Chapter II: Foreword: Conwell the Pioneer

Speaking of Russell Conwell's career, a Western paper has called it, "a pioneer life."

No phrase better describes it.

Dr. Conwell preaches to the largest Protestant congregation in America each Sunday. He is the founder and president of a college that has a yearly roll-call of three thousand students. He is the founder and president of a hospital that annually treats more than five thousand patients. Yet great as these achievements are, they are yet greater in prophecy than in fulfilment. For they are the first landmarks in a new world of philanthropic work. He has blazed a path through the dark, tangled wilderness of tradition and convention, hewing away the worthless, making a straight road for progress, letting in God's clear light to show what the world needs done and how to do it.

He has shown how a church can reach out into the home, the business, the social life of thousands of people until their religion is their life, their life a religion. He has given the word "church" its real meaning. No longer is it a building merely for worship, but, with doors never closed, it is a vital part of the community and the lives of the people.

He has proven that the great masses of people are hungry and thirsty for knowledge. The halls of Temple College have resounded to the tread of an army of working men and women more than fifty thousand strong. The man with an hour a day and a few dollars a year is as eager and as welcome a student there, and has the same educational opportunities to the same grade of learning as though he had the birthright of leisure and money which opens the doors to Harvard and Yale.

He has shown that a hospital can be built not merely as a charity, not merely as a necessity, but as a visible expression of Christ's love and command, "Heal the sick."

In all these three lines he has blazed new paths, opened new worlds for man's endeavors--new worlds of religious work, new worlds of educational work. He has not only proven their need, demonstrated their worth, but he has shown how it is possible to accomplish such results from small beginnings with no large gifts of money, with only the hands and hearts of willing workers.

Not only has he done a magnificent pioneer work in these great fields, but from boyhood he has blazed trails of one kind or another, for the pioneer fever was in his blood--that burning desire to do, to discover, to strike out into new fields.

As a mere child, he organized a strange club called "Silence," also the first debating society in the district schoolhouse, and circulated the first petition for the opening of a post-office near his home in South Worthington, Mass.

In his school days at Wilbraham Academy, he organized an original critics' club, started the first academy paper, organized the original alumni association.

In war time, he built the first schoolhouse for the first free colored school, still standing at Newport, N.C.; and started the first "Comfort Bag" movement at a war meeting in Springfield, Mass.

As a lawyer, he opened the first noon prayer meeting in the Northwest, called the first meeting to organize the Y.M.C.A. at Minneapolis, Minn., organized four literary and social clubs in Minneapolis, started the first library in that city, began the publication of the first daily paper there called "The Daily Chronicle," afterward "The Minneapolis Tribune."

In Boston, he started the "Somerville Journal," now edited by his son, Leon M. Conwell, one of the most quoted publications in the country. He called the first meeting which organized the Boston Young Men's Congress, and was one of the first editors of the "Boston Globe." He was the personal adviser of James Redpath, who opened the first Lecture and Lyceum Bureau in the United States.

He began a new church work in the old Baptist church building at Lexington, Mass., and he opened in a schoolhouse the mission from which grew the West Somerville (Mass.) Baptist church.

He was special counselor for four new Railroad companies and for two new National banks.

In Philadelphia, in addition to being the founder of the first Institutional church in America, of a college practically free for busy men and women, and a hospital for the sick poor, he has organized twenty or more societies for religions and benevolent purposes including the Philadelphia Orphan's Home Society.

His pioneer work is not all. As a lecturer Dr. Conwell is known from the Atlantic to the Pacific, having been on the lecture platform for forty-three years, speaking from one hundred to two hundred and twenty-five nights each year.

As an author he has written books that have run into editions of hundreds of thousands, his "Life of Spurgeon" selling one hundred and twenty-five thousand copies in four months. He has been around the globe many times, counted among his intimate friends Garibaldi, Bayard Taylor, Stanley, Longfellow, Blaine, Henry Ward Beecher, John G. Whittier, President Garfield, Horace Greeley, Alexander Stevens, John Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John B. Gough and General Sherman.

He fought in the war of the Rebellion, was left for dead on the battlefield of Kenesaw mountain--in fact, he has had a career as picturesque and thrilling as a Scott or Dumas could picture.

Yet the man whose energy has reared enduring monuments of stone, and more lasting ones in the hearts of thousands whose lives he has made happier and brighter, fought his way upward alone and single-handed from a childhood of poverty. He rose by his own efforts, in the face of great and seemingly insurmountable obstacles and discouragements. The path he took from that little humble farmhouse to the big church, the wide-reaching college, the kindly hospital, the head of the Lecture Platform, it is the purpose of this book to picture, in the hope that it may be helpful to others, either young or old, who desire to better their condition, or to do some work of which the inner voice tells them the world is in need.

Dr. Conwell believes, with George Macdonald, that "The one secret of life and development is not to devise or plan, but to fall in with the forces at work--to do every moment's duty aright--that being the part in the process allotted to us; and let come ... what the Eternal Thought wills for each of us, has intended in each of us from the first."

Or in the words of the greatest of Books, "See that thou make it according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount."

Every one at some time in his life has been "in the mount." To follow and obey the Heavenly Vision means a life of usefulness and happiness. That obstacles and discouragements can be surmounted, the life of Russell Conwell shows. For this purpose it is written, that others who have heard the Voice may go forward with faith and perseverance to work of which the world stands in need.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the preparation of this book, the three excellent biographies already written, "Scaling the Eagle's Nest," by Wm. C. Higgins, "The Modern Temple and Templars," by Robert J. Burdette, and "The Life of Russell H. Conwell," by Albert Hatcher Smith, have been of the utmost help. The writer wishes to acknowledge her great indebtedness to all for much of the information in the present work. These writers have with the utmost care gathered the facts concerning Dr. Conwell's early life, and the writer most gratefully owns her deep obligation to them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I.--Ancestry. John Conwell, the English Ancestor who fought for the Preservation of the English Language. Martin Conwell of Maryland. A Runaway Marriage. The Parents of Russell H. Conwell.

Chapter II.--Early Environment. The Family Circle. An Unusual Mother. What She Read Her Children. A Preacher at Three Years of Age.

Chapter III.--Days of Study, Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing the Eagle's Nest.

Chapter IV.--Two Men and Their Influence. John Brown. Fireside Discussions. Runaway Slaves. Fred Douglas. Rev. Asa Niles. A Runaway Trip to Boston.

Chapter V--Trying His Wings. Boyhood Days. Russell's First Case at Law. A Cure for Stage Fever. Studying Music. A Runaway Trip to Europe.

Chapter VI--Out of the Home Nest. School Days at Wilbraham Academy. The First School Oration and Its Humiliating End. The Hour of Prayer in the Conwell Home at the Time of John Brown's Execution.

Chapter VII.--War's Alarms. College Days at Yale. The Outbreak of the Civil War. Patriotic Speechmaking. New York and Henry Ward Beecher.

Chapter VIII.--While the Conflict Raged. Lincoln's Call for One Hundred Thousand Men. Enlistment. Captain Conwell. In Camp at Springfield, Mass. The Famous Gold-sheathed Sword.

Chapter IX.--In the Thick of the Fight. Company F at Newberne, N.C. The Fight at Batchelor's Creek. The Goldsboro Expedition. The Battle of Kingston. The Gum Swamp Expedition.

Chapter X.--The Sword and the School Book. Scouting at Bogue Sound. Captain Conwell Wounded. The Second Enlistment. Jealousy and Misunderstanding. Building of the First Free School for Colored Children. Attack on Newport Barracks. Heroic Death of John Ring.

Chapter XI.--A Soldier of the Cross. Under Arrest for Absence Without Leave. Order of Court Reversed by President. Certificate from State Legislature of Massachusetts for Patriotic Services. Appointed by President Lincoln, Lieutenant-Colonel on General McPherson's Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain. Conversion. Public Profession of Faith.

Chapter XII.--Westward. Resignation from Army. Admission to Bar. Marriage. Removal to Minnesota. Founding of the Minneapolis Y.M.C.A. and of the Present "Minneapolis Tribune." Burning of Home. Breaking Out of Wound. Appointed Emigration Agent to Germany by Governor of Minnesota. Joins Surveying Party to Palestine. Near to Death in Paris Hospital. Journey to New York for Operation in Bellevue Hospital. Return to Boston.

Chapter XIII.--Writing His Way Around the World. Days of Poverty in Boston. Sent to Southern Battlefields. Around the World for New York and Boston Papers. In a Gambling Den in Hong Kong, China. Cholera and Shipwreck.

Chapter XIV.--Busy Days in Boston. Editor of "Boston Traveller." Free Legal Advice for the Poor. Temperance Work. Campaign Manager for General Nathaniel P. Banks. Urged for Consulship at Naples. His Work for the Widows and Orphans of Soldiers.

Chapter XV.--Troubled Days. Death of Wife. Loss of Money. Preaching on Wharves. Growth of Sunday School Class at Tremont Temple from Four to Six Hundred Members in a Brief Time. Second Marriage. Death of Father and Mother. Preaching at Lexington. Building Lexington Baptist Church.

Chapter XVI.--His Entry Into the Ministry. Ordination. First Charge at Lexington. Call to Grace Baptist Church, Philadelphia.

Chapter XVII.--Going to Philadelphia. The Early History of Grace Baptist Church. The Beginning of the Sunday Breakfast Association. Impressions of a Sunday Service.

Chapter XVIII.--First Days at Grace Baptist Church. Early Plans for Church Efficiency. Practical Methods for.

Chapter XXXI.--The Manner of the Message. The Style of the Sermons. Their Subject Matter. Preaching to Help Some Individual Church Member.

Chapter XXXII.--These Busy Later Days. A Typical Week Day. A Typical Sunday. Mrs. Conwell. Back to the Berkshires in Summer for Rest.

Chapter XXXIII.--As a Lecturer. 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.

Chapter XXXIV.--As a Writer. Rapid Method of Working. A Popular Biographical Writer. The Books He has Written.

Chapter XXXV.--A Home Coming. Reception Tendered by Citizens of Philadelphia in Acknowledgment of Work as Public Benefactor.

Chapter XXXVI.--The Path That Has Been Blazed. Problems That Need Solving. The Need of Men Able to Solve Them.

Acres of Diamonds.

Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men and Women.