THE STORY OF ACRES OF DIAMONDS
CONSIDERING everything, the most remarkable thing in Russell Conwell's remarkable life is his lecture, ``Acres of Diamonds.''
That is, the lecture itself, the number of times he has delivered it, what a source of inspiration it has been to myriads, the money that he has made and is making, and, still more, the purpose to which he directs the money. In the circumstances surrounding ``Acres of Diamonds,'' in its tremendous success, in the attitude of mind revealed by the lecture itself and by what Dr.
Conwell does with it, it is illuminative of his character, his aims, his ability.
The lecture is vibrant with his energy. It flashes with his hopefulness. It is full of his enthusiasm.
It is packed full of his intensity. It stands for the possibilities of success in every one. He has delivered it over five thousand times. The demand for it never diminishes. The success grows never less.
There is a time in Russell Conwell's youth of which it is pain for him to think. He told me of it one evening, and his voice sank lower and lower as he went far back into the past. It was of his days at Yale that he spoke, for they were days of suffering. For he had not money for Yale, and in working for more he endured bitter humiliation. It was not that the work was hard, for Russell Conwell has always been ready for hard work. It was not that there were privations and difficulties, for he has always found difficulties only things to overcome, and endured privations with cheerful fortitude. But it was the humiliations that he met--the personal humiliations that after more than half a century make him suffer in remembering them--yet out of those humiliations came a marvelous result.
``I determined,'' he says, ``that whatever Icould do to make the way easier at college for other young men working their way I would do.''
And so, many years ago, he began to devote every dollar that he made from ``Acres of Diamonds''
to this definite purpose. He has what may be termed a waiting-list. On that list are very few cases he has looked into personally.
Infinitely busy man that he is, he cannot do extensive personal investigation. A large proportion of his names come to him from college presidents who know of students in their own colleges in need of such a helping hand.
``Every night,'' he said, when I asked him to tell me about it, ``when my lecture is over and the check is in my hand, I sit down in my room in the hotel''--what a lonely picture, tool--``Isit down in my room in the hotel and subtract from the total sum received my actual expenses for that place, and make out a check for the difference and send it to some young man on my list. And I always send with the check a letter of advice and helpfulness, expressing my hope that it will be of some service to him and telling him that he is to feel under no obligation except to his Lord. I feel strongly, and I try to make every young man feel, that there must be no sense of obligation to me personally. And I tell them that I am hoping to leave behind me men who will do more work than I have done. Don't think that I put in too much advice,'' he added, with a smile, ``for I only try to let them know that a friend is trying to help them.''
His face lighted as he spoke. ``There is such a fascination in it!'' he exclaimed. ``It is just like a gamble! And as soon as I have sent the letter and crossed a name off my list, I am aiming for the next one!''
And after a pause he added: ``I do not attempt to send any young man enough for all his expenses. But I want to save him from bitterness, and each check will help. And, too,'' he concluded, na<i:>vely, in the vernacular, ``I don't want them to lay down on me!''
He told me that he made it clear that he did not wish to get returns or reports from this branch of his life-work, for it would take a great deal of time in watching and thinking and in the reading and writing of letters. ``But it is mainly,'' he went on, ``that I do not wish to hold over their heads the sense of obligation.''
When I suggested that this was surely an example of bread cast upon the waters that could not return, he was silent for a little and then said, thoughtfully: ``As one gets on in years there is satisfaction in doing a thing for the sake of doing it. The bread returns in the sense of effort made.''
On a recent trip through Minnesota he was positively upset, so his secretary told me, through being recognized on a train by a young man who had been helped through ``Acres of Diamonds,''
and who, finding that this was really Dr. Conwell, eagerly brought his wife to join him in most fervent thanks for his assistance. Both the husband and his wife were so emotionally overcome that it quite overcame Dr. Conwell himself.
The lecture, to quote the noble words of Dr.
Conwell himself, is designed to help ``every person, of either sex, who cherishes the high resolve of sustaining a career of usefulness and honor.''
It is a lecture of helpfulness. And it is a lecture, when given with Conwell's voice and face and manner, that is full of fascination. And yet it is all so simple!
It is packed full of inspiration, of suggestion, of aid. He alters it to meet the local circumstances of the thousands of different places in which he delivers it. But the base remains the same. And even those to whom it is an old story will go to hear him time after time. It amuses him to say that he knows individuals who have listened to it twenty times.
It begins with a story told to Conwell by an old Arab as the two journeyed together toward Nineveh, and, as you listen, you hear the actual voices and you see the sands of the desert and the waving palms. The lecturer's voice is so easy, so effortless, it seems so ordinary and matter-of-fact--yet the entire scene is instantly vital and alive! Instantly the man has his audience under a sort of spell, eager to listen, ready to be merry or grave. He has the faculty of control, the vital quality that makes the orator.
