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[Illustration: RUSSELL H CONWELL]
Founder of the Institutional Church in America
With His Two Famous Lectures as Recently Delivered, entitled "Acres of
Diamonds," and "Personal Glimpses of Celebrated Men and Women"
With an Appreciative Introduction by FLOYD W. TOMKINS, D.D., LL.D.
1905
The measure of greatness is helpfulness. We have gone back to themethod of the Master and learned to test men not by wealth, nor bybirth, nor by intellectual power, but by service. Wealth is not to bedespised if it is untainted and consecrated. Ancestry is noble if thegood survives and the bad perishes in him who boasts of his forebears.Intellectual force is worthy if only it can escape from that cursedattendant, conceit. But they sink, one and all into insignificancewhen character is considered; for character is the child of godlyparents whose names are self-denial and love. The man who lives notfor himself but for others, and who has a heart big enough to take allmen into its living sympathies—he is the man we delight to honor.
Biographies have a large place in present day literature. A woman longassociated with some foreign potentates tells her story and it is readwith unhealthy avidity. Some man fights many battles, and his careertold by an amiable critic excites temporary interest. Yet as we readwe are unsatisfied. The heart and mind, consciously or unconsciously,ask for some deeds other than those of arms and sycophancies. Did hemake the world better by his living? Were rough places smoothed andcrooked things straightened by his energies? And withal, had he thattender grace which drew little children to him and made him theknight-attendant of the feeble and overborne amongst his fellows? Thelife from which men draw daily can alone make a book richly worth thereading.
It is good that something should be known of a man whilst he yetlives. We are overcrowded with monuments commemorating those intowhose faces we cannot look for inspiration. It is always easy to strewflowers upon the tomb. But to hear somewhat of living realities; tograsp the hand which has wrought, and feel the thrill while we hear ofthe struggles which made it a beautiful hand; to see the face markedby lines cut with the chisel of inner experience and the sword oflonely misunderstanding and perchance of biting criticism, andlearn how the brave contest spelt out a life-history on feature andbrow;—this is at once to know the man and his career.
This life of a man justly honored and loved in Philadelphia will finda welcome seldom accorded to the routine biography. It is difficultfor one who rejoices in Dr. Conwell's friendship to speak in temperedlanguage. It is yet more difficult to do justice to the great workwhich Church and College and Hospit