Getting at the Inner Man
Millions of Hearers
How a University Was Founded
Conwell's Splendid Efficiency
The Story of "Acres of Diamonds"
By ROBERT SHACKLETON
and
Fifty Years on the Lecture Platform
By RUSSELL H. CONWELL
VOLUME 7
NATIONAL
EXTENSION UNIVERSITY
597 Fifth Avenue, New York
Acres of Diamonds
Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
I
MILLIONS OF HEARERS
That Conwell is not primarily a minister—that he is a minister becausehe is a sincere Christian, but that he is first of all an Abou BenAdhem, a man who loves his fellow-men, becomes more and more apparent asthe scope of his life-work is recognized. One almost comes to think thathis pastorate of a great church is even a minor matter beside thecombined importance of his educational work, his lecture work, hishospital 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-timeprophets, the strong ones who found a great deal to attend to inaddition to matters of religion. The power, the ruggedness, the physicaland mental strength, the positive grandeur of the man—all these arelike the general conceptions of the big Old Testament prophets. Thesuggestion is given only because it has often recurred, and thereforewith the feeling that there is something more than fanciful in the[Pg 118]comparison; and yet, after all, the comparison fails in one importantparticular, for none of the prophets seems to have had a sense of humor!
It is perhaps better and more accurate to describe him as the last ofthe old school of American philosophers, the last of thosesturdy-bodied, high-thinking, achieving men who, in the old days, didtheir best to set American humanity in the right path—such men asEmerson, Alcott, Gough, Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Bayard Taylor,Beecher;[1] men whom Conwell knew and admired in the long ago, and allof whom have long since passed away.
And Conwell, in his going up and down the country, inspiring histhousands and thousands, is the survivor of that old-time group who usedto travel about, dispensing wit and wisdom and philosophy and courage tothe crowded benches of country lyceums, and the chairs of school-housesand town halls, or the larger and more pretentious gathering-places ofthe cities.
Conwell himself is amused to remember that he wanted to talk in publicfrom his boyhood, and that very early he began to yield to the inbornimpulse. He laughs as he remembers the variety of country fairs andschool commencements and anniversaries and even sewing-circles where hetried his youthful powers, and all for experience alone, in the firstfew years, except possibly for such a thing as a ham or a jack-knife!The first money that he ever received for speaking was, so he rememberswith glee, seventy-five cents; and even that was not for his talk, but