Robert Shackleton - Getting at the Inner Man: And Fifty Years on the Lecture Platform

That Conwell is not primarily a ministerthat he is a minister becausehe is a sincere Christian, but that he is first of all an Abou BenAdhem, a man who loves his fellow-men, becomes more and more apparent asthe scope of his life-work is recognized. One almost comes to think thathis pastorate of a great church is even a minor matter beside thecombined importance of his educational work, his lecture work, hishospital work, his work in general as a helper to those who need help.

For my own part, I should say that he is like some of the old-timeprophets, the strong ones who found a great deal to attend to inaddition to matters of religion. The power, the ruggedness, the physicaland mental strength, the positive grandeur of the manall these arelike the general conceptions of the big Old Testament prophets. Thesuggestion is given only because it has often recurred, and thereforewith the feeling that there is something more than fanciful in thecomparison; and yet, after all, the comparison fails in one importantparticular, for none of the prophets seems to have had a sense of humor!

It is perhaps better and more accurate to describe him as the last ofthe old school of American philosophers, the last of thosesturdy-bodied, high-thinking, achieving men who, in the old days, didtheir best to set American humanity in the right pathsuch men asEmerson, Alcott, Gough, Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Bayard Taylor,Beecher; men whom Conwell knew and admired in the long ago, and allof whom have long since passed away.

And Conwell, in his going up and down the country, inspiring histhousands and thousands, is the survivor of that old-time group who usedto travel about, dispensing wit and wisdom and philosophy and courage tothe crowded benches of country lyceums, and the chairs of school-housesand town halls, or the larger and more pretentious gathering-places ofthe cities.

Conwell himself is amused to remember that he wanted to talk in publicfrom his boyhood, and that very early he began to yield to the inbornimpulse. He laughs as he remembers the variety of country fairs andschool commencements and anniversaries and even sewing-circles where hetried his youthful powers, and all for experience alone, in the firstfew years, except possibly for such a thing as a ham or a jack-knife!The first money that he ever received for speaking was, so he rememberswith glee, seventy-five cents; and even that was not for his talk, butfor horse hire! But at the same time there is more than amusement inrecalling these experiences, for he knows that they were invaluable tohim as training. And for over half a century he has affectionatelyremembered John B. Gough, who, in the height of his own power andsuccess, saw resolution and possibilities in the ardent young hill-man,and actually did him the kindness and the honor of introducing him to anaudience in one of the Massachusetts towns; and it was really a greatkindness and a great honor, from a man who had won his fame to a youngman just beginning an oratorical career.

Conwell's lecturing has been, considering everything, the most importantwork of his life, for by it he has come into close touch with so manymillionsliterally millions!of people.

I asked him once if he had any idea how many he had talked to in thecourse of his career, and he tried to estimate how many thousands oftimes he had lectured, and the average attendance for each, but desistedwhen he saw that it ran into millions of hearers. What a marvel is sucha fact as that! Millions of hearers!

I asked the same question of his private secretary, and found that noone had ever kept any sort of record; but as careful an estimate ascould be made gave a conservative result of fully eight million hearersfor his lectures; and adding the number to whom he has preached, whohave been over five million, there is a total of well over thirteenmillion who have listened to Russell Conwell's voice! And thisstaggering total is, if anything, an underestimate. The figuring wasdone cautiously and was based upon such facts as that he now addressesan average of over forty-five hundred at his Sunday services (an averagethat would be higher were it not that his sermons in vacation time areusually delivered in little churches; when at home, at the Temple, headdresses three meetings every Sunday), and that he lectures throughoutthe entire course of each year, including six nights a week oflecturing during vacation-time. What a power is wielded by a man who hasheld over thirteen million people under the spell of his voice! Probablyno other man who ever lived had such a total of hearers. And the totalis steadily mounting, for he is a man who has never known the meaning ofrest.

I think it almost certain that Dr. Conwell has never spoken to any oneof what, to me, is the finest point of his lecture-work, and that isthat he still goes gladly and for small fees to the small towns that arenever visited by other men of great reputation. He knows that it is thelittle places, the out-of-the-way places, the submerged places, thatmost need a pleasure and a stimulus, and he still goes out, man of wellover seventy that he is, to tiny towns in distant states, heedless ofthe discomforts of traveling, of the poor little hotels that seldom havevisitors, of the oftentimes hopeless cooking and the uncleanliness, ofthe hardships and the discomforts, of the unventilated and overheated orunderheated halls. He does not think of claiming the relaxation earnedby a lifetime of labor, or, if he ever does, the thought of the sword ofJohn Ring restores instantly his fervid earnestness.

How he does it, how he can possibly keep it up, is the greatest marvelof all. I have before me a list of his engagements for the summer weeksof this year, 1915, and I shall set it down because it willspecifically show, far more clearly than general statements, the kindof work he does. The list is the itinerary of his vacation. Vacation!Lecturing every evening but Sunday, and on Sundays preaching in the townwhere he happens to be!