What a power is wielded by
a man who has held over thirteen million people
under the spell of his voice! Probably no other
man who ever lived had such a total of hearers.
And the total is steadily mounting, for he is a man
who has never known the meaning of rest.
I think it almost certain that Dr. Conwell has
never spoken to any one of what, to me, is the
finest point of his lecture-work, and that is that
he still goes gladly and for small fees to the small
towns that are never visited by other men of great
reputation. He knows that it is the little places,
the out-of-the-way places, the submerged places,
that most need a pleasure and a stimulus, and he
still goes out, man of well over seventy that he is,
to tiny towns in distant states, heedless of the
discomforts of traveling, of the poor little hotels
that seldom have visitors, of the oftentimes hopeless
cooking and the uncleanliness, of the hardships
and the discomforts, of the unventilated
and overheated or underheated halls. He does
not think of claiming the relaxation earned by a
lifetime of labor, or, if he ever does, the thought
of the sword of John Ring restores instantly his
fervid earnestness.
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