Acres of Diamonds, Russell H. Conwell [good story books to read .TXT] 📗

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 pleasure 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 discomforts of traveling, of the poor little hotels that seldom have visitors, of the oftentimes hopeless cooking and the uncleanliness, of the hardships 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 summer weeks of this year, 1915, 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 24 Ackley, Ia. July 11 *Brookings, S. D.

“ 25 Waterloo, Ia. “ 12 Pipestone, Minn.

“ 26 Decorah, Ia. “ 13 Hawarden, Ia.

“ 27 *Waukon, Ia. “ 14 Canton, S. D

“ 28 Red Wing, Minn. “ 15 Cherokee, Ia “ 29 River Falls, Wis. “ 16 Pocahontas, Ia “ 30 Northfield, Minn. “ 17 Glidden, Ia.

July 1 Faribault, Minn. “ 18 *Boone, Ia.

“ 2 Spring Valley, Minn. “ 19 Dexter, Ia.

“ 3 Blue Earth, Minn. “ 20 Indianola, Ia “ 4 *Fairmount, Minn. “ 21 Corydon, Ia “ 5 Lake Crystal, Minn. “ 22 Essex, Ia.

“ 6 Redwood Falls, “ 23 Sidney, Ia.

Minn. “ 24 Falls 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.

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 Ph<oe>nixville, Pa.

“ 11 Owego, N. Y. “ 27 Kennett, Pa.

“ 12 Patchogue, LI.,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. Conwell is intensely modest is one of the curious features of his character. He sincerely believes that to write his life would be, in the main, just to tell what people have done for him. He knows and admits that he works 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 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 church 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 thinks mainly of his own shortcomings. “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 him, that the porter is all happiness, that conductor 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 comparatively few Americans visited the Nile and the Orient, or even Europe.

 

When Taylor died there was a memorial service in Boston at which Conwell was asked to preside, and, as he wished for something more than addresses, he went to Longfellow and asked him to write and read a poem for the occasion. Longfellow had not thought of writing anything, and he was too ill to be present at the services, but, there always being something contagiously inspiring about Russell Conwell when he wishes something to be done, the poet promised to do what he could. And he wrote and sent the beautiful 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.

Conwell induced Oliver Wendell Holmes to read the lines, and they were listened to amid profound silence, to their fine ending.

 

Conwell, in spite of his widespread hold on millions of people, has never won fame, recognition, general renown, compared with many men of minor achievements. This seems like an impossibility. Yet it is not an impossibility, but a fact. Great numbers of men of education and culture are entirely ignorant of him and his work in the world—men, these, who deem themselves in touch with world-affairs and with the ones who make and move the world. It is inexplicable, this, except that never was there a man more devoid of the faculty of self-exploitation, self-advertising, than Russell Conwell. Nor, 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 personality.

Those who have heard Russell Conwell, or have known him personally, recognize the charm of the man and his immense forcefulness; but there are many, and among them those who control 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 admiration of the really great, as well as of the humbler millions. 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, consciously 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 aphiladelphiated, as it might be expressed—and Philadelphia, 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 Rittenhouse Square. Such considerations seem absurd in this twentieth century, but in Philadelphia they are still potent. Tens of thousands of Philadelphians love him, and he is honored by its greatest men, but there is a class of the pseudo-cultured who do not know him or appreciate him.

And it needs also to be understood that, outside of his own beloved Temple, he would prefer to go to a little church or a little hall and to speak to the forgotten people, in the hope of encouraging and inspiring them and filling them with hopeful glow, rather than to speak to the rich and comfortable.

 

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 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 hardworking, 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 failed 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 standing for good government; that, as he expresses 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 all, 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 interesting