a basket of potatoes it hugged 
 very tight between the ends of the stone fence. 
 You know in Massachusetts our farms are nearly 
 all stone wall. There you are obHged to be very 
 economical of front gateways in order to have 
 some place to put the stone. When that basket 
 hugged so tight he set it down on the ground, 
 and then dragged on one side, and pulled on the 
 other side, and as he was dragging that basket 
 through this farmer noticed in the upper and 
 outer comer of that stone wall, right next the 
 gate, a block of native silver eight inches square. 
 That professor of mines, mining, and mineralogy 
 who knew so much about the subject that he 
 would not work for $45 a week, when he sold 
 that homestead in Massachusetts sat right on 
 that silver to make the bargain. He was bom 
 on that homestead, was brought up there, and 
 had gone back and forth rubbing the stone with 
 his sleeve until it reflected his countenance, and 
 seemed to say, "Here is a hundred thousand 
 dollars right down here just for the taking." 
 But he would not take it. It was in a home in 
 Newburyport, Massachusetts, and there was no 
 
 14 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 silver there, all away off — ^well, I don't know where, 
 and he did not, but somewhere else, and he was 
 a professor of mineralogy. 
 
 My friends, that mistake is very universally 
 made, and why should we even smile at him. I 
 often wonder what has become of him. I do not 
 know at all, but I will tell you what I "guess" 
 as a Yankee. I guess that he sits out there by his 
 fireside to-night with his friends gathered around 
 him, and he is saying to them something Hke this : 
 "Do you know that man Conwell who lives in 
 Philadelphia?" "Oh yes, I have heard of him." 
 "Do you know that man Jones that lives in 
 Philadelphia?" "Yes, I have heard of him, too." 
 
 Then he begins to laugh, and shakes his sides, 
 and says to his friends, "Well, they have done 
 just the same thing I did, precisely" — and that 
 spoils the whole joke, for you and I have done 
 the same thing he did, and while we sit here and 
 laugh at him he has a better right to sit out there 
 and laugh at us. I know I have made the same 
 mistakes, but, of course, that does not make any 
 difference, because we don't expect the same man 
 to preach and practise, too. 
 
 As I come here to-night and look around this 
 audience I am seeing again what through these 
 fifty years I have continually seen — men that are 
 making precisely that same mistake. I often wish 
 I could see the yotmger people, and would that the 
 Academy had been filled to-night with ovtx high- 
 school scholars and ovit grammar-school scholars, 
 
 IS 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 that I could have them to talk to. While I would 
 have preferred such an audience as that, because 
 they are most susceptible, as they have not grown 
 up into their prejudices as we have, they have 
 not gotten into any custom that they cannot 
 break, they have not met with any failtues as 
 we have; and while I could perhaps do such an 
 audience as that more good than I can do grown- 
 up people, yet I wiU do the best I can with the 
 material I have. I say to you that you have 
 "acres of diamonds" in Philadelphia right where 
 you now live. "Oh," but you will say, "you 
 cannot know much about your city if you think 
 there are any 'acres of diamonds' here." 
 
 I was greatly interested in that account in the 
 newspaper of the young man who found that 
 diamond in North Carolina. It was one of the 
 purest diamonds that has ever been discovered, 
 and it has several predecessors near the same 
 locality. I went to a distinguished professor in 
 mineralogy and asked him where he thought those 
 diamonds came from. The professor seciu-ed the 
 map of the geologic formations of our continent, 
 and traced it. He said it went either through the 
 underlying carboniferous strata adapted for such 
 production, westward through Ohio and the Mis- 
 sissippi, or in more probability came eastward 
 through Virginia and up the shore of the Atlantic 
 Ocean. It is a fact that the diamonds were there, 
 for they have been discovered and sold; and that 
 they were carried down there during the drift 
 
 i6 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 period, from some northern locality. Now who 
 can say but some person going down with his 
 drill in Philadelphia will find some trace of a dia- 
 mond-mine yet down here? Oh, friends! you can- 
 not say that you are not over one of the greatest 
 diamond-mines in the world, for such a diamond 
 as that only comes from the most profitable mines 
 that are found on earth. 
 
 But it serves simply to illustrate my thought, 
 which I emphasize by saying if you do not have 
 the actual diamond-mines Hterally you have all 
 that they would be good for to you. Because 
 now that the Queen of England has given the 
 greatest compHment ever conferred upon American 
 woman for her attire because she did not appear 
 with any jewels at all at the late reception in 
 England, it has almost done away with the use 
 of diamonds anyhow. All you would care for 
 would be the few you would wear if you wish 
 to be modest, and the rest you would sell for 
 money. 
 
 Now then, I say again that the opportunity 
 to get rich, to attain tmto great wealth, is here 
 in Philadelphia now, within the reach of almost 
 every man and woman who hears me speak to- 
 night, and I mean just what I say. I have not 
 come to this platform even under these circum- 
 stances to recite something to you. I have come 
 to tell you what in God's sight I believe to be the 
 truth, and if the years of life have been of any 
 value to me in the attainment of common sense, 
 
 17 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 I know I am right; that the men and women sit- 
 ting here, who found it difficult perhaps to buy 
 a ticket to this lecture or gathering to-night, have 
 within their reach "acres of diamonds," oppor- 
 tunities to get largely wealthy. There never was 
 a place on earth more adapted than the city of 
 Philadelphia to-day, and never in the history of 
 the world did a poor man without capital have 
 such an opportunity to get rich quickly and 
 honestly as he has now in oxa city. I say it is the 
 truth, and I want you to accept it as such; for 
 if you think I have come to simply recite some- 
 thing, then I would better not be here. I have no 
 time to waste in any such talk, but to say the 
 things I believe, and unless some of you get 
 richer for what I am saying to-night my time is 
 wasted. 
 
 I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your 
 duty to get rich. How many of my pious brethren 
 say to me, "Do you, a Christian minister, spend 
 your time going up and down the country advising 
 young people to get rich, to get money?" "Yes, 
 of course I do." They say, "Isn't that awful! 
 Why don't you preach the gospel instead of 
 preaching about man's making money?" "Be- 
 cause to make money honestly is to preach the 
 gospel." That is the reason. The men who get 
 rich may be the most honest men you find in the 
 community. 
 
 "Oh," but says some young man here to-night, 
 "I have been told all my life that if a person has 
 
 i8 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 money he is very dishonest and dishonorable and 
 mean and contemptible." My friend, that is 
 the reason why you have none, because you have 
 that idea of people. The foundation of your faith 
 is altogether false. Let me say here clearly, and 
 say it briefly, though subject to discussion which 
 I have not time for here, ninety-eight out of one 
 hundred of the rich men of America are honest. 
 That is why they are rich. That is why they are 
 trusted _with money. That is why they carry on 
 great enterprises and find plenty of people to 
 work with them. It is because they are honest 
 men. 
 
 Says another yoimg man, "I hear sometimes 
 of men that get millions of dollars dishonestly." 
 Yes, of course you do, and so do I. But they are 
 so rare a thing in fact that the newspapers talk 
 about them aU the time as a matter of news until 
 you get the idea that aU the other rich men got 
 rich dishonestly. 
 
 My friend, you take and drive me — ^if you fur- 
 nish the auto — out into the suburbs of Phila- 
 delphia, and introduce me to the people who own 
 their homes around this great city, those beautiful 
 homes with gardens and flowers, those magnificent 
 homes so lovely in their art, and I will introduce 
 you to the very best people in character as well as 
 in enterprise in ovii city, and you know I wiU. 
 A man is not really a true man until he owns his 
 own home, and they that own their homes are 
 made more honorable and honest and pure, and 
 
 19 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 true and economical and careftil, by owning the 
 home. 
 
 For a man to have money, even in large sums, 
 is not an inconsistent thing. We preach against 
 covetousness, and you know we do, in the pulpit, 
 and oftentimes preach against it so long and 
 use the terms about "filthy lucre" so extremely 
 that Christians get the idea that when we stand 
 in the pulpit we believe it is wicked for any man 
 to have money — until the collection-basket goes 
 around, and then we almost swear at the people 
 because they don't give more money. Oh, the 
 inconsistency of such doctrines as that! 
 
 Money is power, and you ought to be reason- 
 ably ambitious to have it. You ought because yoiT 
 can do more good with it than you could without 
 it. Money printed your Bible, money builds your 
 chtirches, money sends your missionaries, and 
 money pays your preachers, and you woiild not 
 have many of them, either, if you did not pay 
 them. I am always willing that my church should 
 raise my salary, because the church that pays the 
 largest salary always raises it the easiest. You 
 never knew an exception to it in your Hfe. The 
 man who gets the largest salary can do the most 
 good with the power that is furnished to him. 
 Of course he can if his spirit be right to use it 
 for what it is given to him. 
 
 I say, then, you ought to have money. If 
 you can honestly attain unto riches in Philadel- 
 phia, it is your Christian and godly duty to do so. 
 
 20 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 It is an awful mistake of these pious people to 
 think you must be awfully poor in order to be 
 pious. 
 
 Some men say, "Don't you sjrmpathize with 
 the poor people?" Of course I do, or else I would 
 not have been lecturing these years. I won't 
 give in but what I sympathize with the poor, but 
 the number of poor who are to be sympathized 
 with is very small. To sympathize with a man 
 whom God has punished for his sins, thus to help 
 him when God would still continue a just pvmish- 
 ment, is to do wrong, no doubt about it, and we 
 do that more than we help those who are deserv- 
 ing. While we shotdd sjonpathize with God's 
 poor — that is, those who cannot help themselves — 
 let us remember there is not a poor person in the 
 United States who was not made poor by his own 
 shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of some one 
 else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow. Let us 
 give in to that argument and pass that to one side. 
 
 A gentleman gets up back there, and says, 
 "Don't 5'^ou think there are some things in this 
 world that are better than money?" Of course I 
 do, but I am talking about money now. Of cotirse 
 there are some things higher than money. Oh 
 yes, I know by the grave that has left me standing 
 alone that there are some things in this world 
 that are higher and sweeter and purer than 
 money. Well do I know there are some things 
 higher and grander than gold. Love is the grand- 
 est thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover 
 
 21 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 who has plenty of money. Money is power, 
 money is force, money will do good as well as 
 harm. In the hands of good men and women it 
 could accomplish, and it has accomplished, good. 
 
 I hate to leave that behind me. I heard a 
 man get up in a prayer-meeting in our city and 
 thank the Lord he was "one of God's poor." 
 Well, I wonder what his wife thinks about that? 
 She earns all the money that comes into that 
 house, and he smokes a part of that on the veranda. 
 I don't want to see any more of the Lord's poor 
 of that kind, and I don't believe the Lord does. 
 And yet there are some people who think in order 
 to be pious you must be awfully poor and awfully 
 dirty. That does not follow at all. While we 
 sympathize with the poor, let us not teach a doc- 
 trine like that. 
 
 Yet the age is prejudiced against advising a 
 Christian man (or, as a Jew would say, a godly 
 man) from attaining unto wealth. The prejudice 
 is so universal and the years are far enough back, 
 I think, for me to safely mention that years ago 
 up at Temple University there was a young man 
 in our theological school who thought he was the 
 only pious student in that department. He came 
 into my office one evening and sat down by my 
 desk, and said to me: "Mr. President, I think it 
 is my duty sir, to come in and labor with you." 
 "What has happened now?" Said he, "I heard 
 you say at the Academy, at the Peirce School 
 commencement, that you thought it was an hon- 
 
 22 "-^^ 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 prable ambition for a young man to desire to have 
 wealth, and that you thought it made him temper- 
 ate, made him anxious to have a good name, and 
 made him industrious. You spoke about man's 
 ambition to have money helping to make him a 
 good man. Sir, I have come to tell you the Holy 
 Bible says that 'money is the root of all evil.'" 
 
 I told him I had never seen it in the Bible, 
 and advised him to go out into the chapel and get 
 the Bible, and show me the place. So out he went 
 for the Bible, and soon he stalked into my ofEce 
 with the Bible open, with all the bigoted pride 
 of the narrow sectarian, or of one who founds his 
 Christianity on some misinterpretation of Scrip- 
 ture. He flung the Bible down on my desk, and 
 fairly squealed into my ear: "There it is, Mr. 
 President; you can read it for yourself." I said 
 to him: "Well, young man, you will learn when 
 you get a little older that you cannot trust another 
 denomination to read the Bible for you. You be- 
 long to another denomination. You are taught in 
 the theological school, however, that emphasis is 
 exegesis. Now, will you take that Bible and read 
 it yourself, and give the proper emphasis to it?" 
 
 He took the Bible, and proudly read, "'The 
 love of money is the root of all evil.' " 
 
 Then he had it right, and when one does quote 
 aright from that same old Book he quotes the 
 absolute truth. I have lived through fifty years 
 of the mightiest battle that old Book has ever 
 fought, and I have lived to see its banners fljong 
 
 3 23 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 free; for never in the history of this world did 
 the great minds of earth so tiniversally agree 
 that the Bible is true — all true — as they do at 
 this very hour. 
 
 So I say that when he quoted right, of course 
 he quoted the absolute truth. "The love of 
 money is the root of all evil." He who tries to 
 attain unto it too qmckly, or dishonestly, wiU 
 fall into many snares, no doubt about that. The 
 love of money. What is that? It is making an 
 idol of money, and idolatry pure and simple every- 
 where is condemned by the Holy Scriptures and 
 by man's common sense. The man that worships 
 the dollar instead of thinking of the purposes for 
 which it ought to be used, the man who idolizes 
 simply money, the miser that hordes his money 
 in the cellar, or hides it in his stocking, or refuses 
 to invest it where it will do the world good, that 
 man who hugs the dollar tmtil the eagle squeals 
 has in him the root of all evil. 
 
 I think I will leave that behind me now and 
 answer the question of nearly all of you who are 
 asking, "Is there opportunity to get rich in Phila- 
 delphia?" Well, now, how simple a thing it is 
 to see where it is, and the instant you see where 
 it is it is yours. Some old gentleman gets up back 
 there and says, "Mr. Conwell, have you lived in 
 Philadelphia for thirty-one years and don't know 
 that the time has gone by when you can make 
 anything in this city?" "No, I don't think it is." 
 "Yes, it is; I have tried it." "What business 
 
 24 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 are you in?" "I kept a store here for twenty 
 years, and never made over a thousand dollars 
 in the whole twenty years." 
 
 "Well, then, you can measure the good you 
 have been to this city by what this city has paid 
 you, because a man can judge very well what he 
 is worth by what he receives; that is, in what he 
 is to the world at this time. If you have not made 
 over a thousand dollars in twenty years in Phila- 
 delphia, it would have been better for Philadelphia 
 if they had kicked you out of the city nineteen 
 years and nine months ago. A man has no right 
 to keep a store in Philadelphia twenty years and 
 not make at least five hundred thousand dollars, 
 even though it be a corner grocery up- town." 
 You say, "You cannot make five thousand dol- 
 lars in a store now." Oh, my friends, if you will 
 just take only four blocks around you, and find 
 out what the people want and what you ought 
 to supply and set them down with your pencil, 
 and figure up the profits you would make if you 
 did supply them, you would very soon see it. 
 There is wealth right within the sound of yoiur 
 voice. 
 
 Some one says: "You don't know anything 
 about business. A preacher never knows a thing 
 about business." Well, then, I wiU have to prove 
 that I am an expert. I don't like to do this, but 
 I have to do it because my testimony will not be 
 taken if I am not an expert. My father kept a 
 country store, and if there is any place under the 
 
 25 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 stars where a man gets all sorts of experience in 
 every kind of mercantile transactions, it is in the 
 country store. I am not proud of my experience, 
 but sometimes when my father was away he woiild 
 leave me in charge of the store, though fortunately 
 for him that was not very often. But this did 
 occur many times, friends: A man would come 
 in the store, and say to me, "Do you keep jack- 
 knives?" "No, we don't keep jack-knives," and 
 I went off whistling a tune. What did I care 
 about that man, anyhow? Then another farmer 
 would come in and say, "Do you keep jack- 
 knives?" "No, we don't keep jack-knives." 
 Then I went away and whistled another tune. 
 Then a third man came right in the same door and 
 said, "Do you keep jack-knives?" "No. Why 
 is every one arotmd here asking for jack-knives? 
 Do you suppose we are keeping this store to sup- 
 ply the whole neighborhood with jack-knives?" 
 Do you carry on your store like that in Philadel- 
 phia? The difficulty was I had not then learned 
 that the foundation of godliness and the founda- 
 tion principle of success in business are both the 
 same precisely. The man who says, "I cannot 
 carry my religion into business" advertises himself 
 either as being an imbecile in business, or on the 
 road to bankruptcy, or a thief, one of the three, 
 sure. He will fail within a very few years. He 
 certainly will if he doesn't carry his reUgion into 
 business. If I had been carrying on my father's 
 store on a Christian plan, godly plan, I would 
 
 26 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 have had a iack-knife for the third man when 
 he called for it. Then I would have actually done 
 him a kindness, and I would have received a 
 reward myself, which it would have been my 
 duty to take. 
 
 There are some over-pious Christian people who 
 think if you take any profit on anjrthing you sell 
 that you are an unrighteous man. On the con- 
 trary, you wotdd be a criminal to sell goods for 
 less than they cost. You have no right to do 
 that. You cannot trust a man with your money 
 who cannot take care of his own. You cannot 
 trust a man in your family that is not true to his 
 own wife. You cannot trust a man in the world 
 that does not begin with his own heart, his own 
 character, and his own life. It would have been 
 my duty to have furnished a jack-knife to the 
 third man, or the second, and to have sold it to 
 him and actually profited myself. I have no more 
 right to sell goods without making a profit on 
 them than I have to overcharge him dishonestly 
 beyond what they are worth. But I should so 
 sell each bill of goods that the person to whom 
 I seU shall make as much as I make. 
 
 To Kve and let live is the principle of the 
 gospel, and the principle of every-day common 
 sense. Oh, young man, hear me; Hve as you go 
 along. Do not wait until you have reached my 
 years before you begin to enjoy anything of this 
 Hfe. If I had the millions back, or fifty cents of 
 it, which I have tried to earn in these years, it 
 
 27 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 would not do me anything like the good that it 
 does me now in this almost sacred presence to- 
 night. Oh, yes, I am paid over and over a htm- 
 dredfold to-night for dividing as I have tried to 
 do in some measure as I went along through the 
 years. I ought not speak that way, it sounds ego- 
 tistic, but I am old enough now to be excused for 
 that. I should have helped my fellow-men, which 
 I have tried to do, and every one should try to do, 
 and get the happiness of it. The man who goes 
 home with the sense that he has stolen a dollar 
 that day, that he has robbed a man of what was his 
 honest due, is not going to sweet rest. He arises 
 tired in the morning, and goes with an unclean 
 conscience to his work the next day. He is not a 
 successful man at all, although he may have 
 laid up millions. But the man who has gone 
 through life dividing always with his fellow-men, 
 making and demanding his own rights and his 
 own profits, and giving to every other man his 
 rights and profits, lives every day, and not only 
 that, but it is the royal road to great wealth. 
 The history of the thousands of millionaires shows 
 that to be the case. 
 
 The man over there who said he could not make 
 anything in a store in Philadelphia has been car- 
 rying on his store on the wrong principle. Sup- 
 pose I go into your store to-morrow morning and 
 ask, "Do you know neighbor A, who hves one 
 square away, at house No. 1240?" "Oh yes, 
 I have met him. He deals here at the comer 
 
 28 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 store." "Where did he come from?" "I don't 
 know. " " How many does he have in his family ? ' ' 
 "I don't know." "What ticket does he vote?" 
 "I don't know." "What church does he go to?" 
 "I don't know, and don't care. What are you 
 asking all these questions for?" 
 
 If you had a store in Philadelphia would you 
 answer me Hke that? If so, then you are con- 
 ducting your business just as I carried on my 
 father's business in Worthington, Massachusetts. 
 You don't know where your neighbor came from 
 when he moved to Philadelphia, and you don't 
 care. If you had cared you would be a rich man 
 now. If you had cared enough about him to take 
 an interest in his affairs, to find out what he needed, 
 you would have been rich. But you go through 
 the world sajdng, "No opportunity to get rich," 
 and there is the fault right at your own door. 
 
 But another young man gets up over there 
 and says, "I cannot take up the mercantile busi- 
 ness." (While I am talking of trade it applies 
 to every occupation.) "Why can't you go into 
 the mercantile business?" "Because I haven't 
 any capital." Oh, the weak and dudish creatiu-e 
 that can't see over its collar! It makes a person 
 weak to see these little dudes standing around 
 the comers and saying, "Oh, if I had plenty of 
 capital, how rich I would get." "Young man, 
 do you think you are going to get rich on capital?" 
 "Certainly." Well, I say, "Certainly not." If 
 your mother has plenty of money, and she will 
 
 29 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 set you up in business, you will "set her up in 
 business," supplying you with capital. 
 
 The moment a yoimg man or woman gets more 
 money than he or she has grown to by practical 
 experience, that moment he has gotten a curse. 
 It is no help to a young man or woman to inherit 
 money. It is no help to your children to leave 
 them money, but if you leave them education, 
 if you leave them Christian and noble character, 
 if you leave them a wide circle of friends, if you 
 leave them an honorable name, it is far better 
 than that they should have money. It wotild be 
 worse for them, worse for the nation, that they 
 should have any money at all. Oh, young man, if 
 you have inherited money, don't regard it as a 
 help. It will curse you through your years, and 
 deprive you of the very best things of human 
 life. There is no class of people to be pitied so 
 much as the inexperienced sons and daughters of 
 the rich of our generation. I pity the rich man's 
 son. He can never know the best things in life. 
 
 One of the best things in our life is when a 
 young man has earned his own living, and when 
 he becomes engaged to some lovely young woman, 
 and makes up his mind to have a home of his 
 own. Then with that same love comes also that 
 divine inspiration toward better things, and he 
 begins to save his money. He begins to leave off 
 his bad habits and put money in the bank. When 
 he has a few hundred dollars he goes out in the 
 suburbs to look for a home. He goes to the 
 
 30 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 savings-bank, perhaps, for half of the value, and 
 then goes for his wife, and when he takes his bride 
 over the threshold of that door for the first time 
 he says in words of eloquence my voice can never 
 touch: "I have earned this home myself. It 
 is aU mine, and I divide with thee." That is 
 the grandest moment a htiman heart may ever 
 know. 
 
 But a rich man's son can never know that. 
 He takes his bride into a finer mansion, it may be, 
 but he is obUged to go all the way through it 
 and say to his wife, "My mother gave me that, 
 my mother gave me that, and my mother gave 
 me this," tmtil his wife wishes she had married 
 his mother. I pity the rich man's son. 
 
 The statistics of Massachusetts showed that 
 not one rich man's son out of seventeen ever dies 
 rich. I pity the rich man's sons tmless they have 
 the good sense of the elder Vanderbilt, which some- 
 times happens. He went to his father and said, 
 "Did you earn all your money?" "I did, my son. 
 I began to work on a ferry-boat for twenty-five 
 cents a day." "Then," said his son, "I will have 
 none of yoiu" money," and he, too, tried to get 
 employment on a ferry-boat that Sattirday night. 
 He could not get one there, but he did get a place 
 for three doUars a week. Of course, if a rich man's 
 son win do that, he will get the discipline of a poor 
 boy that is worth more than a university education 
 to any man. He would then be able to take care 
 of the milUons of his father. But as a rule the 
 
 31 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 rich men will not let their sons do the very thing 
 that made them great. As a rule, the rich man 
 will not allow his son to work — and his mother! 
 Why, she would think it was a social disgrace 
 if her poor, weak, httle lily-fingered, sissy sort of 
 a boy had to earn his living with honest toil. I 
 have no pity for such rich men's sons. 
 
 I remember one at Niagara Falls. I think 
 I remember one a great deal nearer. I think 
 there are gentlemen present who were at a great 
 banquet, and I beg pardon of his friends. At a 
 banquet here in Philadelphia there sat beside me 
 a kind-hearted young man, and he said, "Mr. 
 Con well, you have been sick for two or three years. 
 When you go out, take my limousine, and it will 
 take you up to your house on Broad Street." 
 I thanked him very much, and perhaps I ought 
 not to mention the incident in this way, but I 
 follow the facts. I got on to the seat with the 
 driver of that limousine, outside, and when we 
 were going up I asked the driver, "How much 
 did this limousine cost?" "Six thousand eight 
 hundred, and he had to 'pay the duty on it." 
 "Well," I said, "does the owner of this machine 
 ever drive it himself?" At that the chauffeiir 
 laughed so heartily that he lost control of his ma- 
 chine. He was so surprised at the question that 
 he ran up on the sidewalk, and around a comer 
 lamp-post out into the street again. And when he 
 got out into the street he laughed till the whole 
 machine trembled. He said: "He drive this ma- 
 
 32 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 chine ! Oh, he would be lucky if he knew enough 
 to get out when we get there." 
 
 I must tell you about a rich man's son at 
 Niagara Falls. I came in from the lecture to the 
 hotel, and as I approached the desk of the clerk 
 there stood a millionaire's son from New York. 
 He was an indescribable specimen of anthro- 
 pologic potency. He had a skull-cap on one side 
 of his head, with a gold tassel in the top of it, and 
 a gold-headed cane under his arm with more in 
 it than in his head. It is a very difficult thing 
 to describe that young man. He wore an eye- 
 glass that he could not see through, patent- 
 leather boots that he could not walk in, and pants 
 that he could not sit down in — dressed like a 
 grasshopper. This human cricket came up to the 
 clerk's desk just as I entered, adjusted his un- 
 seeing eye-glass, and spake in this wise to the clerk. 
 You see, he thought it was "Hinglish, you know, " 
 to Usp. "Thir, will you have the kindness to 
 supply me with thome papah and enwelophs!" 
 The hotel clerk measiured that man quick, and 
 he ptilled the envelopes and paper out of a drawer, 
 threw them across the counter toward the yoting 
 man, and then turned away to his books. You 
 should have seen that young man when those 
 envelopes came across that coimter. He swelled 
 up Hke a gobbler turkey, adjusted his unseeing eye- 
 glass, and yeUed: "Come right back here. Now 
 thir, will you order a thervant to take that papah 
 and enwelophs to yondah dethk." Oh, the poor, 
 
 33 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 miserable, contemptible American monkey! He 
 could not carry paper and envelopes twenty feet. 
 I suppose he could not get his arms down to do 
 it. I have no pity for such travesties upon htunam 
 nature. If you have not capital, young man, I 
 am glad of it. What you need is common sense, 
 not copper cents. 
 
 The best thing I can do is to illustrate by actual 
 facts well-known to you all. A. T. Stewart, a 
 poor boy in New York, had $1.50 to begin life on. 
 He lost 87^2 cents of that on the very first venture. 
 How fortunate that young man who loses the 
 first time he gambles. That boy said, "I will 
 never gamble again in business," and he never 
 did. How came he to lose 8 7>^ cents ? You prob- 
 ably all know the story how he lost it — because 
 he bought some needles, threads, and buttons to 
 sell which people did not want, and had them left 
 on his hands, a dead loss. Said the boy, "I will 
 not lose any more money in that way." Then he 
 went around first to the doors and asked the peo- 
 ple what they did want. Then when he had found 
 out what they wanted he invested his 62 j4 
 cents to supply a known demand. Study it wher- 
 ever you choose— in business, in yoiur profession, 
 in your housekeeping, whatever your life, that 
 one thing is the secret of success. You must 
 first know the demand. You must first know 
 what people need, and then invest yourself where 
 you are most needed. A. T. Stewart went on 
 that principle until he was worth what amounted 
 
 34 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 afterward to forty millions of dollars, owning 
 the very store in which Mr. Wanamaker carries 
 on his great work in New York. His fortune was 
 made by his losing something, which taught him 
 the great lesson that he must only invest himself 
 or his money in something that people need. 
 When will you salesmen learn it? When will 
 you manufacturers learn that you must know the 
 changing needs of humanity if you would succeed 
 in life? Apply yourselves, all you Christian peo- 
 ple, as manufacturers or merchants or workmen 
 to supply that htunan need. It is a great principle 
 as broad as humanity and as deep as the Scripture 
 itself. 
 
 The best illustration I ever heard was of John 
 Jacob Astor. You know that he made the money 
 of the Astor family when he Hved in New York. 
 He came across the sea in debt for his fare. But 
 that poor boy with nothing in his pocket made the 
 fortune of the Astor family on one principle. 
 Some young man here to-night will say, "Well, 
 they could make those fortunes over in New York, 
 but they could not do it in Philadelphia!" My 
 friends, did you ever read that wonderful book of 
 Riis (his memory is sweet to us because of his 
 recent death), wherein is given his statistical 
 account of the records taken in 1889 of 107 mill- 
 ionaires of New York. If you read the account 
 you will see that out of the 107 millionaires only 
 seven made their money in New York. Out 
 of the 107 millionaires worth ten million dollars 
 
 35 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 in real estate then, 67 of them made their money 
 in towns :of less than 3,500 inhabitants. The 
 richest man in this country to-day, if you read 
 the real-estate values, has never moved away from 
 a town of 3,500 inhabitants. It makes not so 
 much difference where you are as who you are. 
 But if you cannot get rich in Philadelphia you 
 certainly cannot do it in New York. 
 
 Now John Jacob Astor illustrated what can 
 be done anywhere. He had a mortgage once on 
 a millinery-store, and they covld not sell bonnets 
 enough to pay the interest on his money. So 
 he foreclosed that mortgage, took possession of 
 the store, and went into partnership with the very 
 same people, in the same store, with the same 
 capital. He did not give them a dollar of capital. 
 They had to sell goods to get any money. Then 
 he left them alone in the store just as they had 
 been before, and he went out and sat down on 
 a bench in the park in the shade. What was 
 John Jacob Astor doing out there, and in partner- 
 ship with people who had failed on his own hands? 
 He had the most important and, to my mind, the 
 most pleasant part of that partnership on his 
 hands. For as John Jacob Astor sat on that bench 
 he was watching the ladies as they went by; 
 and where is the man who would not get rich at 
 that business? As he sat on the bench if a lady 
 passed him with her shoulders back and head 
 up, and looked straight to the front, as if she 
 did not care if all the world did gaze on her, then 
 
 36 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 he studied her bonnet, and by the time it was 
 out of sight he knew the shape of the frame, the 
 color of the trimmings, and the crinklings in the 
 feather. I sometimes try to describe a bonnet, 
 but not always. I would not try to describe a 
 modem bonnet. Where is the man that could 
 describe one? This aggregation of all sorts of 
 driftwood stuck on the back of the head, or the 
 side of the neck, like a rooster with only one tail 
 feather left. But in John Jacob Astor's day there 
 was some art about the millinery business, and 
 he went to the miUinery-store and said to them: 
 "Now put into the show-window just such a 
 bonnet as I describe to you, because I have already 
 seen a lady who Hkes such a bonnet. Don't make 
 up any more until I come back." Then he went 
 out and sat down again, and another lady passed 
 him of a different form, of different complexion, 
 with a different shape and color of bonnet. ' ' Now, ' ' 
 said he, "put such a bonnet as that in the show- 
 window." He did not fill his show-window up- 
 town with a lot of hats and bonnets to drive 
 people away, and then sit on the back stairs and 
 bawl because people went to Wanamaker's to 
 trade. He did not have a hat or a bonnet in that 
 show-window but what some lady liked before 
 it was made up. The tide of custom began imme- 
 diately to turn in, and that has been the founda- 
 tion of the greatest store in New York in that line, 
 and still exists as one of three stores. Its forttme 
 was made by John Jacob Astor after they had 
 
 37 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 failed in business, not by giving them any more 
 money, but by finding out what the ladies liked 
 for bonnets before they wasted any material in 
 making them up. I tell you if a man could fore- 
 see the millinery business he could foresee any- 
 thing under heaven ! 
 
 Suppose I were to go through this audience 
 to-night and ask you in this great mamafacturing 
 city if there are not opportunities to get rich in 
 manufacturing. "Oh yes," some young man says, 
 "there are opportunities here still if you build 
 with some trust and if you have two or three 
 millions of dollars to begin with as capital." 
 Young man, the history of the breaking up of the 
 trusts by that attack upon ' ' big business ' ' is only 
 illustrating what is now the opportunity of the 
 smaller man. The time never came in the history 
 of the world when you could get rich so quickly 
 manufactiiring without capital as you can now. 
 
 But you will say, "You cannot do anything 
 of the kind. You cannot start without capital." 
 Young man, let me illustrate for a moment. I 
 must do it. It is my duty to every young man and 
 woman, because we are aU going into business 
 very soon on the same plan. Young man, remem- 
 ber if you know what people need you have 
 gotten more knowledge of a fortune than any 
 amount of capital can give you. 
 
 There was a poor man out of work living in 
 Hingham, Massachusetts. He lotmged around the 
 house until one day his wife told him to get out 
 
 38 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 and work, and, as he lived in Massachusetts, he 
 obeyed his wife. He went out and sat down on 
 the shore of the bay, and whittled a soaked 
 shingle into a wooden chain. His children that 
 evening quarreled over it, and he whittled a 
 second one to keep peace. While he was whittling 
 the second one a neighbor came in and said: 
 "Why don't you whittle toys and sell them? You 
 could make money at that." "Oh," he said, "I 
 would not know what to make." "Why don't 
 you ask your own children right here in your 
 own house what to make?" "What is the use 
 of trjang that?" said the carpenter. "My chil- 
 dren are different from other people's children." 
 (I used to see people Uke that when I taught 
 school.) But he acted upon the hint, and the 
 next morning when Mary came down the stair- 
 way, he asked, "What do you want for a toy?" 
 She began to tell him she would like a doll's bed, 
 a doll's washstand, a doll's carriage, a little doll's 
 umbrella, and went on with a Hst of things that 
 would take him a lifetime to supply. So, consult- 
 ing his own children, in his own house, he took 
 the firewood, for he had no money to buy lumber, 
 and whittled those strong, unpainted Hingham 
 toys that were for so many years known all over 
 the world. That man began to make those toys 
 for his own children, and then made copies and 
 sold them through the boot-and-shoe store next 
 door. He began to make a little money, and then 
 a little more, and Mr. Lawson, in his Frenzied. 
 4 39 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Finance says that man is the richest man in old 
 Massachusetts, and I think it is the truth. And 
 that man is worth a hundred milHons of dollars 
 to-day, and has been only thirty-four years mak- 
 ing it on that one principle— that one must judge 
 that what his own children like at home other 
 people's children would like in their homes, too; 
 to judge the htiman heart by oneself, by one's 
 wife or by one's children. It is the royal road to 
 success in manufacturing. "Oh," but you say, 
 "didn't he have any capital?" Yes, a penknife, 
 but I don't know that he had paid for that. 
 
 I spoke thus to an audience in New Britain, 
 Connecticut, and a lady four seats back went home 
 and tried to take off her collar, and the collar- 
 button stuck in the buttonhole. She threw it 
 out and said, "I am going to get up something 
 better than that to put on collars." Her husband 
 said: "After what Conwell said to-night, you see 
 there is a need of an improved collar-fastener that 
 is easier to handle. There is a human need; 
 there is a great fortune. Now, then, get up a 
 collar-button and get rich." He made fun of her, 
 and consequently made fun of me, and that is 
 one of the saddest things which comes over me 
 like a deep cloud of midnight sometimes — although 
 I have worked so hard for more than half a cen- 
 tury, yet how little I have ever really done. 
 Notwithstanding the greatness and the hand- 
 someness of your compliment to-night, I do not 
 believe there is one in ten of you that is going to 
 
 40 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 make a million of dollars because you are here 
 to-night; but it is not my fatilt, it is yours. I 
 say that sincerely. What is the use of my talking 
 if people never do what I advise them to do? 
 When her husband ridiculed her, she made up her 
 mind she woxdd make a better collar-button, and 
 when a woman makes up her mind "she will," 
 and does not say anything about it, she does it. 
 It was that New England woman who invented 
 the snap button which you can find anywhere 
 now. It was first a collar-button with a spring 
 cap attached to the outer side. Any of you who 
 wear modem waterproofs know the button that 
 simply pushes together, and when you tinbutton 
 it you simply ptill it apart. That is the button 
 to which I refer, and which she invented. She 
 afterward invented several other buttons, and 
 then invested in more, and then was taken into 
 partnership wath great factories. Now that woman 
 goes over the sea every summer in her private 
 steamship — yes, and takes her husband with her! 
 If her husband were to die, she would have money 
 enough left now to buy a foreign duke or count 
 or some such title as that at the latest quotations. 
 
 Now what is my lesson in that incident? It 
 is this: I told her then, though I did not know 
 her, what I now say to you, "Yotu- wealth is too 
 near to you. You are looking right over it"; 
 and she had to look over it because it was right 
 under her chin. 
 
 I have read in the newspaper that a woman 
 41 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 never invented anything. Well, that newspaper 
 ought to begin again. Of course, I do not refer 
 to gossip — I refer to machines — and if I did I 
 might better include the men. That newspaper 
 could never appear if women had not invented 
 something. Friends, think. Ye women, think! 
 You say you cannot make a fortune because you 
 are in some laundry, or running a sewing-machine, 
 it may be, or walking before some loom, and yet 
 you can be a millionaire if you will but foUow 
 this almost infallible direction. 
 
 When you say a woman doesn't invent anything, 
 I ask. Who invented the Jacquard loom that wove 
 every stitch you wear? Mrs. Jacquard. The 
 printer's roller, the printing-press, were invented 
 by farmers' wives. Who invented the cotton-gin 
 of the South that enriched our country so amaz- 
 ingly? Mrs. General Greene invented the cotton- 
 gin and showed the idea to Mr. Whitney, and he, 
 like a man, seized it. Who was it that invented 
 the sewing-machine? If I would go to school to- 
 morrow and ask your children they would say, 
 "EhasHowe." 
 
 He was in the Civil War with me, and often in 
 my tent, and I often heard him say that he worked 
 fourteen years to get up that sewing-machine. 
 But his wife made up her mind one day that they 
 would starve to death if there wasn't something 
 or other invented pretty soon, and so in two hours 
 she invented the sewing-machine. Of cotirse he 
 took out the patent in his name. Men always do 
 
 42 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 that. Who was it that invented the mower and 
 the reaper? According to Mr. McCormick's con- 
 fidential communication, so recently published, it 
 was a West Virginia woman, who, after his father 
 and he had failed altogether in making a reaper 
 and gave it up, took a lot of shears and nailed 
 them together on the edge of a board, with one 
 shaft of each pair loose, and then wired them so 
 that when she pulled the wire one way it closed 
 them, and when she pulled the wire the other 
 way it opened them, and there she had the princi- 
 ple of the mowing-machine. If you look at a 
 mowing-machine, you will see it is nothing but 
 a lot of shears. If a woman can invent a mowing- 
 machine, if a woman can invent a Jacquard loom, 
 if a woman can invent a cotton-gin, if a woman can 
 invent a trolley switch — as she did and made the 
 trolleys possible; if a woman can invent, as Mr. 
 Carnegie said, the great iron squeezers that laid 
 the foundation of all the steel milHons of the 
 United States, "we men" can invent anything 
 under the stars ! I say that for the encouragement 
 of the men. 
 
 Who are the great inventors of the world? 
 Again this lesson comes before us. The great 
 inventor sits next to you, or you are the person 
 yourself. "Oh," but you will say, "I have never 
 invented anjrthing in my life." Neither did the 
 great inventors until they discovered one great 
 secret. Do you think it is a man with a head like a 
 bushel measure or a man like a stroke of lightning? 
 
 43 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 It is neither. The really great man is a plain, 
 straightforward, every-day, common-sense man. 
 You would not dream that he was a great inventor 
 if you did not see something he had actually done. 
 His neighbors do not regard him so great. You 
 never see anything great over your back fence. 
 You say there is no greatness among your neigh- 
 bors. It is all away off somewhere else. Their 
 greatness is ever so simple, so plain, so earnest, 
 so practical, that the neighbors and friends never 
 recognize it. 
 
 True greatness is often unrecognized. That is 
 siu-e. You do not know anything about the 
 greatest men and women. I went out to write 
 the life of General Garfield, and a neighbor, know- 
 ing I was in a hurry, and as there was a great 
 crowd around the front door, took me around to 
 General Garfield's back door and shouted, "Jim! 
 Jim!" And very soon "Jim" came to the door 
 and let me in, and I wrote the biography of one 
 of the grandest men of the nation, and yet he 
 was just the same old "Jim" to his neighbor. 
 If you know a great man in Philadelphia and you 
 should meet him to-morrow, you would say, 
 "How are you, Sam?" or "Good morning, Jim." 
 Of course you would. That is just what you would 
 do. 
 
 One of my soldiers in the Civil War had been 
 sentenced to death, and I went up to the White 
 House in Washington — sent there for the first 
 time in my life — to see the President. I went 
 
 44 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 into the waiting-room and sat down with a lot 
 of others on the benches, and the secretary asked 
 one after another to tell him what they wanted. 
 After the secretary had been through the Hne, 
 he went in, and then came back to the door and 
 motioned for me. I went up to that anteroom, 
 and the secretary said: "That is the President's 
 door right over there. Just rap on it and go 
 right in." I never was so taken aback, friends, 
 in all my life, never. The secretary himself made 
 it worse for me, because he had told me how to 
 go in and then went out another door to the 
 left and shut that. There I was, in the hallway 
 by myself before the President of the United 
 States of America's door. I had been on fields of 
 battle, where the shells did sometimes shriek and 
 the bullets did sometimes hit me, but I always 
 wanted to run. I have no sympathy with the 
 old man who says, "I would just as soon march 
 up to the cannon's mouth as eat my dinner." 
 I have no faith in a man who doesn't know enough 
 to be afraid when he is being shot at. I never 
 was so afraid when the shells came around us 
 at Antietam'as I was when I went into that room 
 that day; but I finally mustered the courage — 
 I don't know how I ever did — and at arm's- 
 length tapped on the door. The man inside did 
 not help me at aU, but yelled out, "Come in and 
 sit down!" 
 
 WeU, I went in and sat down on the edge of a 
 chair, and wished I were in Europe, and the man 
 
 45 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 at the table did not look up. He was one of the 
 world's greatest men, and was made great by one' 
 single rule. Oh, that aU the young people of 
 Philadelphia were before me now and I cotild say 
 just this one thing, and that they would remember 
 it. I would give a lifetime for the effect it would 
 have on our city and on civilization. Abraham 
 Lincoln's principle for greatness can be adopted 
 by nearly all. This was his rule: Whatsoever he 
 had to do at all, he put his whole mind into it and 
 held it aU there until that was all done. That 
 makes men great almost anywhere. He stuck to 
 those papers at that table and did not look up 
 at me, and I sat there trembling. Finally, when 
 he had put the string around his papers, he pushed 
 them over to one side and looked over to me, and 
 a smile came over his worn face. He said: "I 
 am a very busy man and have only a few minutes 
 to spare. Now tell me in the fewest words what it 
 is you want." I began to tell him, and mentioned 
 the case, and he said: "I have heard all about 
 it and you do not need to say any more. Mr. 
 Stanton was talking to me only a few days ago 
 about that. You can go to the hotel and rest 
 assured that the President never did sign an order 
 to shoot a boy under twenty years of age, and 
 never will. You can say that to his mother any- 
 how." 
 
 Then he said to me, "How is it going in the 
 field?" I said, "We sometimes get discouraged." 
 And he said: "It is all right. We are going to 
 
 46 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 win out now. We are getting very near the light. 
 No man ought to wish to be President of the 
 United States, and I will be glad when I get 
 through; then Tad and I are going out to Spring- 
 field, Illinois. I have bought a farm out there 
 and I don't care if I again earn only twenty -five 
 cents a day. Tad has a mule team, and we are 
 going to plant onions." 
 
 Then he asked me, "Were you brought up on a 
 farm?" I said, "Yes; in the Berkshire Hills of 
 Massachusetts." He then threw his leg over the 
 comer of the big chair and said, "I have heard 
 many a time, ever since I was young, that up 
 there in those hills you have to sharpen the noses 
 of the sheep in order to get down to the grass 
 between the rocks." He was so familiar, so every- 
 day, so farmer-Hke, that I felt right at home with 
 him at once. 
 
 He then took hold of another roll of paper, and 
 looked up at me and said, "Good morning." I 
 took the hint then and got up and went out. 
 After I had gotten out I cotild not realize I had 
 seen the President of the United States at all. 
 But a few days later, when stiU in the city, I saw 
 the crowd pass through the East Room by the 
 coffin of Abraham Lincoln, and when I looked 
 at the upturned face of the murdered President 
 I felt then that the man I had seen such a short 
 time before, who, so simple a man, so plain a 
 man, was one of the greatest men that God ever 
 raised up to lead a nation on to ultimate liberty. 
 
 47 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Yet he was only "Old Abe" to his neighbors. 
 When they had the second funeral, I was invited 
 among others, and went out to see that same 
 coffin put back in the tomb at Springfield. Around 
 the tomb stood Lincoln's old neighbors, to whom 
 he was just "Old Abe." Of course that is all they 
 would say. 
 
 Did you ever see a man who struts around 
 altogether too large to notice an ordinary working 
 mechanic? Do you think he is great? He is 
 nothing but a puffed-up balloon, held down by 
 his big feet. There is no greatness there. 
 
 Who are the great men and women? My 
 attention was called the other day to the history 
 of a very little thing that made the fortune of a 
 very poor man. It was an awful thing, and yet 
 because of that experience he — not a great invent- 
 or or genius — invented the pin that now is called 
 the safety-pin, and out of that safety-pin made 
 the fortune of one of the great aristocratic families 
 of this nation. 
 
 A poor man in Massachiisetts who had worked 
 in the nail-works was injured at thirty-eight, and 
 he could earn but little money. He was employed 
 in the office to rub out the marks on the bills 
 made by pencil memorandums, and he used a 
 rubber vmtil his hand grew tired. He then tied a 
 piece of rubber on the end of a stick and worked 
 it like a plane. His little girl came and said, 
 "Why, you have a patent, haven't you?" The 
 father said afterward, "My daughter told me 
 
 48 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 when I took that stick and put the rubber on 
 the end that there was a patent, and that was the 
 first thought of that." He went to Boston and 
 applied for his patent, and every one of you that 
 has a rubber-tipped pencil in your pocket is now 
 paying tribute to the millionaire. No capital, 
 not a penny did he invest in it. All was income, 
 all the way up into the millions. 
 
 But let me hasten to one other greater thought. 
 "Show me the great men and women who live 
 in Philadelphia." A gentleman over there will 
 get up and say: "We don't have any great men 
 in Philadelphia. They don't live here. They live 
 away off in Rome or St. Petersburg or London or 
 Manayunk, or anywhere else but here in our 
 town." I have come now to the apex of my 
 thought. I have come now to the heart of the 
 whole matter and to the center of my strug- 
 gle: Why isn't Philadelphia a greater city in its 
 greater wealth ? Why does New York excel Phila- 
 delphia? People say, "Because of her harbor." 
 Why do many other cities of the United States 
 get ahead of Philadelphia now? There is only 
 one answer, and that is because our own people 
 talk down their own city. If there ever was a 
 community on earth that has to be forced ahead, 
 it is the city of Philadelphia. If we are to have a 
 boulevard, talk it down; if we are going to have 
 better schools, talk them down; if you wish to 
 have wise legislation, talk it down; talk all the 
 proposed improvements down. That is the only 
 
 49 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 great wrong that I can lay at the feet of the mag- 
 nificent Philadelphia that has been so universally- 
 kind to me. I say it is time we ttim around in our 
 city and begin to talk up the things that are in 
 our city, and begin to set them before the world 
 as the people of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, 
 and San Francisco do. Oh, if we only could get 
 that spirit out among our people, that we can do 
 things in Philadelphia and do them well ! 
 
 Arise, ye millions of Philadelphians, trust in 
 God and man, and believe in the great oppor- 
 tunities that are right here — not over in New York 
 or Boston, but here — for business, for everything 
 that is worth living for on earth. There was 
 never an opportionity greater. Let us talk up 
 our own city. 
 
 But there are two other young men here to- 
 night, and that is all I will venture to say, because 
 it is too late. One over there gets up and says, 
 "There is going to be a great man in Philadelphia, 
 but never was one." "Oh, is that so? When are 
 you going to be great?" "When I am elected to 
 some political office." Young man, won't you 
 learn a lesson in the primer of politics that it is 
 a prima facie evidence of littleness to hold office 
 under our form of government? Great men get 
 into office sometimes, but what this country needs 
 is men that will do what we tell them to do. 
 This nation — where the people rule — is governed 
 by the people, for the people, and so long as it is, 
 then the ofifice-holder is but the servant of the 
 
 50 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 people, and the Bible says the servant cannot be 
 greater than the master. The Bible says, "He 
 that is sent cannot be greater than Him who sent 
 Him." The people rule, or should rule, and if 
 they do, we do not need the greater men in office. 
 If the great men in America took our offices, we 
 wotild change to an empire in the next ten years. 
 
 I know of a great many young women, now 
 that woman's suffrage is coming, who say, "I 
 am going to be President of the United States 
 some day." I believe in woman's suffrage, and 
 there is no doubt but what it is coming, and I 
 am getting out of the way, anyhow. I may want 
 an office by and by myself; but if the ambition 
 for an office influences the women in their desire 
 to vote, I want to say right here what I say to the 
 young men, that if you only get the privilege of 
 casting one vote, you don't get anything that is 
 worth while. Unless you can control more than 
 one vote, you wUl be unknown, and your influence 
 so dissipated as practically not to be felt. This 
 country is not run by votes. Do you think it is? 
 It is governed by influence. It is governed by 
 the ambitions and the enterprises which control 
 votes. The young woman that thinks she is going 
 to vote for the sake of holding an office is making 
 an awful bltmder. 
 
 That other young man gets up and says, "There 
 are going to be great men in this country and in 
 Philadelphia."- "Is that so? When?" "When 
 there comes a great war, when we get into difficulty 
 
 SI 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 through watchful waiting in Mexico; when we 
 get into war with England over some frivolous 
 deed, or with Japan or China or New Jersey or 
 some distant country. Then I will march up to 
 the cannon's mouth; I will sweep up among the 
 glistening bayonets ; I will leap into the arena and 
 tear down the flag and bear it away in triumph. 
 I wiU come home with stars on my shoulder, and 
 hold every office in the gift of the nation, and I 
 wiU be great." No, you won't. You think you 
 are going to be made great by an office, but 
 remember that if you are not great before you 
 get the office, you won't be great when you secure 
 it. It will only be a burlesque in that shape. 
 
 We had a Peace Jubilee here after the Spanish 
 War. Out West they don't believe this, because 
 they said, "Philadelphia would not have heard 
 of any Spanish War until fifty years hence." 
 Some of you saw the procession go up Broad 
 Street. I was away, but the family wrote to me 
 that the tally-ho coach with Lieutenant Hobson 
 upon it stopped right at the front door and the 
 people shouted, "Hurrah for Hobson!" and if I 
 had been there I woiild have yelled too, because 
 he deserves much more of his country than he 
 has ever received. But suppose I go into school 
 and say, "Who sunk the Merrimac at Santiago?" 
 and if the boys answer me, "Hobson," they will 
 tell me seven-eighths of a lie. There were seven 
 other heroes on that steamer, and they, by virtue 
 of their position, were continually exposed to the 
 
 S2 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Spanish fire, while Hobson, as an officer, might 
 reasonably be behind the smoke-stack. You have 
 gathered in this house yotir most intelligent people, 
 and yet, perhaps, not one here can name the other 
 seven men. 
 
 We ought not to so teach history. We ought to 
 teach that, however himible a man's station may 
 be, if he does his fuU duty in that place he is 
 just as much entitled to the American people's 
 honor as is the king upon his throne. But we do 
 not so teach. We are now teaching everywhere 
 that the generals do all the fighting. 
 
 I remember that, after the war, I went down 
 to see General Robert E. Lee, that magnificent 
 Christian gentleman of whom both North and 
 South are now proud as one of oui great Americans. 
 The general told me about his servant, "Rastus," 
 who was an enKsted colored soldier. He called 
 him in one day to make fun of him, and said, 
 "Rastus, I hear that aU the rest of your company 
 are kiUed, and why are you not killed?" Rastus 
 winked at him and said, "'Cause when there is 
 any fightin' goin' on I stay back with the gener- 
 als." 
 
 I remember another illustration. I wotdd leave 
 it out but for the fact that when you go to the 
 Ubrary to read this lecture, you will find this has 
 been printed in it for twenty-five years. I shut 
 my eyes — shut them close — and lo ! I see the faces 
 of my youth. Yes, they sometimes say to me, 
 "Your hair is not white; you are working night 
 
 S3 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 and day without seeming ever to stop; you can't 
 be old." But when I shut my eyes, like any other 
 man of my years, oh, then come trooping back 
 the faces of the loved and lost of long ago, and 
 I know, whatever men may say, it is evening-time. 
 
 I shut my eyes now and look back to my native 
 town in Massachusetts, and I see the cattle-show 
 ground on the mountain-top; I can see the horse- 
 sheds there. I can see the Congregational church; 
 see the town hall and mountaineers' cottages; 
 see a great assembly of people turning out, dressed 
 resplendently, and I can see flags flying and hand- 
 kerchiefs waving and hear bands playing. I can 
 see that company of soldiers that had re-enlisted 
 marching up on that cattle-show groimd. I was 
 but a boy, but I was captain of that company 
 and puffed out with pride. A cambric needle 
 woiild have burst me all to pieces. Then I thought 
 it was the greatest event that ever came to man 
 on earth. If you have ever thought you would 
 like to be a king or queen, you go and be received 
 by the mayor. 
 
 The bands played, and all the people turned 
 out to receive us. I marched up that Common 
 so proud at the head of my troops, and we turned 
 down into the town hall. Then they seated my 
 soldiers down the center aisle and I sat down on 
 the front seat. A great assembly of people — a 
 hundred or two — came in to fill the town hall, 
 so that they stood up all around. Then the town 
 officers came in and formed a half-circle. The 
 
 54 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 mayor of the town sat in the middle of the plat^ 
 form. He was a man who had never held office 
 before; but he was a good man, and his friends 
 have told me that I might use this without giving 
 them offense. He was a good man, bvit he thought 
 an office made a man great. He came up and took 
 his seat, adjusted his powerful spectacles, and 
 looked around, when he suddenly spied me sitting 
 there on the front seat. He came right forward 
 on the platform and invited me up to sit with the 
 town officers. No town officer ever took any no- 
 tice of me before I went to war, except to advise 
 the teacher to thrash me, and now I was invited 
 up on the stand with the town officers. Oh my J 
 the town mayor was then the emperor, the king 
 of our day and our time. As I came up on the 
 platform they gave me a chair about this far, I 
 would say, from the front. 
 
 When I had got seated, the chairman of 
 the Selectmen arose and came forward to the 
 table, and we all supposed he would introduce 
 the Congregational minister, who was the only ora~ 
 tor in town, and that he would give the oration 
 to the retviming soldiers. But, friends, you should 
 have seen the surprise which ran over the audi- 
 ence when they discovered that the old fellow 
 was going to deliver that speech himself. He had 
 never made a speech in his life, but he feU into 
 the same error that hundreds of other men have 
 fallen into. It seems so strange that a man won't, 
 learn he must speak his piece as a boy if he in- 
 
 5. 55 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 tends to be an orator when he is grown, but he 
 seems to think all he has to do is to hold an office 
 to be a great orator. 
 
 So he came up to the front, and brought with 
 him a speech which he had learned by heart 
 walking up and down the pasture, where he had 
 frightened the cattle. He brought the manuscript 
 with him and spread it out on the table so as to 
 be sure he might see it. He adjusted his spectacles 
 and leaned over it for a moment and marched 
 back on that platform, and then came forward 
 like this — tramp, tramp, tramp. He must have 
 studied the subject a great deal, when you come 
 to think of it, because he assumed an "elocu- 
 tionary" attitude. He rested heavily upon his 
 left heel, threw back his shoulders, slightly ad- 
 vanced the right foot, opened the organs of speech, 
 and advanced his right foot at an angle of forty- 
 five. As he stood in that elocutionary attitude, 
 friends, this is just the way that speech went. 
 Some people say to me, "Don't you exaggerate?" 
 That woiold be impossible. But I am here for 
 the lesson and not for the story, and this is the 
 way it went: 
 
 "Fellow-citizens — " As soon as he heard his 
 voice his fingers began to go like that, his knees 
 began to shake, and then he trembled all over. 
 He choked and swallowed and came around to 
 the table to look at the manuscript. Then he 
 gathered himself up with clenched fists and came 
 tack: "Fellow-citizens, we are — Fellow-citizens, 
 , S6 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 we are — ^we are — we are — ^we are — we are — ^we are 
 very happy — ^we are very happy — we are very 
 happy. We are very happy to welcome back to 
 their native town these soldiers who have fought 
 and bled — and come back again to their native 
 town. We are especially — we are especially — we 
 are especially. We are especially pleased to see 
 with us to-day this young hero" (that meant 
 me) — "this young hero who in imagination" 
 (friends, remember he said that; if he had not 
 said "in imagination" I would not be egotistic 
 enough to refer to it at all) — "this young hero 
 who in imagination we have seen leading — ^we 
 have seen leading — leading. We have seen lead- 
 ing his troops on to the deadly breach. We have 
 seen his shining — we have seen his shining — his 
 shining — ^his shining sword — flashing. Flashing in 
 the svmHght, as he shouted to his troops, 'Come 
 on'!" 
 
 Oh dear, dear, dear! how Httle that good man 
 knew about war. If he had known anything 
 about war at all he ought to have known what 
 any of my G. A. R. comrades here to-night wiU 
 tell you is true, that it is next to a crime for an 
 officer of infantry ever in time of danger to go 
 ahead of his men. "I, with my shining sword 
 flashing in the sunlight, shouting to my troops, 
 'Come on'!" I never did it. Do you suppose 
 I would get in front of my men to be shot in front 
 by the enemy and in the back by my own men? 
 That is no place for an officer. The place for the 
 
 57 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 officer in actual battle is behind the line. How 
 often, as a staff officer, I rode down the line, when 
 our men were suddenly called to the line of battle, 
 and the Rebel yells were coming out of the woods, 
 and shouted: "Officers to the rear! Officers to 
 the rear!" Then every officer gets behind the line 
 of private soldiers, and the higher the officer's 
 rank the farther behind he goes. Not because 
 he is any the less brave, but because the laws of 
 war require that. And yet he shouted, "I, with 
 my shining sword — " In that house there sat 
 the company of my soldiers who had carried that 
 boy across the Carolina rivers that he might not 
 wet his feet. Some of them had gone far out to 
 get a pig or a chicken. Some of them had gone 
 to death under the shell-swept pines in the moun- 
 tains of Tennassee, yet in the good man's speech 
 they were scarcely known. He did refer to them, 
 but only incidentally. The hero of the hour was 
 this boy. Did the nation owe him anjrthing? 
 No, nothing then and nothing now. Why was he 
 the hero? Simply because that man feU into that 
 same hiiman error — that this boy was great be- 
 cause he was an officer and these were only private 
 soldiers. 
 
 Oh, I learned the lesson then that I will never 
 forget so long as the tongue of the bell of time 
 continues to swing for me. Greatness consists 
 not in the holding of some future office, but really 
 consists in doing great deeds with little means 
 and the accomplishment of vast purposes from 
 
 S8 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 the private ranks of life. To be great at all one 
 must be great here, now, in Philadelphia. He 
 who can give to this city better streets and better 
 sidewalks, better schools and more colleges, more 
 happiness and more civilization, more of God, he 
 will be great anywhere. Let every man or woman 
 here, if you never hear me again, remember this, 
 that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin 
 where you are and what you are, in Philadelphia, 
 now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he 
 who can be a good citizen while he hves here, he 
 that can make better homes, he that can be a 
 blessing whether he works in the shop or sits be- 
 hind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his 
 life, he who would be great anywhere must first 
 be great in his own Philadelphia. 
 
HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 Robert Shackleton 
 
XHE STORY OP THE SWORD 
 
 I SHALL write of a remarkable man, an inter- 
 esting man, a man of power, of initiative, of 
 will, of persistence; a man who plans vastly and 
 who reahzes his plans; a man who not only does 
 things himself, but who, even more important than 
 that, is the constant inspiration of others. I shall 
 write of Russell H. Conwell. 
 
 As a farmer's boy he was the leader of the boys 
 of the rocky region that was his home; as a school- 
 teacher he won devotion; as a newspaper corre- 
 spondent he gained fame ; as a soldier in the Civil 
 War he rose to important rank; as a lawyer he 
 developed a large practice ; as an author he wrote 
 books that reached a mighty total of sales. He 
 left the law for the ministry and is the active head 
 of a great chvirch that he raised from nothingness. 
 He is the most popular lecturer in the world and 
 yearly speaks to many thousands. He is, so to 
 speak, the discoverer of "Acres of Diamonds," 
 through which thousands of men and women have 
 achieved success out of failure. He is the head 
 
 63 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 of two hospitals, one of them fotinded by himself, 
 that have cared for a host of patients, both the 
 poor and the rich, irrespective of race or creed. 
 He is the founder and head of a university that 
 has already had tens of thousands of students. 
 His home is in Philadelphia; but he is known in 
 every comer of every state in the Union, and 
 everjrwhere he has hosts of friends. All of his life 
 he has helped and inspired others. 
 
 Quite by chance, and only yesterday, literally 
 yesterday and by chance, and with no thought at 
 the moment of ConweU although he had been 
 much in my mind for some time past, I picked up 
 a thin little book of description by William Dean 
 Howells, and, turning the pages of a chapter on 
 Lexington, old Lexington of the Revolution, 
 written, so Howells had set down, in 1882, I 
 noticed, after he had written of the town itself, 
 and of the long-past fight there, and of the present- 
 day aspect, that he mentioned the church life 
 of the place and remarked on the striking ad- 
 vances made by the Baptists, who had lately, as 
 he expressed it, been reconstituted out of very 
 perishing fragments and made strong and fiotuish- 
 ing, under the ministrations of a lay preacher, 
 formerly a colonel in the Union army. And it 
 was only a few days before I chanced upon this 
 description that Dr. ConweU, the former colonel 
 and former lay preacher, had told me of his ex- 
 periences in that little old Revolutionary town. 
 
 Howells went on to say that, so he was told, 
 64 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 the colonel's success was principally due to his 
 making the church attractive to young people. 
 Howells says no more of him; apparently he did 
 not go to hear him; and one wonders if he has 
 ever associated that lay preacher of Lexington 
 with the famous Russell H. Conwell of these recent 
 years ! 
 
 "Attractive to young people." Yes, one can 
 recognize that to-day, just as it was recognized 
 in Lexington. And it may be added that he at 
 the same time attracts older people, too ! In this, 
 indeed, hes his power. He makes his church in- 
 teresting, his sermons interesting, his lectures in- 
 teresting. He is himself interesting! Because of 
 his being interesting, he gains attention. The at- 
 tention gained, he inspires. 
 
 Biography is more than dates. Dates, after all, 
 are but mile-stones along the road of life. And 
 the most important fact of Conwell's life is that 
 he is still alive — aUve and vigorous and earnest, 
 and working sixteen hours every day for the good 
 of his fellow-men. Yet he is over seventy. For 
 he was bom on February 15, 1843 — ^bom of poor 
 parents, in a low-roofed cottage in the eastern 
 Berkshires, in Massachusetts. 
 
 "I was bom in this room," he said to me, 
 simply, as we sat together recently in front of the 
 old fireplace in the principal room of the Uttle 
 cottage; for he has bought back the rocky farm 
 of his father, and has retained and restored the 
 little old home. "I was bom in this room. It 
 
 65 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 was bedroom and kitchen. It was poverty." And 
 his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence. 
 
 Then he spoke a little of the struggles of those 
 long-past years; and we went out on the porch, 
 as the evening shadows fell, and looked out over 
 the valley and stream and hills of his youth, and 
 he told of his grandmother, and of a young Mary- 
 lander who had come to the region on a visit; 
 it was a tale of the impetuous love of those two, 
 of rash marriage, of the interference of parents, 
 of the fierce rivalry of another suitor, of an attack 
 on the Marylander's life, of passionate hastiness, 
 of unforgivable words, of separation, of lifelong 
 sorrow. "Why does grandmother cry so often?" 
 he remembers asking when he was a little boy. 
 And he was told that it was for the husband of 
 her youth. 
 
 We went back into the little house, and he 
 showed me the room in which he first saw John 
 Brown. "I came down early one morning, and 
 saw a huge, hairy man sprawled upon the bed 
 there— and I was frightened," he says. 
 
 But John Brown did not long frighten him! 
 For he was much at their house after that, and was 
 so friendly with Russell and his brother that there 
 was no chance for awe; and it gives a curious side- 
 light on the character of the stem abolitionist 
 that he actually, with infinite patience, taught the 
 old horse of the Conwells to go home alone with 
 the wagon after leaving the boys at school, a mile 
 or more away, and at school-closing time to trot 
 
 66 
 
THE 
 
 BERKSHIRE 
 
 SCHOOL -HOUSE 
 
 WHKRE 
 
 CONWEI.I, 
 
 TAUr.HT 
 
 THE SWORD THAT STILL INSPIRES RUSSELL CON WELL 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 gently oflf for them without a driver when merely- 
 faced in that direction and told to go! Conwell 
 remembers how John Brown, in training it, used 
 patiently to walk beside the horse, and control 
 its going and its turnings, until it was quite ready 
 to go and turn entirely by itself. 
 
 The ConweU house was a station on the Un- 
 derground Railway, and Russell ConweU remem- 
 bers, when a lad, seeing the escaping slaves that 
 his father had driven across country and tempo- 
 rarily hidden. ' ' Those were heroic days, ' ' he says, 
 quietly. "And once in a while my father let me 
 go with him. They were wonderftil night drives — 
 the cowering slaves, the darkness of the road, 
 the caution and the silence and dread of it all." 
 This underground route, he remembers, was from 
 Philadelphia to New Haven, thence to Spring- 
 field, where ConweU's father would take his charge, 
 and onward to Bellows Falls and Canada. 
 
 Conwell tells, too, of meeting Frederick Doug- 
 lass, the colored orator, in that little cottage in 
 the hiUs. " 'I never saw my father,' Douglass said 
 one day — his father was a white man — 'and I 
 remember little of my mother except that once 
 she tried to keep an overseer from whipping me, 
 and the lash cut across her own face, and her 
 blood fell over me.' 
 
 "When John Brown was captured," Conwell 
 went on, "my father tried to sell this place to 
 get a little money to send to help his defense. 
 But he couldn't sell it, and on the day of the execu- 
 
 67 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 tion we knelt solemnly here, from eleven to twelve, 
 just praying, praying in silence for the passing 
 soul of John Brown. And as we prayed we knew 
 that others were also praying, for a church-bell 
 tolled during that entire hour, and its awesome 
 boom went sadly sounding over these hills." 
 
 Conwell believes that his real life dates from a 
 happening of the time of the Civil War — a hap- 
 pening that still looms vivid and intense before 
 him, and which undoubtedly did deepen and 
 strengthen his strong and deep nature. Yet the 
 real Conwell was always essentially the same. 
 Neighborhood tradition still tells of his bravery 
 as a boy and a youth, of his reckless coasting, his 
 skill as a swimmer and his saving of lives, his 
 strength and endurance, his plunging out into the 
 darkness of a wild winter night to save a neigh- 
 bor's cattle. His soldiers came home with tales 
 of his devotion to them, and of how he shared 
 his rations and his blankets and bravely risked his 
 life; of how he crept off into a swamp, at immi- 
 nent peril, to rescue one of his men lost or mired 
 there. The present Conwell was always Conwell; 
 in fact, he may be traced through his ancestry, too, 
 for in him are the sturdy virtues, the bravery, the 
 grim determination, the practicality, of his father; 
 and romanticism, that comes from his grand- 
 mother; and the dreamy qualities of his mother, 
 who, practical and hardworking New England 
 woman that she was, was at the same time influ- 
 enced by an almost startling mysticism. 
 
 68 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 And Con well himself is a dreamer: first of all 
 he is a dreamer; it is the most important fact 
 in regard to him! It is because he is a dreamer 
 and visualizes his dreams that he can plan the 
 great things that to other men would seem im- 
 possibilities ; and then his intensely practical 
 side — his intense efficiency, his power, his skill, 
 his patience, his fine earnestness, his mastery 
 over others, develop his dreams into realities. 
 He dreams dreams and sees visions — but his 
 visions are never visionary and his dreams be- 
 come facts. 
 
 The rocky hills which meant a dogged struggle 
 for very existence, the fugitive slaves, John Brown 
 — ^what a school for youth ! And the Hteral school 
 was a tiny one-room school-house where young 
 ConweU came under the care of a teacher who 
 realized the boy's tmusual capabilities and was 
 able to give him broad and tmusual help. Then 
 a wise coimtry preacher also recognized the 
 imusual, and lu-ged the parents to give still more 
 education, whereupon supreme effort was made 
 and young Russell was sent to Wilbraham Acad- 
 emy. He likes to teU of his life there, and of the 
 hardships, of which he makes light; and of the 
 joy with which week-end pies and cakes were 
 received from home ! 
 
 He tells of how he went out on the roads selling 
 books from house to house, and of how eagerly 
 he devoured the contents of the sample books that 
 he carried. "They were a foundation of learning 
 
 69 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 for me," he says, soberly. "And they gave me a 
 broad idea of the world." 
 
 He went to Yale in i860, but the outbreak of 
 the war interfered with college, and he enlisted in 
 1 86 1. But he was only eighteen, and his father 
 objected, and he went back to Yale. But next 
 year he again enlisted, and men of his Berkshire 
 neighborhood, likewise enlisting, insisted that he 
 be their captain ; and Governor Andrews, appealed 
 to, consented to commission the nineteen-year- 
 old youth who was so evidently a natural leader; 
 and the men gave freely of their scant money to 
 get for him a sword, all gay and splendid with 
 gilt, and upon the sword was the declaration in 
 stately Latin that, "True friendship is eternal." 
 
 And with that sword is associated the most 
 vivid, the most momentous experience of Russell 
 Conwell's life. 
 
 That sword hangs at the head of Conwell's 
 bed in his home in Philadelphia. Man of peace 
 that he is, and minister of peace, that symbol of 
 war has for over haH a century been of infinite 
 importance to him. 
 
 He told me the story as we stood together before 
 that sword. And as he told the story, speaking 
 with quiet repression, but seeing it all and Uving 
 it all just as vividly as if it had occurred but yes- 
 terday, "That sword has meant so much to me," 
 he murmured; and then he began the tale : 
 
 "A boy up there in the Berkshires, a neighbor's 
 son, was John Ring; I call him a boy, for we all 
 
 70 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 called him a boy, and we looked upon him as a 
 boy, for he was tmder-sized and under-developed — 
 so much so that he could not enlist. 
 
 "But for some reason he was devoted to me, 
 and he not only wanted to enlist, but he also 
 wanted to be in the artillery company of which I 
 was captain; and I cotdd only take him along as 
 my servant. I didn't want a servant, but it was 
 the only way to take poor little Johnnie Ring. 
 
 "Johnnie was deeply religious, and would read 
 the Bible every evening before turning in. In 
 those days I was an atheist, or at least thought I 
 was, and I used to laugh at Ring, and after a while 
 he took to reading the Bible outside the tent on 
 account of my laughing at him! But he did not 
 stop reading it, and his faithfulness to me remained 
 vmchanged. 
 
 "The scabbard of the sword was too glittering 
 for the regulations" — the ghost of a smile hovered 
 on Conwell's lips — "and I could not wear it, and 
 could only wear a plain one for service and keep 
 this hanging in my tent on the tent-pole. John 
 Ring used to handle it adoringly, and kept it 
 polished to brilHancy. — It's dull enough these 
 many years," he added, somberly. "To Ring 
 it represented not only his captain, but the very 
 glory and pomp of war. 
 
 "One day the Confederates suddenly stormed 
 
 our position near New Berne and swept through 
 
 the camp, driving our entire force before them; 
 
 and all, including my company, retreated hurriedly 
 
 6 71 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 across the river, setting fire to a long wooden 
 bridge as we went over. It soon blazed up ftiri- 
 ously, making a barrier that the Confederates 
 could not pass. 
 
 "But, unknown to everybody, and unnoticed, 
 John Ring had dashed back to my tent. I think 
 he was able to make his way back because he just 
 looked like a mere boy ; but however that was, he 
 got past the Confederates into my tent and took 
 down, from where it was hanging on the tent- 
 pole, my bright, gold-scabbarded sword. 
 
 "John Ring seized the sword that had long been 
 so precious to him. He dodged here and there, 
 and actually managed to gain the bridge just as it 
 was beginning to blaze. He started across. The 
 flames were every moment getting fiercer, the 
 smoke denser, and now and then, as he crawled 
 and staggered on, he leaned for a few seconds far 
 over the edge of the bridge in an effort to get air. 
 Both sides saw him; both sides watched his 
 terrible progress, even while firing was fiercely 
 kept up from each side of the river. And then 
 a Confederate officer — he was one of General 
 Pickett's officers — ran to the water's edge 
 andr waved a white handkerchief and the firing 
 ceased. 
 
 "'Tell that boy to come back here!' he cried. 
 'Tell him to come back here and we will let him 
 go free!' 
 
 "He called this out just as Ring was about to 
 enter upon the worst part of the bridge — the cov- 
 
 72 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 ered part, where there were top and bottom and 
 sides of blazing wood. The roar of the flames 
 was so close to Ring that he could not hear the 
 calls from either side of the river, and he pushed 
 desperately on and disappeared in the covered 
 part. 
 
 "There was dead silence except for the crackling 
 of the fire. Not a man cried out. All waited in 
 hopeless expectancy. And then came a mighty 
 yell from Northerner and Southerner alike, for 
 Johnnie came crawling out of the end of the cov- 
 ered way — ^he had actually passed through that 
 frightful place — and his clothes were ablaze, and 
 he toppled over and fell into shallow water; and 
 in a few moments he was dragged out, unconscious, 
 and hturied to a hospital. 
 
 "He lingered for a day or so, still unconscious, 
 and then came to himself and smiled a little as 
 he fotmd that the sword for which he had given 
 his life had been left beside him. He took it in 
 his arms. He hugged it to his breast. He gave 
 a few words of final message for me. And that 
 was all." 
 
 Conwell's voice had gone thrillingly low as he 
 neared the end, for it was all so very, very vivid to 
 him, and his eyes had grown tender and his lips 
 more strong and firm. And he fell silent, thinking 
 of that long-ago happening, and though he looked 
 down upon the thronging traffic of Broad Street, 
 it was clear that he did not see it, and that if 
 the rumbling hubbub of sound meant anything to 
 
 73 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 him it was the rumbUng of the guns of the distant 
 past. When he spoke again it was with a still 
 tenser tone of feeling. 
 
 "When I stood beside the body of John Ring 
 and realized that he had died for love of me, I 
 made a vow that has formed my life. I vowed 
 that from that moment I would Hve not only my 
 own hfe, but that I would also live the Hfe of John 
 Ring. And from that moment I have worked six- 
 teen hours every day — eight for John Ring's work 
 and eight hours for my own." 
 
 A curious note had come into his voice, as of 
 one who had run the race and neared the goal, 
 fought the good fight and neared the end. 
 
 "Every morning when I rise I look at this sword, 
 or if I am away from home I think of the sword, 
 and vow anew that another day shall see sixteen 
 hours of work from me." And when one comes 
 to know Russell Conwell one realizes that never 
 did a man work more hard and constantly. 
 
 "It was through John Ring and his giving his 
 life through devotion to me that I became a 
 Christian," he went on. "This did not come 
 about immediately, but it came before the war 
 was over, and it came through faithful Johnnie 
 Ring." 
 
 There is a little lonely cemetery in the Berk- 
 shires, a tiny burying-ground on a wind-swept 
 hill, a few miles from Conwell's old home. In 
 this isolated biirying-ground bushes and vines and 
 grass grow in profusion, and a few trees cast a 
 
 74 
 
STORY OF THE SWORD 
 
 gentle shade; and tree-clad hills go billowing off 
 for miles and miles in wild and lonely beauty. 
 And in that lonely Httle graveyard I found the 
 plain stone that marks the resting-place of John 
 Ring. 
 
II 
 
 THE BEGINNING AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 IT is not because he is 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 im- 
 portant thing is not that he is a minister, but that 
 he is himself ! 
 
 Recently I heard a New-Yorker, the head of 
 a great corporation, say: "I beUeve that RusseU 
 Conwell is doing more good in the world than any 
 man who has lived since Jesus Christ." And 
 he said this in serious and unexaggerated earnest. 
 
 Yet Conwell did not get readily into his hfe- 
 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 
 
 76 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 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 aid- 
 ing his friends. It is probable that the imsettled- 
 ness of the years following the war was due to the 
 imsettling effect -of the war itself, which thus, in 
 its influence, broke into his mature life after 
 breaking into his years at Yale. But however that 
 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 is worth while 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 on what 
 he thought was the wrong side. Only when his 
 client was right would he go ahead ! 
 
 Yet he laughs, his quiet, infectious, character- 
 istic laugh, as he tells of how once he was deceived, 
 for he defended a man, charged with stealing a 
 watch, who was so obviously innocent that he 
 took the case in a blaze of indignation and had 
 the young feUow proudly exonerated. The next 
 day the wrongly accused one came to his office 
 and shamefacedly took out the watch that he 
 had been charged with stealing. "I want you to 
 
 77 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 send it to the man I took it from," he said. And 
 he told with a sort of shamefaced pride of how 
 he had got a good old deacon to give, in aU sin- 
 cerity, the evidence that exculpated him. "And, 
 say, Mr. Conwell — I want to thank you for 
 getting me off — and I hope you'll excuse my de- 
 ceiving 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 to 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 an inspirer. 
 
 Conwell even kept certain hours for consulta- 
 tion 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 one is coming 
 upon such romantic facts as these. 
 
 That is a curious thing about him — ^how much 
 there is of romance in his Hfe! Worshiped to the 
 end by John Ring; left for dead all night at 
 Kenesaw Mountain; calmly singing "Nearer, my 
 God, to Thee," to quiet the passengers on a sup- 
 posedly sinking ship; saving lives even when a 
 boy; never disappointing a single audience of the 
 thousands of audiences he has arranged to address 
 during all his years of lecturing ! He himself takes 
 a little pride in this last point, and it is character- 
 istic of him that he has actually forgotten that 
 just once he did fail to appear: he has qtiite 
 
 78 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 forgotten that one evening, on his way to a lec- 
 ture, he stopped a runaway horse to save two 
 women's Hves, and went in consequence to a hos- 
 pital instead of to the platform! And it is typical 
 of him to forget that sort of thing. 
 
 The emotional temperament of ConweU has al- 
 ways made him responsive to the great, the strik- 
 ing, 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 the address, 
 which afterward became so famous, in Cooper 
 Union, New York. The name of Lincoln was then 
 scarcely known, and it was by mere chance that 
 yotmg 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 trousers-leg higher than the other, 
 and of how awkward he was, and of how poorly, 
 at first, he spoke and with what apparent em- 
 barrassment. The chairman of the meeting got 
 Lincoln a glass of water, and Conwell thought 
 that it was from a personal desire to help him and 
 keep him from breaking down. But he loves to 
 tell how Lincoln became a changed man as he 
 spoke; how he seemed to feel ashamed of his brief 
 embarrassment and, pulling himself together and 
 
 79 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 putting aside the written speech which he had 
 prepared, spoke freely and powerfully, with splen- 
 did conviction, as only a bom 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 Hfe of one 
 of his men who had been condemned to death 
 for sleeping on post. He was still but a captain 
 (his promotion to a colonelcy was still to come), 
 a youth, and was awed by going into the presence 
 of the man he worshiped. And his voice trembles 
 a little, even now, as he tells of how pleasantly 
 Lincoln looked up from his desk, and how cheer- 
 fully he asked his business with him, and of how 
 absorbedly Lincoln then Hstened to his tale, al- 
 though, so it appeared, he already knew of the 
 main outline. 
 
 "It will be all right," said Lincoln, when Con- 
 well finished. But Conwell was still frightened. 
 He feared that in the multiplicity of public mat- 
 ters this mere matter of the life of a moimtain 
 boy, a private soldier, might be forgotten till too 
 late. "It is almost the time set — " he faltered. 
 And Conwell's voice almost breaks, man of emo- 
 tion that he is, as he tells of how Lincoln said, 
 with stem gravity: "Go and telegraph that sol- 
 dier's mother that Abraham Lincoln never signed 
 a warrant to shoot a boy iinder twenty, and never 
 win." That was the one and only time that he 
 spoke with Lincoln, and it remains an indelible 
 impression. 
 
 80 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 The third time he saw Lincohi was when, as 
 officer of the day, he stood for hours beside the 
 dead body of the President as it lay in state in 
 Washington. In those hours, as he stood rigidly 
 as the throng went shuffling sorrowfully through, 
 an immense impression came to Colonel ConweU 
 of the work and worth of the man who there lay 
 dead, and that impression has never departed. 
 
 John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, old Revolu- 
 tionary Lexington — ^how Conwell's life is asso- 
 ciated with famous men and places! — and it was 
 actually at Lexington that he made the crucial 
 decision as to the cotirse of his Hf e ! And it seems 
 to me that it was, although quite unconsciously, 
 because of the very fact that it was Lexington that 
 ConweU was influenced to decide and to act as 
 he did. Had it been in some other kind of place, 
 some merely ordinary place, some quite usual 
 place, he might not have taken the important 
 step. But it was Lexington, it was brave old 
 Lexington, inspiring Lexington; and he was in- 
 spired by it, for the man who himself inspires 
 nobly is always the one who is himself 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 regard to dis- 
 posing of a little church in Lexington whose con- 
 gregation had become unable to support it. I 
 went out and looked at the place, and I told her 
 
 8i 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 how the property could be sold. But it seemed a 
 pity to me that the little chtirch should be given 
 up. However, I advised a meeting of the 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 
 an old man rose and, in a quavering voice, said 
 the matter was quite clear; that there evidently 
 was nothing to do but to sell, and that he would 
 agree with the others in the necessity; but as 
 the chtuch had been his church home from boy- 
 hood, so he quavered 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 from the room. 
 
 "The men and the women looked at one an- 
 other, 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 chiu-ch, after all!'" 
 
 Typical ConweUism, that! First, the impulse 
 to help those who need helping, then the inspira- 
 tion and leadership. 
 
 '"But the bmlding is entirely too tumble- 
 down to use,' said one of the men, sadly; and I 
 knew he was right, for I had examined it; but I 
 said: 
 
 "'Let us meet there to-morrow morning and 
 get to work on that building ourselves and put 
 it in shape for a service next Stmday.' 
 
 "It made them seem so pleased and encour- 
 aged, and so confident that a new possibility was 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 opening that I never doubted that each one of 
 those present, and many friends besides, wotdd 
 be at the building in the morning. I was there 
 early with a hammer and ax and crowbar that 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 picttired the scene; and one knows also 
 that, in that Uttle town of Lexington, where 
 Americans had so bravely faced the impossible, 
 Russell ConweU also braced himself to face the 
 impossible. A pettier man would instantly have 
 given up the entire matter when those who were 
 most interested failed to respond, but one of the 
 strongest features in Conwell's 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. 
 In 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?' 
 
 "And I instantly replied, 'Tear down this old 
 building and build a new chtuch here !' 
 
 "He looked at me. 'But the people won't 
 do that,' he said. 
 
 '"Yes, they will,' I said, cheerfully, keeping at 
 83 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 my work. Whereupon he watched me a few min- 
 utes longer and said : 
 
 "'Well, you can put me down for one hundred 
 dollars for the new biulding. Come up to my 
 livery-stable and get it this evening.' 
 
 '"All right; I'll siirely be there,' I repKed. 
 
 "In a little while another man came along and 
 stopped and looked, and he rather gibed at the 
 idea of a new church, and when I told him of the 
 livery-stable man contributing one hundred dol- 
 lars, he said, ' But you haven't got the money yet !' 
 
 " 'No,' I said; 'but I am going to get it to-night.' 
 
 "'You'U 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, and after quite a while he 
 left; but he called back, as he went off, 'Well, if 
 he does give you that hundred doUars, come to 
 me and I'U give you another hundred.'" 
 
 ConweU smiles in genial reminiscence and with- 
 out any apparent sense that he is teUing of a great 
 personal triiunph, and goes on : 
 
 "Those two men both paid the money, and of 
 course the church people themselves, who at first 
 had not quite tmderstood that I could be in ear- 
 nest, joined in and helped, with work and money, 
 and as, while the new church was building, it was 
 peculiarly important to get and keep the congre- 
 gation together, and 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. 
 
 84 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 "And it was there in Lexington, in 1879, that 
 I determined to become a minister. I had a good 
 law practice, but I determined to give it up. For 
 many years I had felt more or less of a call to 
 the 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 HoweUs 
 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, aU this, even without con- 
 sidering the marvelous heights that ConweU has 
 since attained — a marvelous thing, an achieve- 
 ment of positive romance! That httle 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 ministrv at a salary of six hundred 
 dollars a year seemed to the relatives of ConweU's 
 wife the extreme of foolishness, and they did not 
 hesitate so to express themselves. Natiu-ally 
 enough, they did not have ConweU's vision. Yet 
 he himself was fair enough to reaHze and to admit 
 that there was a good deal of fairness in their 
 objections; and so he said to the congregation 
 that, although he was quite ready to come for 
 the six hundred dollars a year, he expected them 
 to double his salary as soon as he doubled the 
 
 85 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 church membership. This 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 the salary was doubled 
 accordingly. 
 
 I asked him if he had found it hard to give up 
 the lucrative law for a poor ministry, and his 
 reply gave a delightful impression of his capacity 
 for hiimorous insight into htmian nature, for he 
 said, with a genial twinkle: 
 
 "Oh yes, it was a wrench; but there is a sort 
 of romance of self-sacrifice, you know. I rather 
 suppose the old-time martyrs rather enjoyed them- 
 selves in being martyrs!" 
 
 Conwell did not stay very long in Lexington. 
 A struggling little chiu-ch in Philadelphia heard 
 of 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 to 
 be prosperously on its feet, and the needs of the 
 Philadelphia body keenly appealed to ConweU's 
 imagination, a change was made, and at a salary 
 of eight himdred dollars a year he went, in 1882, 
 to the little struggling Philadelphia congregation, 
 and of that congregation he is stiU 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 at first it 
 gave him hundreds. 
 
 Dreamer as Conwell always is in connection 
 86 
 
AT OLD LEXINGTON 
 
 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 ap- 
 peal, but also the fact that Philadelphia, as a city, 
 meant much to him, for, coming North, wotmded 
 from a battle-field of the Civil War, it was in 
 Philadelphia that he was cared for until his health 
 and strength were recovered. Thus it came that 
 Philadelphia had early become dear to him. 
 
 And here is an excellent example of how dream- 
 ing great dreams may go hand-in-hand with win- 
 ning superb results. For that Httle struggling 
 congregation now owns and occupies a great 
 new church building that seats more people than 
 any other Protestant chxu-ch in America — and 
 Dr. Conwellfillsit! 
 
 7 
 
Ill 
 
 STORY OF THE FIFTY-SEVEN CENTS 
 
 AT every point in Conwell's life one sees that 
 jl\ he wins through his wonderful personal influ- 
 ence on old and yoxing. 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 about that the present church build- 
 ings were begtin, it was another of those marvelous 
 tales of fact that are stranger than any imagina- 
 tion coiild make them. And yet the tale was so 
 simple and sweet and sad and unpretending. 
 
 When Dr. ConweU first assumed charge of the 
 little congregation that led him to Philadelphia 
 it was reaUy a little chtu-ch both in its nimibers 
 and in the size of the btiilding that 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 had eagerly 
 88 
 
THE FIFTY-SEVEN CENTS 
 
 wished 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, asked why it was that she was crying, 
 and she sobbingly replied that it was because 
 they could not let her into the Sunday-school. 
 
 "I lifted her to my shoulder," says Dr. Con- 
 well, in telling of this; for 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 Httle 
 girl to go through the crowd of people, drying 
 her tears and riding proudly on the shoulders of 
 the kindly, tall, dark man! "I said to her that 
 I would take her in, and I did so, and I said to 
 her that we should some day have a room big 
 enough for all who should come. And when she 
 went home she told her parents — I only learned 
 this afterward — that she was going to save money 
 to help bmld the larger church and Sunday-school 
 that Dr. ConweU 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 the pennies into her bank. 
 
 "She was a lovable little thing — ^but in only a 
 few weeks after that she was taken suddenly ill 
 and died; and at the funeral her father told me, 
 qmetly, of how his little girl had been saving money 
 for a building-fund. And there, at the funeral, 
 
 89 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 he handed me what she had saved — just fifty- 
 seven cents in pennies." 
 
 Dr. Conwell does not say how deeply he was 
 moved; he is, after all, a man of very few words 
 as to his own emotions. But a deep tenderness 
 had crept into his voice. 
 
 "At a meeting of the church trustees I told of 
 this gift of fifty-seven cents — the first gift toward 
 the proposed building-fund of the new chtuch that 
 was some'time to exist. For until then the matter 
 had barely been spoken of, as a new church btiild- 
 ing had been simply a possibility for the future. 
 
 "The trustees seemed much impressed, and it 
 turned out that they were far more impressed 
 than I could possibly 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 on which the 
 building now stands." It was characteristic of 
 Dr. ConweU that he did not point out, what every 
 one who knows him would understand, that it was 
 his own inspiration 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 chiu-ch-goer at all, but he listened 
 attentively 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 
 
 90 
 
THE FIFTY-SEVEN CENTS 
 
 dollars, taking — and the unexpectedness of this 
 deeply touched me — taking a first payment of just 
 fifty-seven cents and letting the entire balance 
 stand on a five-per-cent. 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 the people were soon 
 talking of having a new church. But it was not 
 done in that way, after all, for, fine though that 
 way would have been, there was to be one stiU 
 finer. 
 
 "Not long after my talk with the man who 
 owned the land, and his surprisingly good-hearted 
 proposition, an 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 aU lighted from 
 top to bottom, and 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 it was all about. 
 And it turned out that oiu: absence had been in- 
 tentionally arranged, and that the church people 
 had gathered at our home to meet us on our re- 
 turn. And I was utterly amazed, for the spokes- 
 man 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 
 
 91 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 so quickly and directly from that dear little girl's 
 fifty-seven cents." 
 
 Doesn't it seem like a fairy tale! But then this 
 man has all his Hfe 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 the great church— the Temple 
 Baptist Chiurch, as it is termed — ^was a great 
 tmdertaking 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 in the eyes of an enthu- 
 siast, 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, and 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 is built of stone, and its interior 
 is a great amphitheater. Special attention has 
 been given to fresh air and light ; there is nothing 
 of the dim, religious light that goes with medieval 
 churchUness. Behind the pulpit are tiers of seats 
 for the great chorus choir. There is a large organ. 
 The btiilding is peculiarly adapted for hearing 
 and seeing, and if it is not, strictly speaking, 
 
 92 
 
THE FIFTY-SEVEN CENTS 
 
 beautiful in itself, it is beautiful when it is filled 
 with encircling rows of men and women. 
 
 Man of feeling that he is, and one who appre- 
 ciates the importance of symbols, Dr. ConweU 
 had a heart of olive-wood built into the front of the 
 pulpit, for the wood was from an olive-tree in the 
 Garden of Gethsemane. And the amber-colored 
 tiles in the inner walls of the church bear, under 
 the glaze, the names of thousands of his people; 
 for every one, young or old, who helped in the 
 building, even to the giving of a single dollar, has 
 his name inscribed there. For Dr. ConweU 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 built it. 
 
 The church has a possible seating capacity of 
 4,200, although only 3,135 chairs have been put 
 in it, for it has been the desire not to crowd the 
 space needlessly. There is also a great room for 
 the Sunday-school, and extensive rooms for the 
 young men's association, the young women's asso- 
 ciation, 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 the people feel 
 at home there. 
 
 "You see again," said Dr. ConweU, musingly, 
 "the advantage of aiming at big things. That 
 bmlding represents $109,000 above ground. It 
 is free from debt. Had we bmlt a smaU church, it 
 would now be heavily mortgaged." 
 
IV 
 
 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 fiorlough, to 
 make more speeches to 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 bom, and 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 ConweU published 
 a Kttle book for students on the study and practice 
 
 94 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 of oratory. That "clear-cut articulation is the 
 charm of eloquence" is one of his insisted-upon 
 statements, and it weU illustrates the lifelong 
 practice of the man himself, for every word as 
 he talks can be heard in every part of a large build- 
 ing, yet always he speaks without apparent effort. 
 He avoids "elocution." His voice is soft-pitched 
 and never breaks, even now when he is over 
 seventy, because, so he explains it, 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 ConweU explaining Conwellism. 
 "Enthusiasm invites enthusiasm," is another of his 
 points of importance; and one tmderstands that 
 it is by deliberate purpose, and not by chance, 
 that he tries with such tremendous effort to put 
 enthusiasm into his hearers with every sermon 
 and every lectture that he delivers. 
 
 "It is easy to raise a laugh, but dangerous, for 
 it is the greatest test of an orator's control of his 
 audience to be able to land them again on the 
 solid earth of sober thinking." I have known 
 him at the very end of a sermon have a ripple of 
 laughter sweep freely over the entire congregation, 
 and then in a moment he has every individual 
 under his control, listening soberly to his words. 
 
 He never fears to use humor, and it is always 
 very simple and obvious and effective. With him 
 even a very simple pun may be used, not only with- 
 
 95 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 out taking away from the strength of what he is 
 saying, but with a vivid increase of impressive- 
 ness. And when he says something funny it is 
 in such a delightful and confidential way, with 
 such a genial, qtdet, infectious humorousness, that 
 his audience is captivated. And they never think 
 that he is telling something funny of his own; 
 it seems, such is the skill of the man, that he is 
 just letting them know of something humorous 
 that they are to enjoy with him. 
 
 "Be absolutely truthful and scrupiilously clear," 
 he writes; and with delightfully terse common 
 sense, he says, "Use illustrations that illustrate" — 
 and never did an orator Hve up to this injimction 
 more than does Conwell himself. Nothing is more 
 surprising, nothing is more interesting, than the 
 way in which he makes use as illustrations of the 
 impressions and incidents of his long and varied 
 life, and, whatever it is, it has direct and instant 
 bearing on the progress of his discourse. He will 
 refer to something that he heard a child say in a 
 train yesterday; in a few minutes he wiU speak 
 of something that he saw or some one whom he 
 met last month, or last year, or ten years ago — 
 in Ohio, in California, in London, in Paris, in 
 New York, in Bombay; and 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 
 
 96 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 flow of illustrations, and his memory and his 
 skUl make admirable use of them. It is seldom 
 that he uses an illustration from what he has 
 read; everything is, characteristically, his own. 
 Henry M. Stanley, who knew him well, referred 
 to Mm as "that double-sighted Yankee," who 
 could "see at a glance aU there is and all there 
 ever was." 
 
 And never was there a man who so supplements 
 with personal reminiscence the place or the per- 
 son that has figured in the illustration. When 
 he illustrates with the story of the discovery of 
 California gold at Sutter's he almost parenthet- 
 ically remarks, "I deUvered this lectxire on that 
 very spot a few years ago; that is, in the town 
 that arose on that very spot." And when he il- 
 lustrates 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 was Elias 
 Howe. But that would be a mistake. I was 
 with EHas 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 that then his 
 wife, feeHng that something really had to be done, 
 invented it in a couple of hours." 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 
 
 97 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 simplicity about the man and his words; a sim- 
 pUcity, an earnestness, a complete honesty. And 
 when he sets down, in his book on oratory, "A 
 man has no right to use words carelessly," he 
 stands for that respect for word-craftsmanship 
 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 re- 
 member, 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 there- 
 fore I feel that I must exert my utmost power 
 in that last chance." And in this, even if this were 
 aU, one sees why each of his sermons is so impres- 
 sive, and why his energy never lags. Always, 
 with him, is the feeling that he is in the world to 
 do all the good he can possibly do ; not a moment, 
 not an opportiuiity, must be lost. 
 
 The moment he rises and steps to the front 
 of his ptdpit he has the attention of every one in 
 the building, and this attention he closely holds 
 till he is through. Yet it is never by a striking 
 effort that attention is gained, except in so far 
 that his utter simplicity is striking. "I want 
 
 98 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 to preach so simply that you will not think it 
 preaching, but just that you are listening to a 
 friend," I remember his saying, one Sunday morn- 
 ing, as he began his sermon ; and then he went on 
 just as simply as such homely, kindly, friendly 
 words promised. And how effectively ! 
 
 He believes that everything should be so put 
 as to be understood by all, and this belief he 
 applies not only to his preaching, but to the read- 
 ing of the Bible, whose descriptions he not only 
 visualizes to himself, but makes vividly clear to his 
 hearers; and this often makes for fascination in 
 result. 
 
 For example, he is reading the tenth chapter of 
 I Samuel, and begins, ' ' ' Thou shalt meet a com- 
 pany 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 change as 
 a matter of course, "'Thou shalt meet a company 
 of singers coming down from the high place — ' " 
 
 Whereupon he again interrupts himself, and 
 in an irresistible explanatory aside, which instantly 
 raises the desired pictiu-e in the mind of every 
 one, he says: "That means, from the little old 
 church on the hiU, 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 that prophets were coming 
 down from a high place, which woiild not have 
 seemed at all aUve or nattural, and here, suddenly, 
 
 99 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Conwell has flashed his picture of the singers 
 coming down from the Httle old church on the 
 hill! There is magic in doing that sort of thing. 
 
 And he goes on, now reading: "'Thou shalt 
 meet a company of singers coming down from 
 the little old church on the hiU, with a psaltery, 
 and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, and they 
 shall sing.' " 
 
 Music is one of Conwell's strongest aids. He 
 sings himself; 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 massed 
 choir ostensibly leading the singing, but that 
 Conwell himself, standing at the rear of the 
 pulpit platform, with his eyes on his hymn-book, 
 silently swaying a little with the music and un- 
 consciously beating time as he swayed, was just 
 as unconsciously the real leader, for it was he 
 whom the congregation were watching and with 
 him that they were keeping time! He never 
 suspected it; he was merely thinking along with 
 the music; and there was such a look of con- 
 tagious happiness on his face as made every one 
 in the building similarly happy. For he possesses 
 a mysterious faculty of imbuing others with his 
 own happiness. 
 
 Not only singers, but the modem equivalent 
 of psaltery and tabret and cymbals, aU have their 
 
 lOO 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 place in Dr. Conwell's scheme of church service; 
 for there may be a piano, and there may even be 
 a trombone, and there is a great organ to help 
 the voices, and at times there are chiming bells. 
 His musical taste seems to tend toward the 
 thunderous — or perhaps it is only that he knows 
 there are times when people like to hear the 
 thunderous and are moved by it. 
 
 And how the choir themselves Kke it! They 
 occupy a great curving space behind the pxolpit, 
 and put their hearts into song. And as the con- 
 gregation disperse and the choir filter down, some- 
 times they are still singing and some of them con- 
 tinue to sing as they go slowly out toward the 
 doors. They are happy — ConweU himself is 
 happy — aU the congregation are 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 
 fuU reverence. It is no wonder that he is accus- 
 tomed to fill every seat of the great biulding. 
 
 His gestures are usually very simple. Now and 
 then, when he works up to emphasis, he strikes 
 one fist in the pakn 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 
 
 lOI 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 eyes. And though he is past the threescore years 
 and ten, he looks out over his people with eyes that 
 still have the veritable look of youth. 
 
 Like all great men, he not only does big things, 
 but keeps in touch with myriad details. When 
 his assistant, announcing the funeral of an old 
 member, hesitates about the street and number 
 and says that they can be iound in the telephone 
 directory. Dr. Conwell's deep voice breaks quietly 
 in with, "Such a niimber [giving it], Dauphin 
 Street" — quietly, and in a low tone, yet every 
 one in the chiirch hears distinctly every syllable 
 of that low voice. 
 
 His fund of personal anecdote, or personal rem- 
 iniscence, is constant and illustrative in his preach- 
 ing, just as it is when he lectxires, and the reminis- 
 cences sweep through many years, and at times 
 are reaUy startling in the vivid and homelike 
 pictures they present of the famous folk of the 
 past that he knew. 
 
 One Sionday evening he made an almost casual 
 reference to the time when he first met Garfield, 
 then a candidate for the Presidency. "I asked 
 Major McKinley, whom I had met in Washington, 
 and whose home was in northern Ohio, as was 
 that of Mr. Garfield, to go with me to Mr. Gar- 
 field'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 Jim 
 to his old neighbors. It's hard to recognize a 
 hero over your back fence!" He paused a mo- 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 ment for the appreciative ripple to subside, and 
 went on : 
 
 "We three talked there together" — ^what a 
 rare talking that 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 how deeply 
 they loved the old hymn, 'The Old-Time Re- 
 ligion.' 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 it 
 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 forget what reason there was for McKinley's. 
 especially liking it, but he, as did Garfield, liked. 
 it immensely." 
 
 What followed was a striking example of Con- 
 well's intentness on losing no chance to fix an 
 impression on his hearers' minds, and at the same 
 time it was a really astonishing 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 nvtmber, 
 and the great organ struck up, and every person^ 
 
 B 103 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 in the great church — every man, woman, and child 
 — joined in the swinging rhythm of verse after 
 verse, as if they could never tire, of "The Old- 
 Time Religion." It is a simple melody— barely 
 more than a single line of almost monotone 
 music : 
 
 It was good enough for mother and it's good 
 
 enough jor met 
 It was good in the fiery furnace and it's good 
 
 enough for me! 
 
 Thus it went on, with never-wearying iteration, 
 and each time with the 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 for the Hebrew children, that 
 it was good for Paul and Silas, that it wlU help 
 you when you're dying, that it wiU show the way 
 to heaven — all these and stiU 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 be- 
 fore his people, leading them, singing with them, 
 
 104 
 
ORATOR AND PREACHER 
 
 his eyes aglow with an inward light. His magic 
 had suddenly set them into the spirit of the old 
 camp-meeting days, the days of pioneering and 
 hardship, when religion meant so much to every- 
 body, and even those who knew nothing of such 
 things felt them, even if but vaguely. Every 
 heart was moved and touched, and that old tune 
 will sing in the memory of all who thus heard it 
 and sung it as long as they live. 
 
GIFT FOR INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 THE constant earnestness of Conwell, his desire 
 to let no chance sHp by of helping a feUow- 
 man, puts often into his voice, when he preaches, 
 a note of eagerness, of anxiety. But when he 
 prays, when he ttims to God, his manner under- 
 goes a subtle and unconscious change. A load 
 has slipped off his shoulders and has been asstimed 
 by a higher power. Into his bearing, dignified 
 though it was, there comes an unconscious in- 
 crease of the dignity. Into his voice, firm as it 
 was before, there comes a deeper note of firmness. 
 He is apt to fling his arms widespread as he prays, 
 in a fine gestxire that he never uses at other times, 
 and he looks upward with the dignity of a man 
 who, talking to a higher being, is proud of being 
 a 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 has such control 
 that whatever he does seems to everybody a per- 
 
 io6 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 fectly nattiral thing. His sincerity is so evident, 
 and whatever he does is done so simply and natu- 
 rally, that it is just a matter of course. 
 
 I remember, dviring 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 posttire 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 this 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 answers to prayer, and, in fact, 
 to what may be termed the direct interposition of 
 Providence. Doubtless the mystic strain inherited 
 from his mother has also 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 difficul- 
 ties that are his; and this heartening 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 
 doUars was absolutely needed to prevent a law- 
 siiit 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 
 
 107 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 liability for debts of his chtirch — and failure to 
 meet the note wotild mean a meastore of disgrace 
 as well as marked church discouragement. 
 
 He had tried all the sources that seemed open 
 to him, but in vain. He could not openly appeal 
 to the chiu-ch members, in this case, for it was 
 in the early days of his pastorate, and his zeal 
 for the organ, his desire and determination to 
 have it, as a necessary part of chtu-ch 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 lie 
 had tried prayer. But there was no sign of aid, 
 whether supernatural or natural. 
 
 And then, literally on the very day on which 
 the holder of the note was to begin proceedings 
 against him, a check for precisely the needed one 
 thousand dollars 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 a thousand dollars; she merely out- 
 lined to her brother what Dr. ConweU was accom- 
 plishing, and with such enthusiasm that the 
 brother at once sent the opportime check. 
 
 io8 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 At a later time the stun of ten thousand dollars 
 was importunately needed. It was due, payment 
 had been promised. It was for some of the con- 
 struction work of the Temple University build- 
 ings. The last day had come, and ConweU and 
 the very few who knew of the emergency were 
 in the depths 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 splen- 
 didly, of their slender means, for the chiirch and 
 then for the university. There was no rich man 
 to turn to; the men famous for enormous chari- 
 table gifts have never let themselves be interested 
 in any of the work of Russell ConweU. It would 
 be unkind and gratuitous to suggest that it has 
 been because their names could not be personally 
 attached, or because the work is of an unpreten- 
 tious kind among tmpretentious people; it need 
 merely be said that neither they nor their agents 
 have cared to aid, except that one of the very 
 richest, whose name is the most distinguished in 
 the entire world as a giver, did once, in response to 
 a strong personal appKcation, give thirty-five hun- 
 dred doUars, this being the extent of the associa- 
 tion of the wealthy with any of the varied Con- 
 weU work. 
 
 So when it was absolutely necessary to have 
 ten thousand doUars the possibiUties of money 
 had been exhausted, whether from congregation 
 or individuals. 
 
 RusseU ConweU, in spite of his superb optimism, 
 109 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 is also a man of deep depressions, and this is be- 
 cause 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 
 is 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 doubt- 
 ful over some particiolar possibility. And he in- 
 tensely believes in prayer — faith can move moun- 
 tains; 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 had come — the ten-thousand-dollar 
 debt was a looming mountain that he had 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 his work for many years, 
 told me of how, in a discouragement which was 
 the 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 of its being Christmas only added to his 
 depression — Christmas was such an unnatural 
 time for unhappiness! But in a few minutes he 
 
 no 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 came flying back, radiant, overjoyed, sparkling 
 with happiness, waving a slip of paper in his hand 
 which was a check for precisely ten thousand 
 dollars! For he had just drawn it out of an en- 
 velope handed to him, as he reached home, by 
 the mail-carrier. 
 
 "And it had come so strangely and so natiirally! 
 For the check was from a woman who was pro- 
 foundly 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 at 
 the time that Dr. ConweU and all of us were 
 most grateful for the gift, it was not tmtil very 
 recently that she was told how opportune it was. 
 And the change it made in Dr. ConweU! He is 
 a great man for maxims, and all of us who are 
 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 to be discouraged. And 
 it is so seldom that he is!" 
 
 When the big new church was building the mem- 
 bers of the chtirch were vaguely disturbed by 
 noticing, when the structure reached the second 
 story, that at that height, on the side toward the 
 vacant and tmbought land adjoining, there were 
 several doors built that opened Uterally into 
 nothing but space ! 
 
 When asked about these doors and their purpose, 
 III 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Dr. Conwell would make some casual reply, gen- 
 erally 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 great plan that was 
 seething in his mind, which was that the btiildings 
 of a tmiversity were some day to stand on that 
 land immediately adjoining the chiirch! 
 
 At that time the university, the Temple Uni- 
 versity as it is now called, was not even a college, 
 although it was probably called a college. Con- 
 well had organized it, and it consisted of a number 
 of classes and teachers, meeting in highly inade- 
 quate quarters in two little houses. But the 
 imagination of Conwell early pictiured great new 
 buildings with accommodations for thousands ! In 
 time the dream was realized, the imagination be- 
 came a fact, and now those second-floor doors 
 actually open from the Temple Church into the 
 Temple University! 
 
 You see, he always thinks big! He dreams big 
 dreams and wins big success. All his Ufe he has 
 talked and preached success, and it is a real and 
 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 shotdd be satisfied with the small 
 things of Hfe. "If your rooms are big the people 
 will come and fill them," he likes to say. The 
 same effort that wins a small success would, 
 rightly directed, have won a great success. "Think 
 big things and then do them!" 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 Most favorite of all maxims with this man of 
 maxims, is "Let Patience have her perfect work." 
 Over and over he loves to say it, and his friends 
 laugh about his love for it, and he knows that they 
 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 or impatience or over-haste 
 — ^faults to which his impetuous temperament is 
 prone, though few have ever seen him either 
 angry or impatient or hasty, so well does he exer- 
 cise self-control. Those who have long known 
 him well have said to me that they have never 
 heard him censure any one; 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 years 
 does not entirely deaden it. 
 
 "When I have been hiul, or when I have talked 
 with annoying cranks, I have tried to let Patience 
 have her perfect work, for those very people, if 
 you have patience with them, may afterward 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 that it had even come from ministers of his 
 own denomination, for he had been so misunder- 
 
 113 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 stood and misjudged; but, he added, the momen- 
 tary sombemess lifting, 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 Phila- 
 delphia had said to me, with some shame, that 
 at first it used actually to be the case that when 
 Dr. Conwell would enter one of the regular min- 
 isters' meetings, all would hold aloof, not a single 
 one stepping forward to meet or greet him. 
 
 "And it was all through our jealousy of his 
 success," said the minister, vehemently. "He 
 came to this city a stranger, and he won instant 
 popidarity, and we couldn't stand it, and so we 
 pounced upon things that he did that were alto- 
 gether unimportant. The rest of us were so jeal- 
 ous of his winning throngs that we couldn'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. 
 Now no minister is so welcomed as he is, and I 
 don't believe that there ever has been a single 
 time since he started coming again that he hasn't 
 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 clergymen of his own 
 denomination admire him, for not long ago, 
 such having been Dr. Conwell 's triumph in the 
 city of his adoption, the rector of the most power- 
 ful and aristocratic church in Philadelphia vol- 
 untarily paid lofty tribute to his aims and ability, 
 
 114 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 his work and his personal worth. "He is an in- 
 spiration to his brothers in the ministry of Jesus 
 Christ," so this Episcopalian rector wrote. "He 
 is a friend to all that is good, a foe to aU that is 
 evil, a strength to the weak, a comforter to the 
 sorrowing, a man of God. These words come 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 beautiftd and 
 tmusual customs, and one can see how narrow and 
 hasty criticisms charged him, long ago, with sen- 
 sationalism — charges long since forgotten except 
 through the hurt stiU 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 of grieved amazement after all these years. 
 
 But he was original and he was popular, and 
 therefore there were misunderstanding and jeal- 
 ousy. His Easter services, for example, years 
 ago, became widely talked of and eagerly antici- 
 pated because each sermon would be wrought 
 around some fine symbol; and he would hold in 
 his hand, in the pulpit, the blue robin's egg, or 
 the white dove, or the stem of lilies, or whatever 
 he had chosen as the particular symbol for the 
 particular sermon, and that symbol wotdd give 
 him the central thought for his discovirse, accented 
 as it would be by the actual symbol itself in view 
 of the congregation. The cross Hghted by elec- 
 
 "5 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 tricity, to shine down over the baptismal pool, the 
 little stream of water cascading gently down the 
 steps of the pool during the baptismal rite, the 
 roses floating in the pool and his gift of one of them 
 to each of the baptized as he or she left the water — 
 all such things did seem, long ago, so unconven- 
 tional. Yet his own people recognized 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 individuaHty of mind, his constant 
 freshness, alertness, brilHancy, warmth, sympathy, 
 endear him to his congregation, and when he 
 returns from an absence they bubble and effervesce 
 over him as if he were some brilliant new preacher 
 just come to them. He is always new to them. 
 Were it not that he possesses some remarkable 
 quality of charm he would long ago have become, 
 so to speak, an old story, but instead of that he 
 is to them an always new story, an always enter- 
 taining and delightful story, after all these years. 
 
 It is not only that they still throng to hear 
 him either preach or lecture, though that itself 
 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, just after his return from an absence, 
 and every face beamed happily up at him to wel- 
 come him back, and every one listened as intently 
 to his every word as if he had never been heard 
 there before; and when the lecture was over a 
 
 ii6 
 
INSPIRING OTHERS 
 
 huge bouquet oMowers was handed up to him, and 
 some one embarrassedly said a few words about 
 its being because he was home again. It was 
 all as if he had just returned from an absence of 
 months — and he had been away just five and a 
 half days! 
 
VI 
 
 MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 THAT Conwell is not primarily a minister — 
 that he is a minister because he is a sincere 
 Christian, but that he is first of all an Abou Ben 
 Adhem, a man who loves his fellow-men, becomes 
 more and more apparent as the scope of his life- 
 work is recognized. One almost comes to think 
 that his pastorate of a great chtuch is even a 
 minor matter beside 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 matters of religion. The power, the ruggedness, 
 the physical and mental strength, the positive 
 grandeur of the man — aU these are Hke the gen- 
 eral conceptions of the big Old Testament proph- 
 ets. The suggestion is given only because it has 
 often recurred, and therefore with the feehng that 
 there is something more than fanciful in the com- 
 
 ii8 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 parison; 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 de- 
 scribe 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 in the 
 right path — such men as Emerson, Alcott, Gough, 
 Wendell PhiUips, Garrison, Bayard Taylor, 
 Beecher; men whom ConweU knew and admired 
 in the long ago, and aU of whom have long since 
 passed away. 
 
 And ConweU, 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 coiirage to the crowded benches 
 of country lyceums, and the chairs of school-houses 
 and town haUs, or the larger and more pretentious 
 gathering-places of the cities. 
 
 ConweU himself is amused to remember that 
 he wanted to talk in public from his boyhood, 
 and that very early he began to yield to the in- 
 born impulse. He laughs as he remembers the 
 variety of country fairs and school commence- 
 ments and anniversaries and even sewing-circles 
 where he tried his youthful powers, and aU for ex- 
 perience alone, in the first few years, except pos- 
 sibly for such a thing as a ham or a jack-knife! 
 The first money that he ever received for speaking 
 
 9 119 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 was, so he remembers with glee, seventy-five cents ; 
 and even that was not for his talk, but for horse 
 hire! But at the same time there is more than 
 amusement in recalling these experiences, for he 
 knows that they were invaluable to him as train- 
 ing. And for over half a century he has affection- 
 ately remembered John B. Gough, who, in the 
 height of his own power and success, saw resolu- 
 tion 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 yovmg man just beginning an 
 oratorical career. 
 
 Conwell's lecturing has been, considering every- 
 thing, the most important work of his Ufe, for by 
 it he has come into close touch with so many 
 milHons — literally millions! — of people. 
 
 I asked 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 attend- 
 ance for each, but desisted when he saw that it 
 ran into millions of hearers. What a marvel is 
 such a fact as that ! Millions of hearers ! 
 
 I asked the same question of his private secre- 
 tary, and found that no one had ever kept any sort 
 of record; but as careful an estimate as coiild be 
 made gave a conservative result of fully eight 
 million hearers for his lectures; and adding the 
 
 120 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 number to whom he has preached, who have been 
 over ifive million, there is a total of well over thir- 
 teen million who have listened to Russell Con- 
 well's voice! And this staggering total is, if any- 
 thing, an underestimate. The figuring was done 
 cautiously and was based upon such facts as that 
 he now addresses an average of over forty-five 
 hxmdred at his Sunday services (an average that 
 would be higher were it not that his sermons in 
 vacation time are usually delivered in little 
 churches; when at home, at the Temple, he ad- 
 dresses three meetings every Sunday), and that 
 he lectures throughout the entire course of each 
 year, including six nights a week of lecturing dur- 
 ing vacation-time. What a power is wielded by 
 a man who has held over thirteen million people 
 under the spell of his voice! Probably no other 
 man who ever lived had such a total of hearers. 
 And the total is steadily mounting, for he is a man 
 who has never known the meaning of rest. 
 
 I think it 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-the-way places, the submerged places, 
 that most need a pleasture and a stimulus, and he 
 still goes out, man of well over seventy that he is, 
 to tiny towns in distant states, heedless of the 
 discornforts of traveUng, of the poor little hotels 
 
 121 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 that seldom have visitors, of the oftentimes hope- 
 less cooking and the uncleanliness, of the hard- 
 ships 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 his 
 fervid earnestness. 
 
 How he does it, how he can possibly keep it up, 
 is the greatest marvel of all. I have before me a 
 list of his engagements for the siimmer weeks of 
 this year, 191 5, and I shall set it down because 
 it will specifically show, far more clearly than 
 general statements, the kind of work he does. 
 The list is the itinerary of his vacation. Vacation ! 
 Lecturing every evening but Sunday, and on 
 Sundays preaching in the town where he happens 
 to be! 
 
 June 
 
 July 
 
 24 
 
 Ackley, la. July 11 
 
 ♦Brookings, S. D. 
 
 25 
 
 Waterloo, la. ' 
 
 12 
 
 Pipestone, Minn. 
 
 26 
 
 Decorah, la. ' 
 
 ' 13 
 
 Hawarden, la. 
 
 27 
 
 *Waukon, la. ' 
 
 ' 14 
 
 Canton, S. D. 
 
 28 
 
 Red Wing, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 15 
 
 Cherokee, la. 
 
 ■29 
 
 River Falls, Wis. 
 
 ' 16 
 
 Pocahontas, la. 
 
 30 
 
 Northfield, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 17 
 
 Glidden, la. 
 
 I 
 
 Faribault, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 18 
 
 *Boone, la. 
 
 2 
 
 Spring Valley, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 19 
 
 Dexter, la. 
 
 3 
 
 Blue Earth, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 20 
 
 Indianola, la. 
 
 4 
 
 *Fairmount, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 21 
 
 Corydon, la. 
 
 5 
 
 Lake Crystal, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 22 
 
 Essex, la. 
 
 6 
 
 Redwood Falls, ' 
 
 ' 23 
 
 Sidney, la. 
 
 
 Minn. ' 
 
 24 
 
 FaUs City, Nebr. 
 
 7 
 
 Willmer, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 25 
 
 *Hiawatha, Kan. 
 
 8 
 
 Dawson, Minn. ' 
 
 ' 26 
 
 Frankfort, Kan. 
 
 9 
 
 Redfield, S. D. 
 
 ' 27 
 
 Greenleaf, Kan. 
 
 10 
 
 Huron, S. D. ' 
 
 ' 28 
 
 Osborne, Kan. 
 
 122 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 July 29 
 
 Stockton, Kan. 
 
 Aug 
 
 14 
 
 Honesdale, Pa. 
 
 " 30 
 
 Phillipsburg, Kan. 
 
 
 15 
 
 *Honesdale, Pa. 
 
 " 31 
 
 Mankato, Kan. 
 
 
 16 
 
 Carbondale, Pa. 
 
 En route to next date on 
 
 
 17 
 
 Montrose, Pa. 
 
 circuit. 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 Tunkhannock, Pa. 
 
 Aug. 3 
 
 Westfield, Pa. 
 
 
 19 
 
 Nanticoke, Pa. 
 
 
 4 
 
 Galston, Pa. 
 
 
 20 
 
 Stroudsburg, Pa. 
 
 
 5 
 
 Port Alleghany, Pa. 
 
 
 21 
 
 Newton, N. J. 
 
 
 ' 6 
 
 Wellsville, N. Y. 
 
 
 22 
 
 *Newton, N. J. 
 
 
 ' 7 
 
 Bath, N. Y. 
 
 
 23 
 
 Hackettstown, N. J 
 
 
 ' 8 
 
 *Bath, N. Y. 
 
 
 24 
 
 New Hope, Pa. 
 
 
 ' 9 
 
 Penn Yan, N. Y. 
 
 
 25 
 
 Doylestown, Pa. 
 
 
 ' 10 
 
 Athens, N. Y. 
 
 
 26 
 
 Phcenixville, Pa. 
 
 
 ' II 
 
 Owego, N. Y. 
 
 
 27 
 
 Kennett, Pa. 
 
 
 ' 12 
 
 Patchogue,L.I.,N.Y. 
 
 
 28 
 
 Oxford, Pa. 
 
 
 ' 13 
 
 Port Jervis, N. Y. 
 
 
 29 
 
 ♦Oxford, Pa. 
 
 
 
 * Preach 
 
 on Sunday 
 
 
 And all these hardships, all this traveling and 
 lecturing, which would test the endurance of the 
 youngest and strongest, this man of over seventy 
 assumes without receiving a particle of personal 
 gain, for every dollar that he makes by it is given 
 away in helping those who need helping. 
 
 That Dr. ConweU is intensely modest is one 
 of the curious featiares of his character. He sin- 
 cerely 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 
 unweariedly, but in profound sincerity he ascribes 
 the success of his plans to those who have seconded 
 and assisted him. It is in just this way that he 
 looks upon every phase of his life. When he is 
 reminded of the devotion of his old soldiers, he 
 remembers it only with a sort of pleased wonder 
 that they gave the devotion to him, and he quite 
 forgets that they loved him because he was always 
 
 123 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 ready to sacrifice ease or risk his own life for 
 them. 
 
 He deprecates praise; if any one likes him, the 
 liking need not be shown in words, but in helping 
 along a good work. That his chxirch has succeeded 
 has been because of the devotion of the people; 
 that the university has 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 thiriks mainly of his own short- 
 comings. "God and man have ever 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 
 his hopes have gone soaring far in advance of 
 achievement. It is the "Hitch your chariot to 
 a star" idea. 
 
 His modesty goes hand-in-hand with kindliness, 
 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 
 former pupil of the university was present who, 
 Conwell knew, was ambitious to say something 
 inside of the Temple walls, and this seemed to 
 be the only opportunity. 
 
 I have noticed, when he travels, that the face 
 of the newsboy brightens as he buys a paper from 
 
 124 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 him, that the porter is all happiness, that con- 
 ductor and brakeman are devotedly anxious to 
 be of aid. 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, and Bayard Taylor was one of the 
 many; he and Bayard Taylor loved each other for 
 long acquaintance and fellow experiences as world- 
 wide travelers, back in the years when com- 
 paratively few Americans visited the Nile and the 
 Orient, or even Europe. 
 
 When Taylor died there was a memorial service 
 in Boston at which ConweU was asked to preside, 
 and, as he wished for something more than ad- 
 dresses, he went to Longfellow and asked him to 
 write and read a poem for the occasion. Long- 
 fellow had not thought of writing anything, and 
 he was too iU to be present at the services, but, 
 there always being something contagiously in- 
 spiring about Russell ConweU when he wishes 
 something to be done, the poet promised to do 
 what he could. And he wrote and sent the beau- 
 tiful lines beginning: 
 
 Dead he lay among his books, 
 The peace of God was in his looks. 
 
 Many men of letters, including Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, were present at the services, and Dr. 
 ConweU induced Oliver Wend6U Holmes to read 
 the Unes, and they were listened to amid profound 
 silence, to their fine ending. 
 
 125 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Conwell, in spite of his widespread hold on 
 millions of people, has never won fame, recogni- 
 tion, general renown, compared with many men 
 of minor achievements. This seems like an im- 
 possibility. 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, in the mere reading 
 of them, do his words appeal with anything like 
 the force of the same words uttered by himself, 
 for always, with his spoken words, is his personal- 
 ity. Those who have heard Russell Conwell, or 
 have known him personally, recognize the charm 
 of the man and his immense f orcef ulness ; but 
 there are many, and among them those who con- 
 trol publicity through books and newspapers, 
 who, though they ought to be the warmest in their 
 enthusiasm, have never felt drawn to hear him, 
 and, if they know of him at all, think of him as 
 one who pleases in a 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 admira- 
 tion of the really great, as well as of the humbler 
 
 126 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 milKons. It is only a supposedly cultured class 
 in between that is 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, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, looks most closely to 
 family and place of residence as criterions of 
 merit — a city with which it is almost impossible 
 for a stranger to become affiliated — or aphiladel- 
 phiated, as it might be expressed — and Phila- 
 delphia, in spite of all that Dr. 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 effort to make friends in Ritten- 
 house Square. Such considerations seem absurd 
 in this twentieth century, but in Philadelphia 
 they are stiU potent. Tens of thousands of Phila- 
 delphians love him, and he is honored by its 
 greatest men, but there is a class of the pseudo- 
 culttired 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 chvu-ch or a little hall and to speak to 
 the forgotten people, in the hope of encouraging 
 and inspiring them and filling them with hopeful 
 glow, rather than to speak to the rich and com- 
 fortable. 
 
 His dearest hope, so one of the few who are 
 close to him told me, is that no one shall come 
 into his life without being benefited. He does 
 
 127 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 not say this publicly, nor does he 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, the hard-working, 
 the unsuccessful, is in a way to win honor from 
 the Scribes; for we have Scribes now quite as 
 much as when they were classed with Pharisees. 
 It is not the first time in the world's history that 
 Scribes have faUed to give their recognition to 
 one whose work was not among the great and 
 wealthy. 
 
 That Conwell himself has seldom taken any 
 part whatever in politics except as a good citizen 
 stg,nding for good government; that, as he ex- 
 presses it, he never held any political office except 
 that he was once on a school committee, and also 
 that he does not identify himself with the so-called 
 "movements" that from time to time catch 
 public attention, but aims only and constantly 
 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 has all his life worked hard. "Things keep 
 turning my way because I'm on the job," as he 
 whimsically expressed it one day; but that is 
 about aU, so it seems to him. 
 
 And he sincerely believes that his life has in 
 itself been without interest; that it has been an 
 essentially commonplace life with nothing of the 
 
 128 
 
THE 
 
 OLD MEETING 
 
 HOUSE 
 
 NEAR 
 
 THE 
 
 CONWELL 
 
 HOME 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 interesting or the eventful to tell. He is frankly- 
 surprised that there has ever been the desire to 
 write about him. He really has no idea of how 
 fascinating are the things he has done. His entire 
 Hfe has been of positive interest from the variety 
 of things accomplished and the unexpectedness 
 with which he has accomplished them. 
 
 Never, for example, was there such an organ- 
 izer. 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 is believed to have been the first free school 
 for colored children in the South. One day 
 Minneapolis happened to be spoken of, and Con- 
 weU happened to remember that he organized, 
 when he was a lawyer in that city, what became 
 the first Y.M.C.A. branch there. Once he even 
 started a newspaper. And it was natural that the 
 organizing instinct, as years advanced, should 
 lead him to greater and greater things, such as 
 his church, with the numerous associations formed 
 within itself through his influence, and the uni- 
 versity — ^the organizing of the university being 
 in itself an achievement of positive romance. 
 
 "A Hfe without interest!" Why, when I hap- 
 pened 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 
 
 129 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 personally or in collaboration with the American 
 biographer Abbott. 
 
 The many-sidedness of Conwell is one of the 
 things that is always fascinating. After you have 
 quite got the feeHng that he is peculiarly a man 
 of to-day, lecturing on to-day's possibilities to the 
 people of to-day, you happen upon some such 
 fact as that he attracted the attention of the 
 London Times through a lecture on Italian his- 
 tory 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 Cur- 
 rictdum 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 easily have been a veritable fire-wor- 
 shiper instead of an orthodox Christian! He 
 has always loved a blaze, and he says reminis- 
 cently that for no single thing was he punished 
 so much when he was a child as for building bon- 
 fires. And after securing possession, as he did in 
 middle age, of the house where he was born and 
 of a great acreage around about, he had one of 
 the most enjoyable times of his life in tearing 
 down old buildings that needed to be destroyed 
 and in heaping up fallen trees and rubbish and in 
 piling great heaps of wood and setting the great 
 piles ablaze. You see, there is one of the secrets 
 of his strength — ^he has never lost the capacity for 
 fiery enthusiasm! 
 
 130 
 
MILLIONS OF HEARERS 
 
 Always, too, 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 never per- 
 mitted this to interfere with his work or plans. 
 He makes little of his sufferings, and when he 
 slowly makes his way, bent and twisted, down- 
 stairs, he does not want to be noticed. "I'm all 
 right," he will say if any one 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 that he will not relinquish it while he 
 Hves. "I'm all right!" And he makes himself 
 beUeve that he is all right even though the pain 
 becomes so severe as to demand massage. And 
 he will stm, 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 of the gnawing fox. And he never has 
 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, and inspired by what he is to do, has stood 
 before his audience or congregation, a man full of 
 strength and fire and life. 
 
VII 
 
 HOW A UNIVERSITY WAS FOUNDED 
 
 THE story of the fovindation 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 ! — noth- 
 ing but the need of a young man and the fact that 
 he told the need to one who, throughout his Hfe, 
 has felt the impulse to help any one in need 
 and has always obeyed the impulse. 
 
 I asked Dr. Conwell, up at his home in the 
 Berkshires, to tell me himself just how the uni- 
 versity began, and he said that it began because 
 it was needed and succeeded because 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 lay over the waters 
 and the trees and the hills, and then he said : 
 
 "It was all so simple; it all 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 
 
 132 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 him sit down by me, and I knew that in a 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 nothing at all. Yet my 
 longing is to be a minister. It is the one ambition 
 of my 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 am ready to give every spare 
 minute to it, but I don't know how to get at it.' 
 
 "I thought a few minutes, as I looked at him. 
 He was strong in his desire and in his ambition to 
 fulfil 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 again. 'May I bring a 
 friend with me?' he said. 
 
 "I told him to bring as many as he wanted to, 
 133 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 for more than one wotdd 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 was over. He was 
 looking out thoughtfully into the waning light, 
 and I knew that his mind was busy with 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 is 
 little more to tell. By the third evening the 
 number of pupils had increased to forty; others 
 joined in helping me, and a room was hired ; then 
 a little house, then a second house. 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 noticed how quickly it had become 
 "our" instead of "my") — "our aim was to give 
 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 
 with brevity of what he has done, to point out the 
 beginnings of something, and quite omit to elabo- 
 rate as to the results. And that, when you come 
 to know him, is precisely what he means you to 
 understand — that it is the beginning of anything 
 that is important, and that if a thing is but 
 
 134 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 earnestly begun and set going in the right way 
 it may just as easily develop big results as little 
 results. 
 
 But his story was very far indeed from being 
 "all there was to it," for he had quite omitted 
 to state the extraordinary fact that, beginning 
 with those seven pupils, coming to his library on an 
 evening in 1884, the Temple University has 
 numbered, up to Commencement- time in 1915, 
 88,821 students! Nearly one hundred thousand 
 students, and in the lifetime of the foimder! 
 Really, the magnitude of such a work cannot be 
 exaggerated, nor the vast importance of it when 
 it is considered that most of these eighty-eight 
 thousand students would not have received their 
 education had it not been for Temple University. 
 And it aU came from the instant response of 
 Russell ConweU to the immediate need presented 
 by a young man without money! 
 
 "And there is something else I want to say," 
 said Dr. Conwell, unexpectedly. "I want to say, 
 more ftilly 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 ventiu-e 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 wotdd 
 now appear, for there were then no night schools 
 10 13s 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 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 lessen- 
 ing of the need of it," he added, ponderingly. 
 
 No; there is certainly no lessening of the need 
 of it! The figures of the annual catalogue would 
 alone show that. 
 
 As early as 1887, just three years after the 
 beginning, the Temple College, as it was by that 
 time called, issued its first catalogue, which set 
 forth with stirring words that the intent of its 
 founding was to: 
 
 "Provide such instruction as shaU be best 
 adapted to the higher education of those who are 
 compelled to labor at their trade while engaged 
 in study. 
 
 "Ciiltivate a taste for the higher and most 
 useful branches of learning. 
 
 "Awaken in the character of young laboring 
 men and women a determined ambition to be 
 usefvil to their feUow-men." 
 
 The college — the university as it in time came 
 to be — early broadened its scope, but it has from 
 the first continued to aim at the needs of those 
 unable to secure education without such help as, 
 through its methods, it affords. 
 
 It was chartered in 1888, at which time its 
 nimibers had reached almost six hundred, and it 
 has ever since had a constant flood of applicants. 
 
 136 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 "It has demonstrated," as Dr. Conwell puts it, 
 "that those who work for a living have time for 
 study." And he, though he does not himself 
 add this, has given the opporttmity. 
 
 He feels especial pride in the features by which 
 lectures and recitations are held at practically 
 any hoiu: which best stiits the convenience of the 
 students. If any ten students join in a request 
 for any hour from nine in the morning to 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 
 would otherwise be necessary, but that is deemed 
 a slight consideration in comparison with the im- 
 mense good done by meeting the needs of workers. 
 
 Also President Conwell — ^for of coirrse he is the 
 president of the tmiversity — is proud of the fact 
 that the privilege of graduation depends entirely 
 upon knowledge gained ; that graduation does not 
 depend upon 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 in three he is encouraged 
 to do it, and if he cannot even do it in four he can 
 have no diploma. 
 
 Obviously, there is no place at Temple Uni- 
 versity for students who care only for a few years 
 of leisured ease. It is a place for workers, and 
 not at aU for those who merely wish to be able to 
 boast that they attended a university. The stu- 
 dents have come largely from among railroad 
 
 137 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 clerks, bank clerks, bookkeepers, teachers, preach- 
 ers, mechanics, salesmen, drug clerks, city and 
 United States government employees, widows, 
 nurses, housekeepers, brakemen, firemen, engi- 
 neers, motormen, conductors, and shop hands. 
 
 It was when the college became strong enough, 
 and sufficiently advanced in scholarship and 
 standing, and broad enough in scope, to win the 
 name of tmiversity 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 in long-established high- 
 grade colleges, to the student who has to 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 such course as law or 
 medicine or engineering. 
 
 Out of last year's enrolment of 3,654 it is in- 
 teresting to notice that the law claimed 141; 
 theology, 182; medicine and pharmacy and den- 
 tistry combined, 357; civil engineering, 37; also 
 that the teachers' college, with normal courses 
 on such subjects as household arts and science, 
 kindergarten work, and physical education, took 
 
 138 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 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 dress- 
 making, millinery, manual crafts, school-garden- 
 ing, and story-telling. 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 in the department 
 of commercial education there were 987 — for it is 
 a university that offers both scholarship and prac- 
 ticaHty. 
 
 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, than are the great 
 imiversities which receive millions and millions 
 of money in private gifts and endowments. 
 
 Temple University in its early years was sorely 
 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 hkes to feel 
 that it is glad of it. The Temple, to quote 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 
 
 139 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 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 when he left second-story doors 
 in his church !) , the university — college it was then 
 called — had won 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, and two thousand dol- 
 lars from policemen who gave a dollar each. 
 Within two or three years past the State of Penn- 
 sylvania has begun giving it a large sum annually, 
 and this state aid is public recognition of Temple 
 University as an institution of high public value. 
 The state money is invested in the brains and 
 hearts of the ambitious. 
 
 So eager is Dr. Conwell to place the opportunity 
 of education before every one, that even his ser- 
 vants 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 edu- 
 cation, and in the highest attainable education, is 
 (profound, and it is not only on account of the 
 [abstract pleasure and value of education, but its 
 power of increasing actual earning power and thus 
 making a worker of more value to both himself 
 and the commimity. 
 
 140 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 Many a man and many a woman, while con- 
 tinuing to work for some firm or factory, has taken 
 Temple technical courses and thus fitted himself 
 or herself for an advanced position with the 
 same employer. The Temple knows of many 
 such, who have thus won prominent advancement. 
 And it knows of teachers who, while contimiing 
 to teach, have fitted themselves through the Tem- 
 ple courses for professorships. And it knows 
 of many a case of the rise of a Temple student 
 that reads like an Arabian Nights' 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 help 
 themselves. 
 
 President Conwell told me personally of one 
 case that especially interested him because it 
 seemed to exhibit, in especial degree, the Temple 
 possibilities; and it particularly interested me 
 because it also showed, in high degree, the 
 methods and personality of Dr. Conwell himself. 
 
 One day a young woman came to him and 
 said she earned only three dollars a week and that 
 she desired very much to make more. "Can you 
 teU me how to do it?" she said. 
 
 He liked her ambition and her directness, but 
 there was something that he felt doubtful about, 
 and that was that her hat looked too expensive 
 for three dollars a week ! 
 
 Now Dr. Conwell is a man whom you would 
 141 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 never suspect of giving a thought to the hat of 
 man or woman! But as a matter of fact there is 
 very little that he does not see. 
 
 But though the hat seemed too expensive for 
 three dollars a week, Dr. Conwell is not a man 
 who makes snap-judgments harshly, and in par- 
 ticular he would be the last man to turn away 
 hastily one who had sought him out for help. 
 He never felt, nor could possibly urge upon any 
 one, contentment with a humble lot; he stands 
 for advancement ; he has no sympathy with that 
 dictxim of the smug, that has come to us from a na- 
 tion tight bound for centuries by its gentry and 
 aristocracy, about being contented with the posi- 
 tion in which God has placed you, for he points 
 out that the Bible itself holds up advancement 
 and success as things desirable. 
 
 And, as to the young woman before him, it 
 developed, through discreet inquiry veiled by 
 frank discussion of her case, that she had made 
 the expensive-looking hat herself! Whereupon 
 not only did aU doubtfulness and hesitation van- 
 ish, but he saw at once how she could better herself. 
 He knew that a woman who covdd make a hat 
 like that for herself could make hats for other 
 people, and so, "Go into miUinery as a business," 
 he advised. 
 
 "Oh— if I only could!" she exclaimed. "But 
 I know that I don't know enough." 
 
 "Take the millinery course in Temple Univer- 
 sity," he responded. 
 
 142 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 She had not even heard of such a course, and 
 when he went on to explain how she cotdd take 
 it and at the same time continue at her present 
 work until the course was concluded, she was 
 positively ecstatic — ^it was all so unexpected, this 
 opening of the view of a new and broader life. 
 
 "She was an unusual woman," concluded Dr. 
 ConweU, "and she worked with enthusiasm and 
 tirelessness. She graduated, went to an up-state 
 city that seemed to offer a good field, opened a 
 millinery establishment there, with her own name 
 above the door, and became prosperous. That 
 was only a few years ago. And recently I had a 
 letter from her, telling me that last year she 
 netted a clear profit of three thousand six hundred 
 dollars!" 
 
 I remember a man, himself of distingmshed 
 position, saying of Dr. ConweU, "It is difficult 
 to speak in tempered language of what he has 
 achieved." And that just expresses it ; the temp- 
 tation is constantly to use superlatives — ^for su- 
 perlatives fit! Of course he has succeeded for 
 himself, and succeeded marvelously, in his rise 
 from the rocky hiU farm, but he has done so vastly 
 more than that in inspiring such hosts of others 
 to succeed! 
 
 A dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions — 
 and what realizations have come! And it inter- 
 ested me profoundly not long ago, when Dr. 
 Conwell, taUdng of the vmiversity, unexpectedly 
 remarked that he would like to see such institu- 
 
 143 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 tions scattered throughout every state in the 
 Union. "All carried on at slight expense to the 
 students and at hours to suit all sorts of working 
 men and women," he added, after a pause; and 
 then, abruptly, "I should like to see the possi- 
 bility of higher education offered to every one in 
 the United States who works for a living." 
 
 There was something superb in the very imagin- 
 ing of such a nation-wide system. But I did not 
 ask whether or not he had planned any details 
 for 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 Con- 
 well! — or, far better, what wonders covdd be 
 accomplished if Conwell could but be a Methuse- 
 lah! 
 
 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 a letter he wrote from Jerusa- 
 
 144 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 lem. "I am in Jerusalem! And here at Geth- 
 semane 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 these 
 associations on his mind; but ConweU is always 
 the man who is different — "And here at Gethsem- 
 ane and at the Tomb of Christ, I pray especially for 
 the Temple University. ' ' That is Conwellism ! 
 
 That he founded a hospital — a work in itself 
 great enough for even a great life — is but one 
 among the 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 suf- 
 fering 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 — and so 
 he decided to start another hospital. 
 
 And, Uke everything with him, the beginning 
 was small. That cannot too strongly be set down 
 as the way of this phenomenally successful organ- 
 izer. Most men would have to wait until a big 
 beginning cotild be made, and so would most likely 
 never make a beginning at all. But Conwell's 
 way is to dream of future bigness, but be ready to 
 begin at once, no matter how small or insignificant 
 the beginning may appear to others. 
 
 US 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient — this 
 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-room. Now it occupies sev- 
 eral btdldings, including and adjoining that first 
 one, and a great new structure is planned. But 
 even as it is, it has a hundred and seventy beds, 
 is fitted with all modem 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 are never refused admission, the rule 
 being that treatment is free for those who cannot 
 pay, but that such as can afford it shall pay ac- 
 cording to their means. 
 
 And the hospital has a kindly feature that 
 endears it to patients and their relatives aUke, and 
 that is that, by Dr. Conwell's personal order, there 
 are not only the usual week-day hours for visiting, 
 but also one evening a week and every Sunday 
 afternoon. "For otherwise," as he says, "many 
 wotdd be unable to come because they could not 
 get away from their work." 
 
 A little over eight years ago another hospital 
 was taken in charge, the Garretson — not founded 
 by Conwell, this one, but acquired, and promptly 
 expanded in its usefulness. 
 
 Both the Samaritan and the Garretson are part 
 of Temple University. The Samaritan Hospital 
 
 146 
 
FOUNDING A UNIVERSITY 
 
 has treated, since its foundation, up to the middle 
 of 1915, 29,301 patients; the Garretson, in its 
 shorter life, 5,923. Including dispensary cases as 
 well as house patients, the two hospitals together, 
 under the headship of President Conwell, have 
 handled over 400,000 cases. 
 
 How Conwell can possibly meet the multifari- 
 ous demands upon his time is in itself a miracle. 
 He is the head of the great church; he is the head 
 of the university; he is the head of the hospitals; 
 he is the head of everything with which he is 
 associated! And he is not only nominally, but 
 very actively, the head! 
 
VIII 
 
 HIS SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 CONWELL has a few strong and efficient execu- 
 tive helpers who have long been associated 
 with him; men and women who know his ideas 
 and ideals, who are devoted to him, and who do 
 their utmost to relieve him; and of course there 
 is very much that is thus done for him; but even 
 as it is, he is so overshadowing a man (there is 
 really no other word) that all who work with him 
 look to him for advice and guidance — the profess- 
 ors and the students, the doctors and the nurses, 
 the church officers, the Sunday-school teachers, 
 the members of his congregation. And he is never 
 too busy to see any one who really wishes to see 
 him. 
 
 He can attend to a vast intricacy of detail, and 
 answer myriad personal questions and doubts, 
 and keep the great institutions splendidly going, 
 by thorough systematization of time, and by watch- 
 ing every minute. He has several secretaries, for 
 special work, besides his private secretary. His 
 correspondence is very great. Often he dictates 
 
 148 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 to a secretary as he travels on the train. Even in 
 the few days for which he can run back to the 
 Berkshires, work is awaiting him. Work follows 
 him. And after knowing of this, one is positively 
 amazed that he is able to give to his country-wide 
 lectures the time and the traveling that they in- 
 exorably demand. Only a man of immense 
 strength, of the greatest stamina, a veritable 
 superman, could possibly do it. And at times 
 one quite forgets, noticing the multiplicity of his 
 occupations, that he prepares two sermons and 
 two talks on Simday! 
 
 Here is his usual Sunday schedule, when at 
 home. He rises at seven and studies until break- 
 fast, which is at eight-thirty. Then he studies tm- 
 til nine-forty-five, when he leads a men's meeting 
 at which he is likely also to play the organ and 
 lead the singing. At ten-thirty is the principal 
 church service, at which he preaches, and at the 
 close of which he shakes hands with hundreds. 
 He dines at one, after which he takes fifteen min- 
 utes' rest and then reads; and at three o'clock he 
 addresses, in a talk that is like another sermon, 
 a large class of men — not the same men as in the 
 morning. He is also sure to look in at the regular 
 session of the Simday-school. Home again, where 
 he;studies and reads imtil supper-time. At seven- 
 thirty is the evening service, at which he again 
 preaches and after which he shakes hands with 
 several hundred more and talks personally, in his 
 study, with any who have need of talk with him. 
 
 149 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it, 
 one evening, as having been a strenuous day, and 
 he responded, with a cheerfully whimsical smile: 
 "Three sermons and shook hands with nine 
 hundred." 
 
 That evening, as the service closed, he had 
 said to the congregation: "I shall be here for 
 an hour. We always have a pleasant time to- 
 gether after service. If you are acquainted with 
 me, come up and shake hands. If you are stran- 
 gers" — ^just the slightest of pauses — "come up 
 and let us make an acquaintance that wiU last 
 for eternity." I remember how simply and easily 
 this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how 
 impressive and important it seemed, and with 
 what unexpectedness it came. "Come and make 
 an acquaintance that wiU last for eternity!" 
 And there was a serenity about his way of saying 
 this which would make strangers think — just as 
 he meant them to think — that he had nothing 
 whatever to do but to talk with them. Even 
 his own congregation have, most of them, little 
 conception of how busy a man he is and how 
 precious is his time. 
 
 One evening last June — to take an evening of 
 which I happened to know — ^he got home from a 
 journey of two hundred miles at six o'clock, and 
 after dinner and a sUght rest went to the church 
 prayer-meeting, which he led in his usual vigor- 
 ous way at such meetings, plajnLng the organ and 
 leading the singing, as well as praying and talk- 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 ing. After the prayer-meeting he went to two 
 dinners in succession, both of them important 
 dinners in connection with the close of the uni- 
 versity year, and at both dinners he spoke. At 
 the second dinner he was notified of the sudden 
 iUness of a member of his congregation, and in- 
 stantly hurried to the man's home and thence 
 to the hospital to which he had been removed, 
 and there he remained at the man's bedside, or 
 in consultation with the physicians, tmtil one in 
 the morning. Next morning he was up at seven 
 and again at work. 
 
 "This one thing I do," is his private maxim of 
 efficiency, and a literalist might point out that he 
 does not one thing only, but a thousand things, 
 not getting Conwell's meaning, which is that 
 whatever the thing may be which he is doing 
 he lets himself think of nothing else tmtil it is 
 done. 
 
 Dr. ConweU has a profound love for the coimtry 
 and particularly for the country of his own youth. 
 He loves the wind that comes sweeping over the 
 hills, he loves the wide-stretching views from the 
 heights and the forest intimacies of the nestled 
 nooks. He loves the rippling streams, he loves 
 the wild, flowers that nestle in seclusion or that 
 tmexpectedly paint some mountain meadow with 
 delight. He loves the very touch of the earth, 
 and he loves the great bare rocks. 
 
 He writes verses at times; at least he has writ- 
 ten Unes for a few old tunes ; and it interested me 
 II 151 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 greatly to chance upon some lines of his that 
 picture heaven in terms of the Berkshires: 
 
 The wide-stretching valleys in colors so fadeless, 
 Where trees are all deathless and flowers e'er 
 bloom. 
 
 That is heaven in the eyes of a New England 
 hill-man! Not golden pavement and ivory pal- 
 aces, but valleys and trees and flowers and the 
 wide sweep of the open. 
 
 Few things please him more than to go, for 
 example, blackberrying, and he has a knack of 
 never scratching his face or his fingers when doing 
 so. And he finds blackberrying, whether he goes 
 alone or with friends, an extraordinarily good 
 time for planning something he wishes to do or 
 working out the thought of a sermon. And fish- 
 ing is even better, for in fishing he finds immense 
 recreation and restfulness and at the same time 
 a further opportunity to think and plan. 
 
 As a small boy he wished that he could throw 
 a dam across the trout-brook that runs near the 
 little Conwell home, and — as he never gives up — 
 lie finally reaUzed the ambition, although it was 
 after half a century ! And now he has a big pond, 
 three-quarters of a mile long by half a mile wide, 
 lying in front of the house, down a slope from it — 
 a pond stocked with splendid pickerel. He Hkes 
 to float about restfully on this pond, thinking 
 or fishing, or both. And on that pond he showed 
 
 152 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 me how to catch pickerel even under a blaze of 
 sunlight! 
 
 He is a trout-fisher, too, for it is a trout stream 
 that feeds this pond and goes dashing away from 
 it through the wilderness; and for nules adjoin- 
 ing his place a fishing club of wealthy men bought 
 up the rights in this trout stream, and they ap- 
 proached him with a Hberal offer. But he decHned 
 it. "I remembered what good times I had when 
 I was a boy, fishing up and down that stream, 
 and I couldn't think of keeping the boys of the 
 present day from such a pleasure. So they may 
 still come and fish for trout here." 
 
 As we walked one day beside this brook, he 
 suddenly said: "Did you ever notice that every 
 brook has its own song ? I should know the song 
 of this brook anywhere." 
 
 It would seem as if he loved his rugged native 
 country because it is rugged even more than be- 
 cause it is native! Himself so rugged, so hardy, 
 so enduring — the strength of the hills is his also. 
 
 Always, in his very appearance, you see some- 
 thing of this ruggedness of the hills; a rugged- 
 ness, a sincerity, a plainness, that mark alike his 
 character and his looks. And always one realizes 
 the strength of the man, even when his voice, as 
 it usually is, is low. And one increasingly realizes 
 the strength when, on the lecture platform or in 
 the pulpit or in conversation, he flashes vividly 
 into fire. 
 
 A big-boned man he is, sturdy-framed, a tall 
 153 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 man, with broad shoulders and strong hands. 
 His hair is a deep chestnut-brown that at first 
 sight seems black. In his early manhood he was 
 superb in looks, as his pictures show, but anxiety 
 and work and the constant flight of years, with 
 physical pain, have settled his face into lines of 
 sadness and almost of severity, which instantly 
 vanish when he speaks. And Ws face is illumined 
 by marvelous eyes. 
 
 He is a lonely man. The wife of his early years 
 died long, long ago, before success had come, 
 and she was deeply mourned, for she had loyally 
 helped him through a time that held much of 
 struggle and hardship. He married again; and 
 this wife was his loyal helpmate for many years. 
 In a time of special stress, when a defalcation of 
 sixty-five thousand dollars threatened to crush 
 Temple CoUege just when it was getting on its 
 feet, for both Temple Church and Temple Col- 
 lege had in those early days buoyantly assumed 
 heavy indebtedness, he raised every dollar he 
 could by selling or mortgaging his own possessions, 
 and in this his wife, as he lovingly remembers, 
 most cordially stood beside him, although she 
 knew that if anything should happen to him the 
 financial sacrifice would leave her penniless. She 
 died after years of companionship; his children 
 married and made homes of their own; he is a 
 lonely man. Yet he is not unhappy, for the tre- 
 mendous demands of his tremendous work leave 
 him little time for sadness or retrospect. At times 
 
 IS4 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 the realization comes that he is getting old, that 
 friends and comrades have been passing away, 
 leaving him an old man with younger friends and 
 helpers. But such realization only makes him 
 work with an earnestness still more intense, know- 
 ing that the night cometh when no man shall work. 
 
 Deeply religious though he is, he does not force 
 religion into conversation on ordinary subjects 
 or upon people who may not be interested in it. 
 With him, it is action and good works, with faith 
 and belief, that cotmt, except when talk is the 
 natural, the fitting, the necessary thing; when ad- 
 dressing either one individual or thousands, he 
 talks with superb effectiveness. 
 
 His sermons are, it may almost literally be 
 said, parable after parable; although he himself 
 would be the last man to say this, for it would 
 sound as if he claimed to model after the greatest 
 of all examples. His own way of putting it is 
 that he uses stories frequently because people are 
 more impressed by illustrations than by argu- 
 ment. 
 
 Always, whether in the pulpit or out of it, he 
 is simple and homelike, human and unaffected. 
 If he happens to see some one in the congregation 
 to whom he wishes to speak, he may just leave 
 his pulpit and walk down the aisle, while the 
 choir is singing, and quietly say a few words and 
 return. 
 
 In the early days of his ministry, if he heard 
 of a poor family in immediate need of food he 
 
 iSS 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 would be quite likely to gather a basket of pro- 
 visions and go personally, and offer this assist- 
 ance and such other as he might find necessary 
 when he reached the place. As he became known 
 he ceased from this direct and open method of 
 charity, for he knew that impulsiveness would be 
 taken for intentional display. But he has never 
 ceased to be ready to help on the instant that he 
 knows help is needed. Delay and lengthy in- 
 vestigation are avoided by him when he can be 
 certain that something immediate is required. 
 And the extent of his quiet charity is amazing. 
 With no family for which to save money, and with 
 no care to put away money for himself, he thinks 
 only of money as an instrument for helpfulness. 
 I never heard a friend criticize him except for 
 too great open-handedness. 
 
 I was strongly impressed, after coming to know 
 him, that he possessed many of the qualities that 
 made for the success of the old-time district 
 leaders of New York City, and I mentioned this 
 to him, and he at once responded that he had 
 himself met "Big Tim," the long-time leader of 
 the Sullivans, and had had him at his house. Big 
 Tim having gone to Philadelphia to aid some 
 henchman in trouble, and having promptly sought 
 the aid of Dr. Conwell. And it was character- 
 istic of ConweU that he saw, what so many never 
 saw, the most striking characteristic of that 
 Tammany leader. For, "Big Tim Sullivan was 
 so kind-hearted!" Conwell appreciated the man's 
 
 is6 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 political unscrupulousness as well as did his ene- 
 mies, but he saw also what made his underlying 
 power — ^his kind-heartedness. Except that Sullivan 
 could be supremely unscrupulous, and that Con- 
 weU is supremely scrupulous, there were marked 
 similarities in these masters over men; and Con- 
 well possesses, as Sullivan possessed, a wonder- 
 ful memory for faces and names. 
 
 Naturally, RusseU Conwell stands steadily and 
 strongly for good citizenship. But he never talks 
 boastful Americanism. He seldom speaks in so 
 many words of either Americanism or good citizen- 
 ship, but he constantly and silently keeps the 
 American flag, as the symbol of good citizenship, 
 before his people. An American flag is prominent 
 in his church ; an American flag is seen in his home ; 
 a beautiftil American flag is up at his Berkshire 
 place and surmotmts a lofty tower where, when 
 he was a boy, there stood a mighty tree at the 
 ^op of which was an eagle's nest, which has given 
 him a name for his home, for he terms it "The 
 Eagle's Nest." 
 
 Remembering a long story that I had read of 
 his climbing to the top of that tree, though it 
 was a weU-nigh impossible feat, and sectiring the 
 nest by great perseverance and daring, I asked 
 him if the story were a true one. ' ' Oh, I've heard 
 something about it; somebody said that some- 
 body watched me, or something of the kind. But 
 I don't remember anything about it myself." 
 
 Any friend of his is sure to say something, 
 157 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 after a while, about his determination, his in- 
 sistence on going ahead with anything on which 
 he has really set his heart. One of the very im- 
 portant things on which he insisted, in spite of 
 very great opposition, and especially an opposi- 
 tion from the other churches of his denomina- 
 tion (for this was a good many years ago, when 
 there was much more narrowness in churches 
 and sects than there is at present), was with re- 
 gard to doing away with close communion. He 
 determined on an open communion; and his way 
 of putting it, once decided upon, was: "My 
 friends, it is not for me to invite you to the table 
 of the Lord. The table of the Lord is open. If 
 you feel that you can come to the table, it is open 
 to you." And this is the form which he still uses. 
 
 He not only never gives up, but, so his friends 
 say, he never forgets a thing upon which he has 
 once decided, and at times, long after they sup- 
 posed the matter has been entirely forgotten, 
 they suddenly find Dr. Conwell bringing his 
 original purpose to pass. When I was told of 
 this I remembered that pickerel - pond in the 
 Berkshires ! 
 
 If he is really set upon doing anything, little 
 or big, adverse criticism does not disturb his 
 serenity. Some years ago he began wearing a 
 huge diamond, whose size attracted much criti- 
 cism and caustic comment. He never said a word 
 in defense; he just kept on wearing the diamond. 
 One day, however, after some years, he took it 
 
 IS8 
 
SPLENDID EFFICIENCY 
 
 off, and people said, "He has listened to the 
 criticism at last!" He smiled reminiscently as he 
 told me about this, and said: "A dear old deacon 
 of my congregation gave me that diamond and I 
 did not like to hurt his feelings by refusing it. 
 It really bothered me to wear such a glaring big 
 thing, but because I didn't want to hurt the old 
 deacon's feelings I kept on wearing it until he 
 was dead. Then I stopped wearing it." 
 
 The ambition of Russell ConweU is to continue 
 working and working until the very last moment 
 of his Hfe. In work he forgets his sadness, his 
 loneHness, his age. And he said to me one day, 
 "I will die in harness." 
 
IX 
 
 THE STORY OF "ACRES OF DIAMONDS" 
 
 CONSIDERING everything, the most re- 
 markable thing in Russell Conwell's re- 
 markable life is his lecture, "Acres of Diamonds." 
 That is, the lecture itself, the number of times 
 he has delivered it, what a source of inspiration 
 it has been to myriads, the money that he has 
 made and is making, and, stiU more, the purpose 
 to which he directs the money. In the circum- 
 stances surrounding "Acres of Diamonds," in 
 its tremendous success, in the attitude of mind 
 revealed by the lecture itself and by what Dr. 
 Conwell does with it, it is illuminative of his 
 character, his aims, his ability. 
 
 The lecture is vibrant with his energy. It flashes 
 with his hopefiolness. It is full of his enthusiasm. 
 It is packed full of his intensity. It stands for 
 the possibilities of success in every one. He has 
 delivered it over five thousand times. The de- 
 mand for it never diminishes. The success grows 
 never less. 
 
 There is a time in Russell Conwell's youth of 
 1 60 
 
THE LECTURE 
 
 which it is pain for him to think. He told me of 
 it one evening, and his voice sank lower and 
 lower as he went far back into the past. It was 
 of his days at Yale that he spoke, for they were 
 days of suffering. For he had not money for 
 Yale, and in working for more he endured bitter 
 humiliation. It was not that the work was hard, 
 for Russell Conwell has always been ready for 
 hard work. It was not that there were privations 
 and difficulties, for he has always found difficul- 
 ties only things to overcome, and endiued pri- 
 vations with cheerful fortitude. But it was the 
 humiliations that he met — the personal humili- 
 ations that after more than half a century make 
 him suffer in remembering them — ^yet out of those 
 humiliations came a marvelous result. 
 
 "I determined," he says, "that whatever I 
 could do to make the way easier at college for 
 other young men working their way I woiild do." 
 
 And so, many years ago, he began to devote 
 every dollar that he made from "Acres of Dia- 
 monds" to this definite purpose. He has what 
 may be termed a waiting-list. On that list are 
 very few cases he has looked into personally. 
 Infinitely busy man that he is, he cannot do ex- 
 tensive personal investigation. A large propor- 
 tion of his names come to him from college presi- 
 dents who know of students in their own colleges 
 in need of such a helping hand. 
 
 "Every night," he said, when I asked him to 
 tell me about it, "when my lecture is over and 
 
 i6i 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 the check is in my hand, I sit down in my room 
 in the hotel" — what a lonely picture, too! — "I 
 sit down in my room in the hotel and subtract 
 from the total siim received my actual expenses 
 for that place, and make out a check for the dif- 
 ference and send it to some young man on my 
 Hst. And I always send with the check a letter 
 of advice and helpfulness, expressing my hope 
 that it will be of some service to him and telling 
 him that he is to feel vmder no obligation except 
 to his Lord. I feel strongly, and I try to make 
 every young man feel, that there must be no sense 
 of obligation to me personally. And I tell them 
 that I am hoping to leave behind me men who 
 will do more work than I have done. Don't 
 think that I put in too much advice," he added, 
 with a smile, "for I only try to let them know 
 that a friend is trying to help them." 
 
 His face lighted as he spoke. "There is such a 
 fascination in it!" he exclaimed. "It is just Uke 
 a gamble! And as soon as I have sent the letter 
 and crossed a name off my list, I am aiming for 
 the next one!" 
 
 And after a pause he added : " I do not attempt 
 to send any young man enough for all his ex- 
 penses. But I want to save him from bitterness, 
 and each check will help. And, too," he con- 
 cluded, naively, in the vernacular, "I don't want 
 them to lay down on me!" 
 
 He told me that he made it clear that he did 
 not wish to get returns or reports from this 
 
 162 
 
THE LECTURE 
 
 branch of his Hfe-work, for it would take a great 
 deal of time in watching and thinking and in 
 the reading and writing of letters. "But it is 
 mainly," he went on, "that I do not wish to hold 
 over their heads the sense of obligation." 
 
 When I suggested that this wa.3 surely an ex- 
 ample of bread cast upon the waters that coiild 
 not rettun, he was silent for a little and then said, 
 thoughtfully: "As one gets on in years there is 
 satisfaction in doing a thing for the sake of doing 
 it. The bread returns in the sense of effort made." 
 
 On a recent trip through Minnesota he was 
 positively upset, so his secretary told me, through 
 being recognized on a train by a young man who 
 had been helped through "Acres of Diamonds," 
 and who, finding that this was really Dr. Con- 
 well, eagerly brought his wife to join him in most 
 fervent thanks for his assistance. Both the hus- 
 band and his wife were so emotionally overcome 
 that it quite overcame Dr. Conwell himself. 
 
 The lecture, to quote the noble words of Dr. 
 ConweU himself, is designed to help "every per- 
 son, of either sex, who cherishes the high resolve 
 of sustaining a career of usefulness and honor." 
 It is a lecture of helpfulness. And It is a lecture, 
 when given with Conwell's voice and face and 
 manner, that is fuU of fascination. And yet it is 
 all so simple! 
 
 It is packed fuU of inspiration, of suggestion, 
 of aid. He alters it to meet the local circum- 
 stances of the thousands of different places in 
 
 163 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 which he delivers it. But the base remains the 
 same. And even those to whom it is an old story 
 will go to hear him time after time. It amuses him 
 to say that h^, knows individuals who have lis- 
 tened to it twenty times. 
 
 It begins with a story told to Conwell by an 
 old Arab as the two joiuneyed together toward 
 Nineveh, and, as you Hsten, you hear the actual 
 voices and you see the sands of the desert and the 
 waving palms. The lecturer's voice is so easy, 
 so effortless, it seems so ordinary and matter-of- 
 fact — yet the entire scene is instantly vital and 
 alive! Instantly the man has his audience under 
 a sort of spell, eager to listen, ready to be merry 
 or grave. He has the faculty of control, the vital 
 quality that makes the orator. 
 
 The same people wiU go to hear this lecture 
 over and over, and that is the kind of tribute 
 that Conwell likes. I recently heard him deliver 
 it in his own church, where it would naturally 
 be thought to be an old story, and where, presum- 
 ably, only a few of the faithful would go; but it 
 was quite clear that aU of his church are the 
 faithful, for it was a large audience that came to 
 listen to him; hardly a seat in the great audi- 
 torium was vacant. And it should be added 
 that, although it was in his own church, it was 
 not a free lecture, where a throng might be ex- 
 pected, but that each one paid a liberal sum for 
 a seat — and the paying of admission is always a 
 practical test of the sincerity of desire to hear. 
 
 164 
 
THE LECTURE 
 
 And the people were swept along by the current 
 as if lecturer and lecture were of novel interest. 
 The lecture in itself is good to read, but it is only 
 when it is illumined by ConweU's vivid person- 
 ality that one understands how it influences in 
 the actual delivery. 
 
 On that particular evening he had decided to 
 give the lecture in the same form as when he first 
 delivered it many years ago, without any of the 
 alterations that have come with time and chang- 
 ing localities, and as he went on, with the audi- 
 ence rippling and bubbHng with laughter as usual, 
 he never doubted that he was giving it as he had 
 given it years before; and yet — so up-to-date and 
 alive must he necessarily be, in spite of a definitive 
 effort to set himself back — every once in a while 
 he was coming out with illustrations from such 
 distinctly recent things as the automobile ! 
 
 The last time I heard him was the 5,124th time 
 for the lecture. Doesn't it seem incredible! 5,124 
 times! I noticed that he was to deliver it at a 
 little out-of-the-way place, difficult for any con- 
 siderable number to get to, and I wondered just 
 how much of an audience would gather and how 
 they would be impressed. So I went over from 
 where I was, a few miles away. The road was 
 dark and I pictured a small audience, but when 
 I got there I found the church building in which 
 he was to deliver the lecture had a seating ca- 
 pacity of 830 and that precisely 830 people were 
 already seated there and that a fringe of others 
 
 165 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 were standing behind. Many had come from 
 miles away. Yet the lecture had scarcely, if at 
 aU, been advertised. But people had said to one 
 another: "Aren't you going to hear Dr. Conwell?" 
 And the word had thus been passed along. 
 
 I remember how fascinating it was to watch 
 that audience, for they responded so keenly and 
 with such heartfelt pleasure throughout the en- 
 tire lecttu-e. And not only were they immensely 
 pleased and amused and interested — and to 
 achieve that at a crossroads church was in it- 
 self a triumph to be proud of — but I knew that 
 every listener was given an impulse toward doing 
 something for himself and for others, and that 
 with at least some of them the impulse would 
 materiaUze in acts. Over and over one realizes 
 what a power such a man wields. 
 
 And what an tmselfishness ! For, far on in 
 years as he is, and suffering pain, he does not 
 chop down his lecttue to a definite length; he 
 does not talk for just an hour or go on grudgingly 
 for an hour and a half. He sees that the people 
 are fascinated and inspired, and he forgets pain, 
 ignores time, forgets that the night is late and that 
 he has a long journey to go to get home, and 
 keeps on generously for two hours! And every 
 one wishes it were four. 
 
 Always he talks with ease and sympathy. 
 There are geniality, composure, htimor, simple 
 and homely jests — ^yet never does the audience 
 forget that he is every moment in tremendous 
 
 i66 
 
RUSSELL CONWELL IN THE CIVIL WAR 
 
THE LECTURE 
 
 earnest. They bubble with responsive laughter 
 or are silent in riveted attention. A stir can be 
 seen to sweep over an audience, of earnestness or 
 surprise or amusement or resolve. When he is 
 grave and sober or fervid the people feel that he 
 is himself a fervidly earnest man, and when he is 
 telUng something humorous there is on his part 
 almost a repressed chuckle, a genial appreciation 
 of the fun of it, not in the least as if he were laugh- 
 ing at his own htmior, but as if he and his hearers 
 were laughing together at something of which they 
 were all humorously cognizant. 
 
 Myriad successes in life have come through the 
 direct inspiration of this single lecture. One hears 
 of so many that there must be vastly more that 
 are never told. A few of the most recent were 
 told me by Dr. ConweU himself, one being of 
 a farmer boy who walked a long distance to hear 
 him. On his way home, so the boy, now a man, 
 has written him, he thought over and over of 
 what he could do to advance himself, and before 
 he reached home he learned that a teacher was 
 wanted at a certain country school. He knew 
 he did not know enough to teach, but was sure he 
 could learn, so he bravely asked for the place. 
 And something in his earnestness made him win 
 a temporary appointment. Thereupon he worked 
 and studied so hard and so devotedly, while he 
 daily taught, that within a few months he was 
 regularly employed there. "And now," says 
 ConweU, abruptly, with his characteristic skim- 
 
 12 167 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 ming Qver of the intermediate details between the 
 important beginning of a thing and the satisfac- 
 tory end, "and now that young man is one of 
 our college presidents." 
 
 And very recently a lady came to Dr. Con- 
 well, the wife of an exceptionally prominent man 
 who was earning a large salary, and she told him 
 that her husband was so unselfishly generous 
 with money that often they were almost in straits. 
 And she said they had bought a Httle farm as a 
 country place, paying only a few hundred dollars 
 for it, and that she had said to herself, laugh- 
 ingly, after hearing the lecture, "There are no 
 acres of diamonds on this place!" But she also 
 went on to tell that she had fotmd a spring of 
 exceptionally fine water there, although in buy- 
 ing they had scarcely known of the spring at all; 
 and she had been so inspired by Conwell that she 
 had had the water analyzed and, finding that it 
 was remarkably pure, had begun to have it bottled 
 and sold tmder a trade name as special spring 
 water. And she is making money. And she also 
 sells piure ice from the pool, cut in winter-time — 
 and all because of "Acres of Diamonds"! 
 
 Several millions of dollars, in all, have been re- 
 ceived by Russell ConweU as the proceeds from 
 this single lecture. Such a fact is almost stagger- 
 ing — and it is more staggering to reaHze what 
 good is done in the world by this man, who does 
 not earn for himself, but uses his money in im- 
 mediate helpftilness. And one can neither think 
 
 i68 
 
THE LECTURE 
 
 nor write with moderation when it is further 
 reaUzed that far more good than can be done 
 directly with money he does by uplifting and in- 
 spiring with this lecture. Always his heart is 
 with the weary and the heavy-laden. Always 
 he stands for self -betterment. 
 
 Last year, 1914, he and his work were given 
 unique recognition. For it was known by his 
 friends that this particular lecture was approach- 
 ing its five-thousandth delivery, and they planned 
 a celebration of such an event in the history of the 
 most poptdar lecture in the world. Dr. Conwell 
 agreed to deliver it in the Academy of Music, in 
 Philadelphia, and the building was packed and 
 the streets outside were thronged. The proceeds 
 from all soiirces for that five-thousandth lecttire 
 were over nine thousand dollars. 
 
 The hold which RusseU Conwell has gained on 
 the affections and respect of his home city was 
 seen not only in the thousands who strove to 
 hear him, but in the prominent men who served 
 on the local committee in charge of the celebra- 
 tion. There was a national committee, too, and 
 the nation-wide love that he has won, the nation- 
 wide appreciation of what he has done and is 
 still doing, was shown by the fact that among the 
 names of the notables on this committee were 
 those of nine governors of states. The Governor 
 of Pennsylvania was himself present to do Russell 
 Conwell honor, and he gave to him a key em- 
 blematic of the Freedom of the State. 
 
 169 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 The "Freedom of the State" — ^yes; this man, 
 well over seventy, has won it. The Freedom of 
 the State, the Freedom of the Nation — ^for this 
 man of helpfulness, this marvelous exponent of 
 the gospel of success, has worked marvelously for 
 the freedom, the betterment, the liberation, the 
 advancement, of the individual. 
 
FIFTY YEARS ON THE LECTURE 
 PLATFORM 
 
 BY 
 
 Russell H. Conwell 
 
AN Autobiography! What an absurd request! 
 ■tV. If all the conditions were favorable, the story 
 of my public life could not be made interesting. 
 It does not seem possible that any will care to 
 read so plain and uneventful a tale. I see nothing 
 in it for boasting, nor much that cotild be helpful. 
 Then I never saved a scrap of paper intentionally 
 concerning my work to which I cotdd refer, not 
 a book, not a sermon, not a lecture, not a news- 
 paper notice or account, not a magazine article, 
 not one of the kind biographies written from time 
 to time by noble friends have I ever kept even as 
 a souvenir, although some of them may be in my 
 library. I have ever felt that the writers concern- 
 ing my Ufe were too generous and that my own 
 work was too hastily done. Hence I have noth- 
 ing upon which to base an autobiographical ac- 
 count, except the recollections which come to an 
 overburdened mind. 
 
 My general view of half a century on the lec- 
 ture platform brings to me precious and beauti- 
 ful memories, and fills my soul with devout grati- 
 tude for the blessings and kindnesses which have 
 been given to me so far beyond my deserts. 
 So much more success has come to my hands 
 
 173 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 than I ever expected; so much more of good 
 have I found than even youth's wildest dream 
 included; so much more effective have been my 
 weakest endeavors than I ever planned or hoped — 
 that a biography written truthfully wotild be 
 mostly an accoimt of what men and women have 
 done for me. 
 
 I have lived to see accomplished far more than 
 my highest ambition included, and have seen the 
 enterprises I have imdertaken rush by me, pushed 
 on by a thousand strong hands tmtil they have 
 left me far behind them. The realities are Hke 
 dreams to me. Blessings on the loving hearts and 
 noble minds who have been so willing to sacri- 
 fice for others' good and to think only of what 
 they could do, and never of what they should get ! 
 Many of them have ascended into the Shining 
 Land, and here I am in mine age gazing up alone, 
 
 Only waiting till the shadows 
 Are a little longer grown. 
 
 Fifty years! I was a young man, not yet of 
 age, when I delivered my first platform lecture. 
 The Civil War of 1861-65 drew on with all its 
 passions, patriotism, horrors, and fears, and I was 
 studying law at Yale University. I had from 
 childhood felt that I was "called to the ministry." 
 The earliest event of memory is the prayer of 
 my father at family prayers in the little old cot- 
 tage in the Hampshire highlands of the Berk- 
 shire HiUs, calling on God with a sobbing voice 
 
 174 
 
ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 to lead me into some special service for the Sav- 
 iour. It filled me with awe, dread, and fear, and 
 I recoiled from the thought, until I determined 
 to fight against it with aU my power. So I sought 
 for other professions and for decent excuses for 
 being anything but a preacher. 
 
 Yet while I was nervous and timid before the 
 class in declamation and dreaded to face any 
 kind of an audience, I felt in my soul a strange 
 impulsion toward public speaking which for years 
 made me miserable. The war and the public 
 meetings for recruiting soldiers furnished an out- 
 let for my suppressed sense of duty, and my first 
 lecture was on the "Lessons of History" as ap- 
 plied to the campaigns against the Confederacy. 
 
 That matchless temperance orator and loving 
 friend, John B. Gough, introduced me to the little 
 audience in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1862. 
 What a foolish Uttle school-boy speech it must 
 have been! But Mr. Gough's kind words of 
 praise, the bouquets and the applause, made me 
 feel that somehow the way to pubHc oratory 
 would not be so hard as I had feared. 
 
 From that time I acted on Mr. Gough's advice 
 and "sought practice" by accepting almost every 
 invitation I received to speak on any kind of a 
 subject. There were many sad failures and tears, 
 but it was a restful compromise with my conscience 
 concerning the ministry, and it pleased my friends. 
 I addressed picnics, Sunday - schools, patriotic 
 meetings, funerals, anniversaries, commencements, 
 
 175 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 debates, cattle-shows, and sewing-circles without 
 partiality and without price. For the first five 
 years the income was all experience. Then vol- 
 untary gifts began to come occasionally in the 
 shape of a jack-knife, a ham, a book, and the 
 first cash remuneration was from a farmers' club, 
 of seventy-five cents toward the "horse hire." 
 It was a curious fact that one member of that 
 club afterward moved to Salt Lake City and was 
 a member of the committee at the Mormon 
 Tabernacle in 1872 which, when I was a corre- 
 spondent, on a journey around the world, employed 
 me to lecture on "Men of the Mountains" in the 
 Mormon Tabernacle, at a fee of five hundred dol- 
 lars. 
 
 While I was gaining practice in the first years 
 of platform work, I had the good fortune to have 
 profitable employment as a soldier, or as a cor- 
 respondent or lawyer, or as an editor or as a 
 preacher, which enabled me to pay my own ex- 
 penses, and it has been seldom in the fifty years 
 that I have ever taken a fee for my personal use. 
 In the last thirty-six years I have dedicated 
 solemnly aU the lecture income to benevolent 
 enterprises. If I am antiquated enough for an 
 autobiography, perhaps I may be aged enough to 
 avoid the criticism of being an egotist, when I 
 state that some years I delivered one lecture, 
 "Acres of Diamonds," over two hundred times 
 each year, at an average income of about one hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars for each lecttire. 
 
 176 
 
ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 It was a remarkable good fortune which came 
 to me as a lecturer when Mr. James Redpath 
 organized the first lecture bureau ever established. 
 Mr. Redpath was the biographer of John Brown 
 of Harper's Ferry renown, and as Mr. Brown had 
 been long a friend of my father's I found employ- 
 ment, while a student on vacation, in selling that 
 life of John Brown. That acquaintance with Mr. 
 Redpath was maintained until Mr. Redpath's 
 death. To General Charles H. Taylor, with 
 whom I was employed for a time as reporter for 
 the Boston Daily Traveler, I was indebted for many 
 acts of self-sacrificing friendship which soften my 
 soul as I recall them. He did me the greatest 
 kindness when he suggested my name to Mr. 
 Redpath as one who could "fill in the vacancies 
 in the smaller towns" where the "great Hghts 
 could not always be sectired." 
 
 What a glorious galaxy of great names that 
 original Hst of Redpath lecturers contained! 
 Henry Ward Beecher, John B. Gough, Senator 
 Charles Sumner, Theodore TUton, Wendell Phil- 
 lips, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, Bayard Taylor, 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, with many of the great 
 preachers, musicians, and writers of that remark- 
 able era. Even Dr. Holmes, John Whittier, 
 Henry W. Longfellow, John Lothrop Motley, 
 George William Curtis, and General Bumside 
 were persuaded to appear one or more times, 
 although they refused to receive pay. I cannot 
 forget how ashamed I felt when my name ap- 
 
 177 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 peared in the shadow of such names, and how 
 sure I was that every acquaintance was ridiculing 
 me behind my back. Mr. Bayard Taylor, however, 
 wrote me from the Tribune office a kind note 
 saying that he was glad to see me "on the road to 
 great usefulness." Governor Clafflin, of Massa- 
 chusetts, took the time to send me a note of con- 
 grattolation. General Benjamin F. Butler, how- 
 ever, advised me to "stick to the last" and be a 
 good lawyer. 
 
 The work of lecturing was always a task and 
 a duty. I do not feel now that I ever sought to 
 be an entertainer. I am sure I would have been 
 an utter failure but for the feeling that I must 
 preach some gospel truth in my lectures and do at 
 least that much toward that ever-persistent "call of 
 God." When I entered the ministry (1879) I hS'd 
 become so associated with the lecture platform in 
 America and England that I cotild not feel justi- 
 fied in abandoning so great a field of usefulness. 
 
 The experiences of all our successful lecturers 
 are probably nearly alike. The way is not always 
 smooth. But the hard roads, the poor hotels, 
 the late trains, the cold halls, the hot church 
 auditoriums, the overkindness of hospitable com- 
 mittees, and the broken hours of sleep are an- 
 noyances one soon forgets; and the hosts of in- 
 telligent faces, the messages of thanks, and the 
 effects of the earnings on the lives of young col- 
 lege men can never cease to be a daily joy. God 
 bless them all. 
 
 178 
 
ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 Often have I been asked if I did not, in fifty 
 years of travel in all sorts of conveyances, meet 
 with accidents. It is a marvel to me that no such 
 event ever brought me harm. In a continuous 
 period of over twenty-seven years I delivered 
 about two lectures in every three days, yet I did 
 not miss a single engagement. Sometimes I had 
 to hire a special train, but I reached the town on 
 time, with only a rare exception, and then I was 
 but a few minutes late. Accidents have pre- 
 ceded and followed me on trains and boats, and 
 were sometimes in sight, but I was preserved 
 without injury through all the years. In the 
 Johnstown flood region I saw a bridge go out be- 
 hind our train. I was once on a derelict steamer 
 on the Atlantic for twenty-six days. At another 
 time a man was killed in the berth of a sleeper I 
 had left half an hour before. Often have I felt 
 the train leave the track, but no one was kiUed. 
 Robbers have several times threatened my life, 
 but all came out without loss to me. God and man 
 have ever been patient with me. 
 
 Yet this period of lecturing has been, after all, 
 a side issue. The Temple, and its church, in 
 Philadelphia, which, when its membership was 
 less than three thousand members, for so many 
 years contributed through its membership over 
 sixty thousand doUars a year for the uplift of 
 humanity, has made life a continual surprise ; while 
 the Samaritan Hospital's amazing growth, and the 
 Garretson Hospital's dispensaries, have been so 
 
 179 
 
ACRES OF DIAMONDS 
 
 continually ministering to the sick and poor, and 
 have done such skilful work for the tens of thou- 
 sands who ask for their help each year, that I 
 have been made happy while away lecturing by 
 the feeHng that each hour and minute they were 
 faithfiilly doing good. Temple University, which 
 was founded only twenty-seven years ago, has 
 already sent out into a higher income and nobler 
 life nearly a hxindred thousand young men and 
 women who could not probably have obtained an 
 education in any other institution. The faithfvd, 
 self-sacrificing faculty, now numbering two hundred 
 and fifty-three professors, have done the real 
 work. For that I can claim but little credit; 
 and I mention the University here only to show 
 that my "fifty years on the lecture platform" 
 has necessarily been a side line of work. 
 
 My best-known lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," 
 was a mere accidental address, at first given be- 
 fore a reunion of my old comrades of the Forty- 
 sixth Massachusetts Regiment, which served in 
 the Civil War and in which I was captain. I 
 had no thought of giving the address again, and 
 even after it began to be called for by lecture 
 committees I did not dream that I should live 
 to deliver it, as I now have done, almost five 
 thousand times. "What is the secret of its popu- 
 larity?" I could never explain to myself or others. 
 I simply know that I always attempt to enthuse 
 myself on each occasion with the idea that it is 
 a special opportunity to do good, and I interest 
 
 1 80 
 
ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 myself in each community and apply the general 
 principles with local illustrations. 
 
 The hand which now holds this pen must in 
 the natural course of events soon cease to gesture 
 on the platform, and it is a sincere, prayerful hope 
 that this book will go on into the years doing in- 
 creasing good for the aid of my brothers and sis- 
 ters in the human family. 
 
 Russell H. Conwell. 
 
 South Worihington, Mass., 
 September i, icfij. 
 
 THE END 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX6333.C76 A2 1915 
 
 Acres of diamonds, by Russell H-,,Conwell 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 452 467