Acres of Diamonds
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Russell H. Conwell >> Acres of Diamonds
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He is an orator born, 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 Conwell published
a little book for students on the study and practice
of oratory. That ``clear-cut articulation is the
charm of eloquence'' is one of his insisted-upon
statements, and it well illustrates the lifelong
practice of the man himself, for every word as
he talks can be heard in every part of a large building,
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 Conwell explaining Conwellism.
``Enthusiasm invites enthusiasm,'' is another of his
points of importance; and one understands that
it is by deliberate purpose, and not by chance,
that he tries with such tremendous effort to put
enthusiasm into his hearers with every sermon
and every lecture that he delivers.
``It is easy to raise a laugh, but dangerous, for
it is the greatest test of an 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-
out taking away from the strength of what he is
saying, but with a vivid increase of impressiveness.
And when he says something funny it is
in such a delightful and confidential way, with
such a genial, quiet, 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 scrupulously clear,''
he writes; and with delightfully terse common
sense, he says, ``Use illustrations that illustrate''--
and never did an orator live up to this injunction
more than does Conwell himself. Nothing is more
surprising, nothing is more interesting, than the
way in which he makes use 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 will 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
flow of illustrations, and his memory and his
skill make admirable use of them. It is seldom
that he uses an illustration from what he has
read; everything is, characteristically, his own.
Henry M. Stanley, who knew him well, referred
to him as ``that double-sighted Yankee,'' who
could ``see at a glance all there is and all there
ever was.''
And never was there a man who so supplements
with personal reminiscence the place or the person
that has figured in the illustration. When
he illustrates with the story of the discovery of
California gold at Sutter's he almost parenthetically
remarks, ``I delivered this lecture on that
very spot a few years ago; that is, in the town
that arose on that very spot.'' And when he
illustrates by the story of the invention of the
sewing-machine, he adds: ``I suppose that if any
of you were asked who was the inventor of the
sewing-machine, you would say that it was Elias
Howe. But that would be a mistake. I was
with Elias Howe in the Civil War, and he often
used to tell me how he had tried for fourteen years
to invent the sewing-machine and that then his
wife, feeling 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
simplicity about the man and his words; a
simplicity, 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
remember, as you preach, that you are striving to
save at least one soul with every sermon.'' And
to one of his close friends Dr. Conwell said, in
one of his self-revealing conversations:
``I feel, whenever I preach, that there is always
one person in the congregation to whom, in all
probability, I shall never preach again, and
therefore I feel that I must exert my utmost power
in that last chance.'' And in this, even if this were
all, one sees why each of his sermons is so
impressive, 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 opportunity, must be lost.
The moment he rises and steps to the front
of his pulpit 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
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 morning,
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
reading 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 company
of prophets.' ''
`` `Singers,' it should be translated,'' he puts in,
lifting his eyes from the page and looking out over
his people. Then he goes on, taking this 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 picture in the mind of every
one, he says: ``That means, from the little old
church on the hill, you know.'' And how plain
and clear and real and interesting--most of all,
interesting--it is from this moment! Another
man would have left it that prophets were coming
down from a high place, which would not have
seemed at all alive or natural, and here, suddenly,
Conwell has flashed his picture of the singers
coming down from the little old church on the
hill! There is 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 hill, 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
unconsciously 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
contagious 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 modern equivalent
of psaltery and tabret and cymbals, all have their
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 like it! They
occupy a great curving space behind the pulpit,
and put their hearts into song. And as the
congregation disperse and the choir filter down,
sometimes they are still singing and some of them
continue to sing as they go slowly out toward the
doors. They are happy--Conwell himself is
happy--all the congregation 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
full reverence. It is no wonder that he is
accustomed to fill every seat of the great building.
His gestures are usually very simple. Now and
then, when he works up to emphasis, he strikes
one fist in the palm of the other hand. When he
is through you do not remember that he has made
any gestures at all, but the sound of his voice
remains with you, and the look of his wonderful
eyes. And though he 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 found in the telephone
directory, Dr. Conwell's deep voice breaks quietly
in with, ``Such a number [giving it], Dauphin
Street''--quietly, and in a low tone, yet every
one in the church hears distinctly every syllable
of that low voice.
His fund of personal anecdote, or personal
reminiscence, is constant and illustrative in his
preaching, just as it is when he lectures, and the
reminiscences sweep through many years, and at times
are really startling in the vivid and homelike
pictures they present of the famous folk of the
past that he knew.
One Sunday 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.
Garfield's home and introduce me. When we got
there, a neighbor had to find him. `Jim! Jim!'
he called. You see, Garfield was just plain Jim
to his old neighbors. It's hard to recognize a
hero over your back fence!'' He paused a mo-
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 Religion.'
Garfield especially loved it, so he told
us, because the good old man who brought him
up as a boy and to whom he owed such gratitude,
used to sing it at the pasture bars outside of the
boy's window every morning, and young Jim
knew, whenever he heard that old tune, that 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 Conwell'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 number,
and the great organ struck up, and every person
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 for me!
It was good on 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 will help
you when you're dying, that it will show the way
to heaven--all these and still other lines were
sung, with a sort of wailing softness, a curious
monotone, a depth of earnestness. And the man
who had worked this miracle of control by evoking
out of the past his memory of a meeting with two
of the vanished great ones of the earth, stood
before his people, leading them, singing with them,
his eyes aglow with an inward light. His magic
had suddenly set them into the spirit of the old
camp-meeting days, the days of pioneering and
hardship, when religion meant so much to everybody,
and even those who knew nothing of such
things felt them, even if but vaguely. Every
heart was moved and touched, and that old tune
will sing in the memory of all who thus heard it
and sung it as long as they live.
V
GIFT FOR INSPIRING OTHERS
THE constant earnestness of Conwell, his desire
to let no chance slip by of helping a fellowman,
puts often into his voice, when he preaches,
a note of eagerness, of anxiety. But when he
prays, when he turns to God, his manner undergoes
a subtle and unconscious change. A load
has slipped off his shoulders and has been assumed
by a higher power. Into his bearing, dignified
though it was, there comes an unconscious
increase of the dignity. Into his voice, firm as it
was before, there comes a deeper note of firmness.
He is apt to fling his arms widespread as he prays,
in a fine gesture that he never uses at other times,
and he looks upward with the dignity of a man
who, 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-
fectly natural thing. His sincerity is so evident,
and whatever he does is done so simply and naturally,
that it is just a matter of course.
I remember, during one church service, while
the singing was going on, that he suddenly rose
from his chair and, kneeling beside it, on the open
pulpit, with his back to the congregation, remained
in that posture for several minutes. No one
thought it strange. I was likely enough the only
one who noticed it. His people are used to his
sincerities. And 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 difficulties
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
dollars was absolutely needed to prevent a law-
suit 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
liability for debts of his church--and failure to
meet the note would mean a measure 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 church 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 church equipment,
had outrun the judgment of some of his best
friends, including that of the deacon who had
gone to Massachusetts for him. They had urged a
delay till other expenses were met, and he had
acted against their advice.
He had tried such friends as he could, and he
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
outlined to her brother what Dr. Conwell was
accomplishing, and with such enthusiasm that the
brother at once sent the opportune check.
At a later time the sum of ten thousand dollars
was importunately needed. It was due, payment
had been promised. It was for some of the
construction work of the Temple University
buildings. The last day had come, and Conwell and
the very few who knew of the 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 splendidly,
of their slender means, for the church and
then for the university. There was no rich man
to turn to; the men famous for enormous charitable
gifts have never let themselves be interested
in any of the work of Russell Conwell. 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 unpretentious
kind among unpretentious 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 application, give thirty-five
hundred dollars, this being the extent of the
association of the wealthy with any of the varied
Conwell work.
So when it was absolutely necessary to have
ten thousand dollars the possibilities of money
had been exhausted, whether from congregation
or individuals.
Russell Conwell, in spite of his superb optimism,
is also a man of deep depressions, and this is
because of the very fire and fervor of his nature, for
always in such a nature there is a balancing. He
believes in success; success must come!--success
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 doubtful
over some particular possibility. And he intensely
believes in prayer--faith can move mountains;
but always he believes that it is better
not to wait for the mountains thus to be moved,
but to go right out and get to work at moving
them. And once in a while there comes a time
when the mountain looms too threatening, even
after the bravest efforts and the deepest trust.
Such a time 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
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
envelope handed to him, as he reached home, by
the mail-carrier.
``And it had come so strangely and so naturally!
For the check was from a woman who was profoundly
interested in his work, and who had sent
the check knowing that in a general way it was
needed, but without the least idea that there
was any immediate need. That was eight or nine
years ago, but although the donor was told at
the time that Dr. Conwell and all of us were
most grateful for the gift, it was not until very
recently that she was told how opportune it was.
And the change it made in Dr. Conwell! 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
members of the church were vaguely disturbed by
noticing, when the structure reached the second
story, that at that height, on the side toward the
vacant and unbought land adjoining, there were
several doors built that opened literally into
nothing but space!
When asked about these doors and their purpose,
Dr. Conwell would make some casual reply,
generally to the effect that they might be excellent
as fire-escapes. To no one, for quite a while, did he
broach even a hint of the great plan that was
seething in his mind, which was that the buildings
of a university were some day to stand on that
land immediately adjoining the church!
At that time the university, the Temple University
as it is now called, was not even a college,
although it was probably called a college. Conwell
had organized it, and it consisted of a number
of classes and teachers, meeting in highly
inadequate quarters in two little houses. But the
imagination of Conwell early pictured great new
buildings with accommodations for thousands! In
time the dream was realized, the imagination
became 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 life 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 should be satisfied with the small
things of life. ``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!''
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 exercise
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.
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