Acres of Diamonds: Our Every-day Opportunities
also showed, in high degree, the methods and personality of Dr. Conwell
himself.
One day a young woman came to him and said she earned only three dollars
a week and that she desired very much to make more. “Can you tell me how
to do it?” she said.
He liked her ambition and her directness, but there was something that
he felt doubtful about, and that was that her hat looked too expensive
for three dollars a week!
Now Dr. Conwell is a man whom you would never suspect of giving a
thought to the hat of man or woman! But as a matter of fact there is
very little that he does not see.
But though the hat seemed too expensive for three dollars a week, Dr.
Conwell is not a man who makes snap-judgments harshly, and in particular
he would be the last man to turn away hastily one who had sought him
out for help. He never felt, nor could possibly urge upon any one,
contentment with a humble lot; he stands for advancement; he has no
sympathy with that dictum of the smug, that has come to us from a nation
tight bound for centuries by its gentry and aristocracy, about being
contented with the position in which God has placed you, for he points
out that the Bible itself holds up advancement and success as things
desirable.
And, as to the young woman before him, it developed, through discreet
inquiry veiled by frank discussion of her case, that she had made the
expensive-looking hat herself! Whereupon not only did all doubtfulness
and hesitation vanish, but he saw at once how she could better herself.
He knew that a woman who could make a hat like that for herself could
make hats for other people, and so, “Go into millinery as a business,”
he advised.
“Oh--if I only could!” she exclaimed. “But I know that I don’t know
enough.”
“Take the millinery course in Temple University,” he responded.
She had not even heard of such a course, and when he went on to explain
how she could take it and at the same time continue at her present work
until the course was concluded, she was positively ecstatic--it was all
so unexpected, this opening of the view of a new and broader life.
“She was an unusual woman,” concluded Dr. Conwell, “and she worked with
enthusiasm and tirelessness. She graduated, went to an up-state city
that seemed to offer a good field, opened a millinery establishment
there, with her own name above the door, and became prosperous. That was
only a few years ago. And recently I had a letter from her, telling me
that last year she netted a clear profit of three thousand six hundred
dollars!”
I remember a man, himself of distinguished position, saying of Dr.
Conwell, “It is difficult to speak in tempered language of what he has
achieved.” And that just expresses it; the temptation is constantly to
use superlatives--for superlatives fit! Of course he has succeeded for
himself, and succeeded marvelously, in his rise from the rocky hill
farm, but he has done so vastly more than that in inspiring such hosts
of others to succeed!
A dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions--and what realizations have
come! And it interested me profoundly not long ago, when Dr. Conwell,
talking of the university, unexpectedly remarked that he would like to
see such institutions scattered throughout every state in the Union.
“All carried on at slight expense to the students and at hours to suit
all sorts of working men and women,” he added, after a pause; and then,
abruptly, “I should like to see the possibility of higher education
offered to every one in the United States who works for a living.”
There was something superb in the very imagining of such a nation-wide
system. But I did not ask whether or not he had planned any details
for such an effort. I knew that thus far it might only be one of his
dreams--but I also knew that his dreams had a way of becoming realities.
I had a fleeting glimpse of his soaring vision. It was amazing to find
a man of more than three-score and ten thus dreaming of more worlds
to conquer. And I thought, what could the world have accomplished if
Methuselah had been a Conwell!--or, far better, what wonders could be
accomplished if Conwell could but be a Methuselah!
He has all his life been a great traveler. He is a man who sees vividly
and who can describe vividly. Yet often his letters, even from places of
the most profound interest, are mostly concerned with affairs back home.
It is not that he does not feel, and feel intensely, the interest of
what he is visiting, but that his tremendous earnestness keeps him
always concerned about his work at home. There could be no stronger
example than what I noticed in a letter he wrote from Jerusalem. “I am
in Jerusalem! And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ”--reading
thus far, one expects that any man, and especially a minister, is sure
to say something regarding the associations of the place and the effect
of these associations on his mind; but Conwell is always the man who
is different--“And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ, I pray
especially for the Temple University.” That is Conwellism!
That he founded a hospital--a work in itself great enough for even a
great life is but one among the striking incidents of his career. And it
came about through perfect naturalness. For he came to know, through his
pastoral work and through his growing acquaintance with the needs of
the city, that there was a vast amount of suffering and wretchedness and
anguish, because of the inability of the existing hospitals to care
for all who needed care. There was so much sickness and suffering to be
alleviated, there were so many deaths that could be prevented--and so he
decided to start another hospital.
And, like everything with him, the beginning was small. That cannot
too strongly be set down as the way of this phenomenally successful
organizer. Most men would have to wait until a big beginning could
be made, and so would most likely never make a beginning at all. But
Conwell’s way is to dream of future bigness, but be ready to begin at
once, no matter how small or insignificant the beginning may appear to
others.
Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient--this was the humble beginning,
in 1891, of what has developed into the great Samaritan Hospital. In a
year there was an entire house, fitted up with wards and operating-room.
Now it occupies several buildings, including and adjoining that first
one, and a great new structure is planned. But even as it is, it has a
hundred and seventy beds, is fitted with all modern hospital appliances,
and has a large staff of physicians; and the number of surgical
operations performed there is very large.
It is open to sufferers of any race or creed, and the poor are never
refused admission, the rule being that treatment is free for those who
cannot pay, but that such as can afford it shall pay according to their
means.
And the hospital has a kindly feature that endears it to patients and
their relatives alike, and that is that, by Dr. Conwell’s personal
order, there are not only the usual week-day hours for visiting, but
also one evening a week and every Sunday afternoon. “For otherwise,” as
he says, “many would be unable to come because they could not get away
from their work.”
A little over eight years ago another hospital was taken in charge, the
Garretson--not founded by Conwell, this one, but acquired, and promptly
expanded in its usefulness.
Both the Samaritan and the Garretson are part of Temple University. The
Samaritan Hospital has treated, since its foundation, up to the middle
of 1915, 29,301 patients; the Garretson, in its shorter life, 5,923.
Including dispensary cases as well as house patients, the two hospitals
together, under the headship of President Conwell, have handled over
400,000 cases.
How Conwell can possibly meet the multifarious demands upon his time is
in itself a miracle. He is the head of the great church; he is the head
of the university; he is the head of the hospitals; he is the head of
everything with which he is associated! And he is not only nominally,
but very actively, the head!
VIII. HIS SPLENDID EFFICIENCY
CONWELL has a few strong and efficient executive helpers who have long
been associated with him; men and women who know his ideas and ideals,
who are devoted to him, and who do their utmost to relieve him; and of
course there is very much that is thus done for him; but even as it is,
he is so overshadowing a man (there is really no other word) that all
who work with him look to him for advice and guidance the professors
and the students, the doctors and the nurses, the church officers, the
Sunday-school teachers, the members of his congregation. And he is never
too busy to see any one who really wishes to see him.
He can attend to a vast intricacy of detail, and answer myriad personal
questions and doubts, and keep the great institutions splendidly going,
by thorough systematization of time, and by watching every minute.
He has several secretaries, for special work, besides his private
secretary. His correspondence is very great. Often he dictates to a
secretary as he travels on the train. Even in the few days for which he
can run back to the Berkshires, work is awaiting him. Work follows him.
And after knowing of this, one is positively amazed that he is able to
give to his country-wide lectures the time and the traveling that they
inexorably demand. Only a man of immense strength, of the greatest
stamina, a veritable superman, could possibly do it. And at times one
quite forgets, noticing the multiplicity of his occupations, that he
prepares two sermons and two talks on Sunday!
Here is his usual Sunday schedule, when at home. He rises at seven and
studies until breakfast, which is at eight-thirty. Then he studies until
nine-forty-five, when he leads a men’s meeting at which he is likely
also to play the organ and lead the singing. At ten-thirty is the
principal church service, at which he preaches, and at the close of
which he shakes hands with hundreds. He dines at one, after which he
takes fifteen minutes’ rest and then reads; and at three o’clock he
addresses, in a talk that is like another sermon, a large class of
men--not the same men as in the morning. He is also sure to look in at
the regular session of the Sunday-school. Home again, where he studies
and reads until supper-time. At seven-thirty is the evening service,
at which he again preaches and after which he shakes hands with several
hundred more and talks personally, in his study, with any who have need
of talk with him. He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it,
one evening, as having been a strenuous day, and he responded, with a
cheerfully whimsical smile: “Three sermons and shook hands with nine
hundred.”
That evening, as the service closed, he had said to the congregation: “I
shall be here for an hour. We always have a pleasant time together after
service. If you are acquainted with me, come up and shake hands. If you
are strangers”--just the slightest of pauses--“come up and let us make
an acquaintance that will last for eternity.” I remember how simply and
easily this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how impressive and
important it seemed, and with what unexpectedness it came. “Come and
make an acquaintance that will last for eternity!” And there was
a serenity about his way of saying this which would make strangers
think--just as he meant them to think--that he had nothing whatever to
do but to talk with them. Even his own congregation have, most of them,
little conception of how busy a man he is and how precious is his time.
One evening last June to take an evening of which I happened to know--he
got home from a journey of two hundred miles at six o’clock, and after
dinner and a slight rest went to the church prayer-meeting, which he