Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America

by Agnes Rush Burr

CHAPTER XXXIII

AS A LECTURER

His Wide Fame as a Lecturer. Date of Entrance on Lecture Platform.
Number of Lectures Given. The Press on His Lectures. Some Instances of
How His Lectures Have Helped People. Address at Banquet to President
McKinley.

In the maze of this church, college and hospital work, Dr. Conwell finds time to lecture from one hundred to two hundred and twenty-five times in a year. Indeed, he frequently leaves Philadelphia at midnight after a Sunday of hard work, travels and lectures as far as Kansas and is back again for Friday evening prayer meeting and for his duties the following Sunday.

As a lecturer, he is probably known to a greater number of people than he is as a preacher, for his lecturing trips take him from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Since he began, he has delivered more than six thousand lectures.

He has been on the lecture platform since the year 1862, giving on an average of two hundred lectures in a year. In addition, he has addressed many of the largest conventions in America and preaches weekly to an audience of more than three thousand. So that he has undoubtedly addressed more people in America than any man living. He is to-day one of the most eminent and most popular figures on the lecture platform of this country, the last of the galaxy of such men as Gough, Beecher, Chapin. "There are but ten real American lecturers on the American platform to-day," says "Leslie's Weekly." "Russell Conwell is one of the ten and probably the most eminent."

His lectures, like his sermons, are full of practical help and good sense. They are profusely illustrated with anecdote and story that fasten the thought of his subject. He uses no notes, and gives his lecture little thought during the day. Indeed, he often does not know the subject until he hears the chairman announce it. If the lecture is new or one that he has not given for many years, he occasionally has a few notes or a brief outline before him. But usually he is so full of the subject, ideas and illustrations so crowd his mind that he is troubled with the wealth, rather than the dearth, of material. He rarely gives a lecture twice alike. The main thought, of course, is the same. But new experiences suggest new illustrations, and so, no matter how many times one hears it, he always hears something new. "That's the third time I've heard Acres of Diamonds," said one delighted auditor, "and every time it grows better."

Perhaps the best idea of his lectures can be gleaned from the press notices that have appeared, though he never keeps a press notice himself, nor pays any attention to the compliments that may have been paid him. These that have been collected at random by friends by no means cover the field of what has been said or written about him.

Speaking of a lecture in 1870, when he toured England, the London
"Telegraph" says:

"The man is weirdly like his native hills. You can hear the cascades and the trickling streams in his tone of voice. He has a strange and unconscious power of so modulating his voice as to suggest the roar of the tempest in rocky declivities, or the soft echo of music in distant valleys. The breezy freshness and natural suggestiveness of varied nature in its wild state was completely fascinating. He excelled in description, and the auditor could almost hear the Niagara roll as he described it, and listened to catch the sound of sighing pines in his voice as he told of the Carolinas."

"The lecture was wonderful in clearness, powerful, and eloquent in delivery," says the London "News." "The speaker made the past a living present, and led the audience, unconscious of time, with him in his walks and talks with famous men. When engrossed in his lecture his facial expression is a study. His countenance conveys more quickly than his words the thought which he is elucidating, and when he refers to his Maker, his face takes on an expression indescribable for its purity. He seems to hold the people as children stare at brilliant and startling pictures."

"It is of no use to try to report Conwell's lectures," is the verdict of the Springfield "Union." "They are unique. Unlike anything or any one else. Filled with good sense, brilliant with new suggestions, and inspiring always to noble life and deeds, they always please with their wit. The reader of his addresses does not know the full power of the man."

"His stories are always singularly adapted to the lecturer's purpose. Each story is mirth-provoking. The audience chuckled, shook, swayed, and roared with convulsions of laughter," says the "London Times." "He has been in the lecture field but a few years, yet he has already made a place beside such men as Phillips, Beecher, and Chapin."

"The only lecturer in America," concludes the Philadelphia "Times," "who can fill a hall in this city with three thousand people at a dollar a ticket."

The most popular of all his lectures is "Acres of Diamonds," which he has given 3,420 times, which is printed, in part, at the end of the book. But his list of lectures is a long one, including:

"The Philosophy of History."
"Men of the Mountains."
"The Old and the New New England."
"My Fallen Comrades."
"The Dust of Our Battlefields."
"Was it a Ghost Story?"
"The Unfortunate Chinese."
"Three Scenes in Babylon."
"Three Scenes from the Mount of Olives."
"Americans in Europe."
"General Grant's Empire."
"Princess Elizabeth."
"Guides."
"Success in Life."
"The Undiscovered."
"The Silver Crown, or Born a King."
"Heroism of a Private Life."
"The Jolly Earthquake."
"Heroes and Heroines."
"Garibaldi, or the Power of Blind Faith."
"The Angel's Lily."
"The Life of Columbus."
"Five Million Dollars for the Face of the Moon."
"Henry Ward Beecher."
"That Horrid Turk."
"Cuba's Appeal to the United States."
"Anita, the Feminine Torch."
"Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men and Women."

His lecturing tours now are confined to the United States, as his church duties will not permit him to go farther afield, but so wide is his fame that a few years ago he declined an offer of $39,000 for a six months' engagement In Australia. This year (1905) he received an offer of $50,000 for two hundred lectures in Australia and England.

He lectures, as he preaches, with the earnest desire ever uppermost to help some one. He never goes to a lecture engagement without a definite prayer to God that his words may be so directed as to do some good to the community or to some individual. When he has delivered "Acres of Diamonds," he frequently leaves a sum of money with the editor of the leading paper in the town to be given as a prize for any one who advances the most practical idea for using waste forces in the neighborhood. In one Vermont town where he had lectured, the money was won by a young man who after a careful study of the products of the neighborhood, said he believed the lumber of that section was especially adapted to the making of coffins. A sum of $2,000 was raised, the water power harnessed and a factory started.

A man in Michigan who was on the verge of bankruptcy, having lost heavily in real estate speculation, heard "Acres of Diamonds," and started in, as the lecture advises, right at home to rebuild his fortunes. Instead of giving up, he began the same business again, fought a plucky fight and is now president of the bank and a leading financier of the town.

A poor farmer of Western Massachusetts, finding it impossible to make a living on his stony place, had made up his mind to move and advertised his farm for sale. He heard "Acres of Diamonds," took to heart its lessons. "Raise what the people about you need," it said to him. He went into the small fruit business and is now a rich man.

The man who invented the turnout and switch system for electric cars received his suggestion from "Acres of Diamonds."

A baker heard "Acres of Diamonds," got an idea for an improved oven and made thousands of dollars from it.

A teacher in Montrose, Pennsylvania, was so impressed with the practical ideas in the now famous lecture that he determined to teach what his pupils most needed to know. Being in a farming district, he added agricultural chemistry to their studies with such success that the next year he was elected principal of one of the Montrose schools and shortly afterward was appointed Superintendent of Education and President of the State University of Ohio.

But incidents by the hundreds could be related or practical, helpful results that flow from Dr. Conwell's lectures.

There is yet another side of their helpfulness that the world knows little about. In his early lecturing days, he resolved to give his lecture fees to the education of poor boys and faithfully through all these years has that resolve been kept The Redpath Lyceum Bureau has paid him nearly $300,000, and more than $200,000 of this has gone directly to help those poor in purse who hunger after knowledge, as he himself did in those days at Wilbraham when help would have been so welcome. The balance has been given to Temple College, which in itself is the strongest and most helpful hand ever stretched out to those struggling for an education.

In addition to his lectures, he is called upon to make innumerable addresses at various meetings, public gatherings and conventions. Those who have never heard him speak may gather some idea of the impression he makes by the following letter written by a gentleman who attended the banquet given to President McKinley at the G.A.R. encampment in Philadelphia in 1899:

"At the table with the President was Russell H. Conwell, and no one near me could tell me who he was. We mistook him for the new Secretary of War, until Secretary Root made his speech. There was a highly intelligent and remarkably representative audience of the nation at a magnificent banquet in the hall decorated regardless of cost.

"The addresses were all specially good and made by men specially before the nation. Yet all the evening till after midnight there were continuous interruptions and much noise of voices, dishes, and waiters. Men at distant tables laughed out often. It was difficult to hear at best, the acoustics were so bad. The speakers took it as a matter of course at such a 'continuous performance.' Some of the Representatives must have thought they were at home in the House at Washington. They listened or not, as they chose. The great hall was quiet only when the President gave his address, except when the enclosed remarks were made long after midnight, when all were worn out with speeches.

"When, about the last thing, Conwell was introduced by the chairman, no one heard his name because of the noise at the tables. Two men asked me who he was. But not two minutes after he began, the place was still and men craned their necks to catch his words. I never saw anything so magical. I know how you would have enjoyed it. Its effect was a hot surprise. The revelers all worn; the people ready to go home; the waiters impatient; the speech wholly extemporaneous. It was a triumph that did honor to American oratory at its best. The applause was decisive and deafening. I never heard of anything better done under such circumstances.

"None of the morning papers we could get on the train mentioned either Conwell or his great speech. Perhaps Conwell asked the reporters to suppress it. I don't know as to that. But it was the first thing we looked for. Not a word. There is no clue to account for that. Yet that is the peculiarity of this singular life: one of the most public, one of the most successful men, but yet one of the least discussed or written about. He was to us as visitors the great feature of that banquet as a speaker, and yet wholly ignored by the press of his own city. The United States Senator Penrose seemed only to know in a general way that Conwell was a great benefactor and a powerful citizen and preacher. Conwell is a study. I cogitated on him all day. I was told that he marched throughout the great parade in the rear rank of his G.A.R. post. It is the strangest case of a private life I have ever heard mentioned. The Quakers will wake up resurrection day and find out Conwell lived in Philadelphia. It is startling to think how measureless the influence of such a man is in its effect on the world. Through forty years educating men, healing the sick, caring for children, then preaching to a great church, then lecturing in the great cities nearly every night, then writing biographies; and also an accessible counselor to such masses of young people!"

The address referred to in the foregoing letter was taken down in shorthand, and was substantially as follows:

"Comrades: I feel at this moment as Alexander Stephens said he felt at the close of the war of 1865, and it can well be illustrated by the boasting athlete who declared he could throw out twenty men from a neighboring saloon in five minutes. He requested his friend to stand outside and count as he went in and threw them out. Soon a battered man was thrown out the door far into the street. The friend began his count and shouted, 'One!' But the man in the street staggered to his feet and angrily screamed, 'Stop counting! It's me!' When this feast opened I was proudly expecting to make a speech, but the great men who have preceded me have done all and more than I intended to do. The hour is spent—they are sounding 'taps' at the door. I could not hope to hold your attention. It only remains for me to do my duty in behalf of Meade Post, and do it in the briefest possible space.

"Comrades of Boston and New York, you have heard the greetings when you entered the city—you have seen the gorgeous and artistic decorations on halls and dwellings—you have heard the shouts of the million and more who pressed into the streets, waved handkerchiefs from the stands, and looked over each other's heads from all the windows and roofs throughout that weary march. Here you see the lovely decorations, the most costly feast, and listen to the heart-thrilling, soul-subduing orchestra. All of these have already spoken to you an unmistakable message of welcome. Knowing this city as I do, I can say to you that not one cornet or viol, not one hymn or shout, not one wave in all the clouds which fair hands rolled up, not one gun of all that shook the city, not one flush of red on a dear face of beauty, not one blessing from the aged on his cane, not one tear on the eyelids which glowed again as your march brought back the gleam of a morning long since dead, not one clasp of the hand, not one 'God bless you!' from saint or priest in all this fair city, but I believe has been deeply, earnestly, sincere.

"This repast is not the result of pride—is not arranged for gluttony or fashion. No political scheme inspired its proposal, and no ulterior motive moved these companions to take your arm. The joy that seems to beam in the comrade's eye and unconsciously express itself in word and gesture, is real. It is the hearty love of a comrade who showed his love for his country by battle in 1862, and who only finds new ways in time of peace for expressing the same character now. The eloquence of this night has been unusually, earnestly, practically patriotic and fraternal. It has been the utterance of hearts beating full and strong for humanity. Loyalty, fraternity, and charity are here in fact. It is true, honest, heart. Such fraternal greetings may be as important for liberty and justice as the winning of a Gettysburg. For the mighty influence of the Grand Army of the Republic is even more potent now than it was on that bloody day. Peace has come and the brave men of the North recognize and respect the motives and bravery of that Confederate army which dealt them such fearful blows believing they were in the right. But the glorious peace we enjoy and the greatness of our nation's name and power are due as much to the living Grand Army as to the dead. I am getting weary of being counted 'old,' but I am more tired of hearing the soldier overpraised for what he did in 1861. You have more influence now than then, and are better men in every sense. At Springfield, Illinois, they illustrated the growth of the city by telling me that in 1856 a lunatic preacher applied to Mr. Lincoln for his aid to open the legislative chamber for a series of meetings to announce that the Lord was coming at once. Mr. Lincoln refused, saying, 'If the Lord knew Springfield as well as I do, he wouldn't come within a thousand miles of it.' But now the legislative halls are open, and every good finds welcome in that city. The world grows better—cities are not worse. The nation has not gone backward, and all the good deeds did not cease in 1865. The Grand Army of the Republic, speaking plainly but with no sense of egotism, has been praised too much for the war and too little for its heroism and power in peace. Does it make a man an angel to eat hardtack? Or does it educate in inductive philosophy to chase a pig through a Virginia fence? Peace has its victories no less renowned than war.

"The Grand Army is not growing old. You all feel younger at this moment than you did at the close of the day's march. Your work is not finished. You were not fossilized in 1865. The war was not a nurse, nor was it a very thorough schoolmaster. It did serve, however, to show to friends and country what kind of men America contained. Not I nor you perhaps can take this pleasing interpretation to ourselves, but looking at the five hundred thousand men who outlived the war, we see that they were the same men before the war and have remained the same since the war. Their ability, friendship, patriotism, and religion were better known after they had shown their faith by deeds, but their identity and character were in great measure the same.

"Many of our Presidents have been taken from the ranks of the army. But it would be a mockery of political wisdom to declare that a free, intelligent people elect a chief executive simply to reward him for having been in the war of 1861. Captain Garfield, Lieutenant Hayes, Major McKinley, and General Grant were not put at the head of the nation as one would vote a pension. They were elected because the people believed them to be the very best statesmen they could select for the office. For a time every foreign consul except four was a soldier. Two-thirds of Congress had been in the army. Twenty-nine governors in the same year had been in military service. Nine presidents of universities had been volunteers in 1863. Three thousand postmasters appointed in one year were from the army. Cabinet officers, custom-house officers, judges, district attorneys, and clerks in public offices were almost exclusively selected from army men. Could you look in the face of the nations and declare that with all our enterprise, learning, progress, and common sense, we had such an inadequate idea of the responsibilities of government that we elected men to office who were incapable, simply because they had carried a gun or tripped over a sword! No, no. The shrewd Yankee and the calculating Hoosier are not caught with such chaff. They selected these officers as servants of the nation because the war had served to show what sort of men they were.

"In short, they appointed them to high positions because they were true men. They are just as true men now. They are as patriotic, as industrious, as unselfish, as brave to-day as they were in the dark days of the rebellion. Their efforts are as honest now as they were then, to perpetuate free institutions and maintain the honor of the flag.

"They have endowed colleges, built cathedrals, opened the wilderness to railroads, filled the American desert with roses, constructed telephone, telegraph, and steamship lines. They have stood in classroom and in the pulpit by the thousand; they have honored our courts with their legal acumen; they have covered the plains with cities, and compelled the homage of Europe to secure our scholars, our wheat and our iron. The soldier has controlled the finances of banking systems and revolutionized labor, society, and arts with his inventions. They saw poor Cuba, beautiful as her surf and femininely sweet as her luscious fruits, tortured in chains. They saw her lovely form through the blood that covered her, and Dewey, Sampson, Schley, Miles, Merritt, Sigsbee, Evans, Philip, Alger, and McKinley of the Grand Army led the forces to her rescue. The Philippines in the darkness of half-savage life were brought unexpectedly under our colors because Dewey and his commanders were in 1898 just the same heroes they were in 1864.

"At the bidding of Meade Post, then, I welcome you and bid you farewell. This gathering was in the line of duty. Its spectacle has impressed the young, inspired the strong man, and comforted the aged. The fraternity here so sincerely expressed to-night will encourage us all to enfold the old flag more tenderly, to love our country more deeply, and to go on in every path of duty, showing still the spirit of '61 wherever good calls for sacrifice or truth for a defender."