Russell H. Conwell

Russell H. Conwell

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Title: Russell H. Conwell
Author: Agnes Rush Burr
Release Date: March 3, 2004 [EBook #11421]
Language: English
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[Illustration: RUSSELL H CONWELL]

RUSSELL H. CONWELL

Founder of the Institutional Church in America

THE WORK AND THE MAN
BY
AGNES RUSH BURR

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

TO THE MEMBERS
OF
GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
TO THOSE WHO IN THE OLD DAYS WORKED WITH SUCH
SELF SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION TO BUILD THE TEMPLE
WALLS; TO THOSE WHO IN THE LATER DAYS ANYWHERE
WORK IN LIKE SPIRIT TO ENLARGE THEIR SPHERE OF
USEFULNESS,
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

AN APPRECIATION
The measure of greatness is helpfulness. We have gone back to the
method of the Master and learned to test men not by wealth, nor by
birth, nor by intellectual power, but by service. Wealth is not to be
despised if it is untainted and consecrated. Ancestry is noble if the good
survives and the bad perishes in him who boasts of his forebears.
Intellectual force is worthy if only it can escape from that cursed
attendant, conceit. But they sink, one and all into insignificance when
character is considered; for character is the child of godly parents
whose names are self-denial and love. The man who lives not for
himself but for others, and who has a heart big enough to take all men
into its living sympathies--he is the man we delight to honor.
Biographies have a large place in present day literature. A woman long
associated with some foreign potentates tells her story and it is read
with unhealthy avidity. Some man fights many battles, and his career
told by an amiable critic excites temporary interest. Yet as we read we
are unsatisfied. The heart and mind, consciously or unconsciously, ask
for some deeds other than those of arms and sycophancies. Did he
make the world better by his living? Were rough places smoothed and
crooked things straightened by his energies? And withal, had he that
tender grace which drew little children to him and made him the
knight-attendant of the feeble and overborne amongst his fellows? The
life from which men draw daily can alone make a book richly worth the
reading.
It is good that something should be known of a man whilst he yet lives.
We are overcrowded with monuments commemorating those into
whose faces we cannot look for inspiration. It is always easy to strew
flowers upon the tomb. But to hear somewhat of living realities; to
grasp the hand which has wrought, and feel the thrill while we hear of
the struggles which made it a beautiful hand; to see the face marked by
lines cut with the chisel of inner experience and the sword of lonely
misunderstanding and perchance of biting criticism, and learn how the
brave contest spelt out a life-history on feature and brow;--this is at
once to know the man and his career.

This life of a man justly honored and loved in Philadelphia will find a
welcome seldom accorded to the routine biography. It is difficult for
one who rejoices in Dr. Conwell's friendship to speak in tempered
language. It is yet more difficult to do justice to the great work which
Church and College and Hospital, united in a trinity of service, have
accomplished in our very midst. God hath done mighty things through
this His servant, and the end is not yet. To attend the Temple services
on Sunday and feel the pulse of worship is to enter into a blessed
fellowship with God and men. To see the thousands pursuing their
studies during the week in Temple College and to realize the
thoroughness of the work done is to gain a belief in Christian education.
To move through the beautiful Hospital and mark the gentle
ministration of Christian physician and nurse is to learn what Jesus
meant when, quoting Hosea, He said: "I will have mercy and not
sacrifice." And these all bring one very near to the great human heart,
the intelligent and far-reaching judgment, the ripe and real religion of
him whose life this volume tells.
May God bless Dr. Conwell