Russell H. Conwell, Founder of the Institutional Church in America Part 3

Would the experiences of life trans.m.u.te into pure gold, these undeveloped traits of character or prove them mere dross? It rested with him. He was the alchemist, as is every other man. The philosopher's stone is in every one's hands.

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.

The carefree days of boyhood rapidly drew to a close. The serious work of life was beginning. The bitter struggle for an education was at hand. And because one boy did so struggle, thousands of boys now are being given the broadest education, practically free.

Russell had gone as far in his studies as the country school could take him. Should he stop there as his companions were doing and settle down to the work of the farm? The outlook for anything else was almost hopeless. He had absolutely no money, nor could his father spare him any. He knew no other work than farming. It was a prospect to daunt even the most determined, yet Russell Conwell is not the only farmer's boy who has looked such a situation in the face and succeeded in spite of it. Nor were helping hands stretched out in those days to aid ambitious boys, as they are in these.

Asa Niles, matching Russell's progress with loving interest, told Martin Conwell the boy ought to go to Wilbraham Academy. His own son William was going, and he strongly urged that Charles and Russell Conwell enter at the same time. It was no light decision for the father to make. He needed the boys in the work on the farm. Not only was he unable to help them, but it was a decided loss to let them go.

Long and earnest were the consultations the father and mother held.

The mother, willing to sacrifice herself to the utmost, said, of course, "let them go," deciding she could earn something to help them along by taking in more sewing. So it was decided, and in the fall of 1858, Russell and his brother entered the Academy of Wilbraham, a small town about twelve miles east from Springfield.

It was bitter, uphill work. All the money the two boys had, both to pay their tuition and their board, they earned. They worked for the near-by farmers. They spent long days gathering chestnuts and walnuts at a few cents a quart. They split wood, they did anything they could find to do. In fact, they worked as hard and as long as though no studies were awaiting to be eagerly attacked when the exhausting labor was finished. Such tasks interfered with their studies, so that Russell never stood very high in his Academy cla.s.ses. Part of the time they lived in a small room on the outskirts of the village, barren of all furniture save the absolutely necessary, and for six weeks at a stretch, lived on nothing but mush and milk. Their clothes were of the cheapest kind, countrified in cut and make, a decided contrast to those of their fellow students, who came from homes of wealth and refinement It is very easy for outsiders and older heads to talk philosophically of being above such things, but young, sensitive boys feel such a position keenly and none but those who have actually endured such a martyrdom of pride know what they suffer. It takes the grittiest kind of perseverance to face such slights, to seem not to see the amused glance, not to hear the sneering comment, not to notice the contemptuous shrug.

Such slights Russell endured daily from certain of his cla.s.smates, and though he realized fully that the opinion of these was of little value, nevertheless they hurt. But to the world he stood his ground unflinchingly, even if there were secret heartaches. He studied hard, and what he studied he learned. He had his own peculiar way of studying. Once he was missing from his cla.s.ses several days. The teachers reported it to the princ.i.p.al, Dr. Raymond, who investigated.

He found Russell completely absorbed in history and mastering it at a mile-a-minute gait. Dr. Raymond was wise in the management of boys, especially such a boy as Russell, and he reported to the teachers, "Let him alone. Conwell is working out his own education, and it isn't worth while to disturb him."

His pa.s.sion for debate and oratory found full scope in the debating societies of the Academy. These welcomed him with open arms. He was so quick with his witty repartee, could so readily turn an opponent's arguments against him, that the nights it was known he would speak, found the "Old Club" hall always crowded to hear "that boy from the country."

Thus working as hard as though he were doing nothing else, and studying as hard as though he were not working, Russell made his way through two terms of the academic year. n.o.body knows or ever will know, all he suffered. Often almost on the point of starvation, yet too proud and sensitive to ask for help, he toiled on, working by day and studying by night. He never thought of giving up the fight and going back to the farm. But funds completely ran out for the spring term and he yielded the struggle for a brief while, returning to help his father, or to earn what he could teaching school, or working on neighboring farms, saving every cent like a very miser for the coming year's tuition. In addition, he kept up with his studies, so that when he returned the next fall, he went on with his cla.s.s the same as if he had attended for the entire year.

The second year was a repet.i.tion of the first, work and study, grinding poverty, glorious perseverance. Again the spring term found him out of funds, and this time he replenished by teaching school at Blandford, Ma.s.sachusetts. Among his pupils here was a bully of the worst type, whose conduct had caused most of the former teachers to resign. In fact, he was quite proud of his ability to give the school a holiday, and as on former occasions, made his boasts that it wouldn't be long before the new teacher would take a vacation. The other pupils watched with eager curiosity for the conflict. In due course of time it came. Russell at first dealt with him kindly. It hadn't been so many years since he himself had been the cause of numerous uproars at school. But this youth was not of the kind to be impressed by good treatment. He simply took it as a showing of the white feather on the part of the new teacher and became bolder in his misconduct. On a day, when he was unruly beyond all pardon, Russell took down the birch and invited him up before the school to receive the usual punishment. The great occasion had come. The children waited with bated breath. The boy refused openly, sneeringly. The next moment, he thought lightning had struck him. He was grabbed by the neck, held with a grip of iron despite all his struggles, whipped before the gaping school, taken to the door and kicked out in the snow. Then the school lessons proceeded. It made a sensation, of course. Some of the parents wanted to request the new teacher to resign. But others rallied to his support and protested to the school board that the right man had been found at last. And so Russell held the post until the school term was over. Thirty-five years after, Russell Conwell, pastor of the Baptist Temple, was asked to head a pet.i.tion to get this same evil doer out of Sing Sing prison.

But despite his hard work and hard study at Wilbraham, the spirit of fun cropped out as persistently as in his younger days at the country school. A chance to play a good joke was not to be missed. At one of the school entertainments, a student whom few liked was to take part.

Relatives of his had given a large sum of money to the Academy, and on this account he somewhat lorded it over the other boys. He was, in addition, foppish in his dress, and on account of his money, position, and tailor, felt the country boys of the cla.s.s a decided drawback to his social status. So the country boys decided to "get even," and they needed no other leader while Russell Conwell was about. Finally it came the dandy's turn to go on the platform to deliver a recitation.

Just as he stepped out of the little anteroom before the audience, Russell, with deft fingers, fastened a paper jumping-jack to the tail of his coat, where it dangled back of his legs in plain view of the audience but un.o.bserved by himself. With every gesture the figure jumped, climbed, contorted, and went through all manner of gymnastics.

The more enthusiastic became the young orator, the more active the tiny figure in his rear. The audience went into convulsions. Utterly unable to tell what was the matter, he finally retired, red and confused, and the audience wiped away the tears of laughter.

It was at one of these entertainments that Russell himself met with a bitter defeat. A public debate was announced in which he was to take part. His cla.s.smates had spread abroad the story of his eloquence and the hall was packed to hear him. Knowing that it would be a great occasion and conscious of his poor clothes, he determined to make an impression by his speech. He prepared it with the utmost care, and to "make a.s.surance doubly sure," committed it to memory, a thing he rarely did. His turn came. There was an expectant rustle through the audience, some almost audible comments on his clothes, his height, his thinness. He cleared his voice. He started to say the first word. It was gone. Frantically he searched his memory for that speech. His mind was a blank. Again he cleared his voice and wrestled fiercely with his inner consciousness. Only one phrase could he remember, and shouting in his thunderous tones, "Give me liberty or give me death," sat down, "not caring much which he got," as Burdette says, "so it came quickly and plenty of it."

It was while at Wilbraham that he laid down text books and stepped aside for a brief s.p.a.ce to pay honor to a hero. Sorrow hung like a pall over the little home at South Worthington. In far-off Virginia, a brave, true-hearted man had raised a weak arm against the hosts of slavery, raised it and been stricken down. John Brown had been tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The day of his execution was a day of mourning in the Conwell home. As the hour for the deed drew near, the father called the family into the little living room where Brown had so often sat among them. And during the hour while the tragedy was enacted in Virginia, the family sat silent with bowed heads doing reverence to the memory of this man who with single-minded earnestness went forward so fearlessly when others held back, to strike the shackles from those in chains.

It was a solemn hour, an hour in which worldly ambitions faded before the sublime spectacle of a man freely, calmly giving his very life because he had dared to live out his honest belief that all men should be free. Like a kaleidoscope, Brown's history pa.s.sed through Russell's mind as he sat there. He saw the brutal whipping of the little slave boy which had so aroused Brown's anger when, a small boy himself, he led cattle through the western forests. Russell's hands clenched as he pictured it and he felt willing to fight as Brown had done, single-handed and alone if need be, to right so horrible a wrong.

He could see how the idea had grown with John Brown's growth and strengthened with his strength until he came to manhood with a single purpose dominating his life, and a will to do it that could neither be broken nor bent. He pictured him in Kansas when son after son was laid on the altar of liberty as unflinchingly as Abraham held the knife at his own son's breast at G.o.d's behest. Then the first "blow at Harper's Ferry in the cause of liberty for all men--the capture of the town of three thousand by twenty-two men, and now this--the public execution--the fearless spirit that looked only to G.o.d for guidance, that feared neither man nor man's laws, stopped on the very threshold of the supreme effort for which he had planned his life. Stopped? It was the 2nd Ma.s.sachusetts Regiment of Infantry that was the first to sing on its way South, that song, afterward sung by the armies of a nation to the steady tramp of feet,

"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on."

CHAPTER VII

WAR'S ALARMS

College Days at Yale. The Outbreak of the Civil War. Patriotic Speechmaking. New York and Henry Ward Beecher.

School days at Wilbraham ended, Russell determined to climb higher. As yet, he scarcely knew the purpose of his studying. Ambitions seethed in him to know, to be able to do. He only realized that he must have the tools ready when the work came. Not daunted, therefore, by the bitter experiences at Wilbraham, Russell determined to go to Yale.

This meant a stern fight indeed, one that would call out all his reserves of determination, perseverance and indifference to the jeers and jibes of unthinking and unfeeling cla.s.smates. But he did not flinch at the prospect. His brother Charles went with him, and in the fall of '60 they entered Yale College. If poverty was bitter at Wilbraham, it was bitterer here. They were utter strangers among hundreds of boys from all parts of the country, the majority of them coming from homes of luxury and with money for all their needs. At Wilbraham, there had been a certain number of boys from their own section, many of them poor, though few so poor as themselves. They had not felt so altogether alone as they did at Yale. It is perhaps for this reason that so little is known of Russell Conwell's career at Yale. He was as un.o.btrusive as possible. "Silent as the Sphinx," some describe him. His sensitive nature withdrew into itself, and since he could not mingle with his cla.s.smates on a ground of equality, he kept to himself, alone, silent, studying, working, but telling no one how keenly he felt the difference between his own position and that of his fellow students. He worked for the nearby farmers as at Wilbraham and did anything that he could to earn money. But his clothes were poor, his manner of living the cheapest, and except in cla.s.ses, his fellow students met him little.

He took the law course and followed fully the cla.s.sical course at the same time--a feat no student at that time had ever done and few, if any, since. How he managed it, working as hard as he did at the same time, to earn money, seems impossible to comprehend. His iron const.i.tution, for one thing, that seemed capable of standing any strain, helped him. And his remarkable ability to photograph whole pages of his text books on his memory was another powerful ally. He could reel off page after page of Virgil, Homer, Blackstone--anything he "memorized" in this unusual fashion. Well for him that he grasped the opportunity to learn this method presented him as a child. But it has always been one of the traits of his character to see opportunities where others walk right over them, and to seize and make use of them.

He did not register in the cla.s.sical course as he was too poor to pay the tuition fee, nor did he join any of the clubs, as he could not afford it. He seldom appeared in debates or the moot courts, for he was so shabbily dressed he felt he would not be welcome. It was undoubtedly these humiliating experiences, combined with certain of his studies and reading, that caused him to drift into an atheistic train of thought. Working hard, living poor, desiring so much, yet on all sides he saw boys with all the opportunities he longed for, utterly indifferent to them. He saw boys spending in riotous dissipation the money that would have meant so much to him. He saw them recklessly squandering health, time, priceless educational opportunities, for the veriest froth of pleasure. He saw them sowing the wind, yet to his inexperienced eyes not reaping the whirlwind, but faring far more prosperously than he who worked and studied hard and yet had not what they threw so lightly away. It was all at variance with his mother's teaching, with such of the preaching at the little white church as he had heard. Bible promises, as he interpreted them, were not fulfilled. So he scoffed, cynically, bitterly, and said, as many another has done before he has learned the lessons of the world's hard school, "There is no G.o.d." And having said it, he took rather a pride in it and said it openly, boastingly.

As at Wilbraham, funds ran out before the school year was completed and he left Yale and taught district school during the day and vocal and instrumental music in the evenings.

But into this eager, undaunted struggle for an education came the trumpet call to arms. With the memory of John Brown like a living coal in his heart, with the pictures of the cowering, runaway slaves ever before his eyes, he flung away his books and was one of the first to enlist. But his father interfered. Russell was only eighteen. Martin Conwell went to the recruiting officer and had his name taken from the rolls. It was a bitter disappointment. But since he might not help with his hands, he spoke with his tongue. All his pent-up enthusiasm flowed out in impa.s.sioned speeches that brought men by the hundreds to the recruiting offices. His fame spread up and down the Connecticut valley and wherever troops were to be raised, "the boy" was in demand.

"His youthful oratory," says the author of "Scaling the Eagle's Nest,"

"was a wonderful thing which drew crowds of excited listeners wherever he went. Towns sent for him to help raise their quotas of soldiers, and ranks speedily filled before his inspiring and patriotic speeches. In 1862 I remember a scene at Whitman Hall in Westfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, which none who were there can forget. Russell had delivered two addresses there before. On that night there were two addresses before his by prominent lawyers, but there was evident impatience to hear 'The boy.' When he came forward there was the most deafening applause. He really seemed inspired by miraculous powers.

Every auditor was fascinated and held closely bound. There was for a time breathless suspense, and then at some telling sentence the whole building shook with wild applause. At its close a shower of bouquets from hundreds of ladies carpeted the stage in a moment, and men from all parts of the hall rushed forward to enlist."

The adulation and flattery showered upon him were enough to turn any other's head. But it made no impression upon him. Heart, mind and soul he was wrapped up in the cause. He was burning with zeal to help the oppressed and suffering. His words poured from a heart overflowing with pity, love, and indignation. Never once did he think of himself, only of those in bonds crying, "Come over and help us."

When Lincoln made his great address in Cooper Inst.i.tute in 1860, Russell was there. It was a longer journey from New England to New York in those days than it is now, and longer yet for a boy who had so little money, but he let no obstacle keep him away.

He utilized his visit also to hear Beecher, the man who had taken so powerful a hold of his childish fancy. Ever since those boyish days when his mother read Beecher's sermons to him, and standing on the big gray rock he had imagined himself another Beecher, he had longed to hear this great man. It was only this childish desire holding fast to him through the year that took him now, for church-going itself had no attraction for him.

He sat on the steps of the gallery and heard this wonderful man preach a sermon in which he ill.u.s.trated an auctioneer selling a negro girl at the block. He sat as one entranced. So did the immense audience, held spellbound by the scene so graphically pictured. It was the first interesting sermon he had ever heard. It made a tremendous impression on him, not only in itself, but as a vivid contrast between the formal, rattling-of-dry-bones sermon and the live, vital discourse that takes hold of a man's mind and heart and compels him to go out in the world and do things for the good of his fellow men. Long it remained in his memory, but the greatest inspiration from it did not come till later years, when suddenly it stood forth as if illumined, to throw a brilliant radiance on a path he had decided to tread.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHILE THE CONFLICT RAGED

Lincoln's Call for 100,000 Men. Enlistment. Captain Conwell. In Camp at Springfield, Ma.s.s. The Famous Gold-sheathed Sword.

In 1862, Lincoln sent out an earnest call for 100,000 men for the war.

Russell was not longer to be denied, and his father permitted him to enlist. What silent agony, what earnest prayers for his safety went up from his mother's heart, only other mothers in those terrible days knew.

He raised a company from Worthington, Chesterfield, Huntington, Russell, Blandford and the neighboring towns and was unanimously elected captain, though only nineteen. His earnest, fiery speeches had already made him famous, and when it was known he had enlisted and was raising a company, there was a rush to get into it, and the men as with one voice, demanded that he be their captain. No one ever thought of canva.s.sing against him. A committee was appointed to wait on Governor Andrew to persuade him to commission Russell in spite of his age, and when he received the appointment, the cheers and applause of the enthusiastic, the quiet satisfaction of the sedate, showed the place which he had in their hearts. It is almost incomprehensible to those not acquainted with the man, but those who have come in contact with him, know what a hold he would soon gain over those "Mountain Boys," as the company was called. His kindly sympathy would quickly make them feel that in their captain, each had a warm personal friend.

His generous heart would back up that belief with a hundred and one little acts of thoughtful kindness. Over each and every one would be exercised a watchful care that cheered the long days, lightened heavy loads, lessened discomforts. It is little wonder that their devotion to him amounted almost to adoration. Gray-haired men followed him as proudly as though his years matched theirs. Indeed, to their loyalty was added a fatherly feeling of guardianship over him, because of his youth, that brought a new pleasure into the relationship. The company was knit together with the bonds of loving comradeship as were few others.

The rendezvous of the company was at Huntington, and there a banquet was given before the troops departed for war. Proud day for him when he marched down the familiar road from South Worthington, through the autumn woods with their slowly falling leaves, their shadowy forest aisles all glorious now with the banners of autumn, past the white farmhouses with their golden lilies, the faithful little brook singing ever at his side. Sad day for his mother as she watched him go, long looking after him, till she could see no more for tears.

From Huntington the company went into camp at Springfield. And now came into use, those tactics and drills he had studied as a boy, and others he had been secretly studying ever since the war broke out. His men were astonished to find how perfectly at home he was in military tactics. It further added to their pride in him. They fully expected him to know as little as they, but when he came to his work fully prepared, to their admiration of him as an orator, their love as a leader, was now added their confidence as an officer.

Camp life at Springfield made war no longer a glorious contemplation but an uncomfortable reality. The ground for a bed, a spadeful of earth for a pillow, sharp mountain winds, cold autumn storms, insufficient food, hinted at the hardships to follow. The gold and the alloy in the men's characters began to shine out, and Company F soon realized in practical ways, the nature of the man who led them. His new uniform overcoat went to a shivering boy, his rations were divided with those less fortunate, his blankets were given to a comrade in need. Always it was of his men, not himself, he thought.