CHAPTER VII
WAR'S ALARMS
College Days at Yale. The Outbreak of the Civil War. Patriotic
Speechmaking. New York and Henry Ward Beecher.
School days at Wilbraham ended, Russell determined to climb higher. As yet, he scarcely knew the purpose of his studying. Ambitions seethed in him to know, to be able to do. He only realized that he must have the tools ready when the work came. Not daunted, therefore, by the bitter experiences at Wilbraham, Russell determined to go to Yale. This meant a stern fight indeed, one that would call out all his reserves of determination, perseverance and indifference to the jeers and jibes of unthinking and unfeeling classmates. But he did not flinch at the prospect. His brother Charles went with him, and in the fall of '60 they entered Yale College. If poverty was bitter at Wilbraham, it was bitterer here. They were utter strangers among hundreds of boys from all parts of the country, the majority of them coming from homes of luxury and with money for all their needs. At Wilbraham, there had been a certain number of boys from their own section, many of them poor, though few so poor as themselves. They had not felt so altogether alone as they did at Yale. It is perhaps for this reason that so little is known of Russell Conwell's career at Yale. He was as unobtrusive as possible. "Silent as the Sphinx," some describe him. His sensitive nature withdrew into itself, and since he could not mingle with his classmates on a ground of equality, he kept to himself, alone, silent, studying, working, but telling no one how keenly he felt the difference between his own position and that of his fellow students. He worked for the nearby farmers as at Wilbraham and did anything that he could to earn money. But his clothes were poor, his manner of living the cheapest, and except in classes, his fellow students met him little.
He took the law course and followed fully the classical course at the same time—a feat no student at that time had ever done and few, if any, since. How he managed it, working as hard as he did at the same time, to earn money, seems impossible to comprehend. His iron constitution, for one thing, that seemed capable of standing any strain, helped him. And his remarkable ability to photograph whole pages of his text books on his memory was another powerful ally. He could reel off page after page of Virgil, Homer, Blackstone—anything he "memorized" in this unusual fashion. Well for him that he grasped the opportunity to learn this method presented him as a child. But it has always been one of the traits of his character to see opportunities where others walk right over them, and to seize and make use of them.
He did not register in the classical course as he was too poor to pay the tuition fee, nor did he join any of the clubs, as he could not afford it. He seldom appeared in debates or the moot courts, for he was so shabbily dressed he felt he would not be welcome. It was undoubtedly these humiliating experiences, combined with certain of his studies and reading, that caused him to drift into an atheistic train of thought. Working hard, living poor, desiring so much, yet on all sides he saw boys with all the opportunities he longed for, utterly indifferent to them. He saw boys spending in riotous dissipation the money that would have meant so much to him. He saw them recklessly squandering health, time, priceless educational opportunities, for the veriest froth of pleasure. He saw them sowing the wind, yet to his inexperienced eyes not reaping the whirlwind, but faring far more prosperously than he who worked and studied hard and yet had not what they threw so lightly away. It was all at variance with his mother's teaching, with such of the preaching at the little white church as he had heard. Bible promises, as he interpreted them, were not fulfilled. So he scoffed, cynically, bitterly, and said, as many another has done before he has learned the lessons of the world's hard school, "There is no God." And having said it, he took rather a pride in it and said it openly, boastingly.
As at Wilbraham, funds ran out before the school year was completed and he left Yale and taught district school during the day and vocal and instrumental music in the evenings.
But into this eager, undaunted struggle for an education came the trumpet call to arms. With the memory of John Brown like a living coal in his heart, with the pictures of the cowering, runaway slaves ever before his eyes, he flung away his books and was one of the first to enlist. But his father interfered. Russell was only eighteen. Martin Conwell went to the recruiting officer and had his name taken from the rolls. It was a bitter disappointment. But since he might not help with his hands, he spoke with his tongue. All his pent-up enthusiasm flowed out in impassioned speeches that brought men by the hundreds to the recruiting offices. His fame spread up and down the Connecticut valley and wherever troops were to be raised, "the boy" was in demand.
"His youthful oratory," says the author of "Scaling the Eagle's Nest," "was a wonderful thing which drew crowds of excited listeners wherever he went. Towns sent for him to help raise their quotas of soldiers, and ranks speedily filled before his inspiring and patriotic speeches. In 1862 I remember a scene at Whitman Hall in Westfield, Massachusetts, which none who were there can forget. Russell had delivered two addresses there before. On that night there were two addresses before his by prominent lawyers, but there was evident impatience to hear 'The boy.' When he came forward there was the most deafening applause. He really seemed inspired by miraculous powers. Every auditor was fascinated and held closely bound. There was for a time breathless suspense, and then at some telling sentence the whole building shook with wild applause. At its close a shower of bouquets from hundreds of ladies carpeted the stage in a moment, and men from all parts of the hall rushed forward to enlist."
The adulation and flattery showered upon him were enough to turn any other's head. But it made no impression upon him. Heart, mind and soul he was wrapped up in the cause. He was burning with zeal to help the oppressed and suffering. His words poured from a heart overflowing with pity, love, and indignation. Never once did he think of himself, only of those in bonds crying, "Come over and help us."
When Lincoln made his great address in Cooper Institute in 1860,
Russell was there. It was a longer journey from New England to New
York in those days than it is now, and longer yet for a boy who had so
little money, but he let no obstacle keep him away.
He utilized his visit also to hear Beecher, the man who had taken so powerful a hold of his childish fancy. Ever since those boyish days when his mother read Beecher's sermons to him, and standing on the big gray rock he had imagined himself another Beecher, he had longed to hear this great man. It was only this childish desire holding fast to him through the year that took him now, for church-going itself had no attraction for him.
He sat on the steps of the gallery and heard this wonderful man preach a sermon in which he illustrated an auctioneer selling a negro girl at the block. He sat as one entranced. So did the immense audience, held spellbound by the scene so graphically pictured. It was the first interesting sermon he had ever heard. It made a tremendous impression on him, not only in itself, but as a vivid contrast between the formal, rattling-of-dry-bones sermon and the live, vital discourse that takes hold of a man's mind and heart and compels him to go out in the world and do things for the good of his fellow men. Long it remained in his memory, but the greatest inspiration from it did not come till later years, when suddenly it stood forth as if illumined, to throw a brilliant radiance on a path he had decided to tread.