Russell H. Conwell | Page 3

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