Part 14

“Oh--if I only could!” she exclaimed. “But I know that I don’t know enough.”

“Take the millinery course in Temple University,” he responded.

She had not even heard of such a course, and when he went on to explain how she could take it and at the same time continue at her present work until the course was concluded, she was positively ecstatic--it was all so unexpected, this opening of the view of a new and broader life.

“She was an unusual woman,” concluded Dr. Conwell, “and she worked with enthusiasm and tirelessness. She graduated, went to an up-state city that seemed to offer a good field, opened a millinery establishment there, with her own name above the door, and became prosperous. That was only a few years ago. And recently I had a letter from her, telling me that last year she netted a clear profit of three thousand six hundred dollars!”

I remember a man, himself of distinguished position, saying of Dr. Conwell, “It is difficult to speak in tempered language of what he has achieved.” And that just expresses it; the temptation is constantly to use superlatives--for superlatives fit! Of course he has succeeded for himself, and succeeded marvelously, in his rise from the rocky hill farm, but he has done so vastly more than that in inspiring such hosts of others to succeed!

A dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions--and what realizations have come! And it interested me profoundly not long ago, when Dr. Conwell, talking of the university, unexpectedly remarked that he would like to see such institutions scattered throughout every state in the Union. “All carried on at slight expense to the students and at hours to suit all sorts of working men and women,” he added, after a pause; and then, abruptly, “I should like to see the possibility of higher education offered to every one in the United States who works for a living.”

There was something superb in the very imagining of such a nation-wide system. But I did not ask whether or not he had planned any details for such an effort. I knew that thus far it might only be one of his dreams--but I also knew that his dreams had a way of becoming realities. I had a fleeting glimpse of his soaring vision. It was amazing to find a man of more than three-score and ten thus dreaming of more worlds to conquer. And I thought, what could the world have accomplished if Methuselah had been a Conwell!--or, far better, what wonders could be accomplished if Conwell could but be a Methuselah!

He has all his life been a great traveler. He is a man who sees vividly and who can describe vividly. Yet often his letters, even from places of the most profound interest, are mostly concerned with affairs back home. It is not that he does not feel, and feel intensely, the interest of what he is visiting, but that his tremendous earnestness keeps him always concerned about his work at home. There could be no stronger example than what I noticed in a letter he wrote from Jerusalem. “I am in Jerusalem! And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ”--reading thus far, one expects that any man, and especially a minister, is sure to say something regarding the associations of the place and the effect of these associations on his mind; but Conwell is always the man who is different--“And here at Gethsemane and at the Tomb of Christ, I pray especially for the Temple University.” That is Conwellism!

That he founded a hospital--a work in itself great enough for even a great life is but one among the striking incidents of his career. And it came about through perfect naturalness. For he came to know, through his pastoral work and through his growing acquaintance with the needs of the city, that there was a vast amount of suffering and wretchedness and anguish, because of the inability of the existing hospitals to care for all who needed care. There was so much sickness and suffering to be alleviated, there were so many deaths that could be prevented--and so he decided to start another hospital.

And, like everything with him, the beginning was small. That cannot too strongly be set down as the way of this phenomenally successful organizer. Most men would have to wait until a big beginning could be made, and so would most likely never make a beginning at all. But Conwell’s way is to dream of future bigness, but be ready to begin at once, no matter how small or insignificant the beginning may appear to others.

Two rented rooms, one nurse, one patient--this was the humble beginning, in 1891, of what has developed into the great Samaritan Hospital. In a year there was an entire house, fitted up with wards and operating-room. Now it occupies several buildings, including and adjoining that first one, and a great new structure is planned. But even as it is, it has a hundred and seventy beds, is fitted with all modern hospital appliances, and has a large staff of physicians; and the number of surgical operations performed there is very large.

It is open to sufferers of any race or creed, and the poor are never refused admission, the rule being that treatment is free for those who cannot pay, but that such as can afford it shall pay according to their means.

And the hospital has a kindly feature that endears it to patients and their relatives alike, and that is that, by Dr. Conwell’s personal order, there are not only the usual week-day hours for visiting, but also one evening a week and every Sunday afternoon. “For otherwise,” as he says, “many would be unable to come because they could not get away from their work.”

A little over eight years ago another hospital was taken in charge, the Garretson--not founded by Conwell, this one, but acquired, and promptly expanded in its usefulness.

Both the Samaritan and the Garretson are part of Temple University. The Samaritan Hospital has treated, since its foundation, up to the middle of 1915, 29,301 patients; the Garretson, in its shorter life, 5,923. Including dispensary cases as well as house patients, the two hospitals together, under the headship of President Conwell, have handled over 400,000 cases.

How Conwell can possibly meet the multifarious demands upon his time is in itself a miracle. He is the head of the great church; he is the head of the university; he is the head of the hospitals; he is the head of everything with which he is associated! And he is not only nominally, but very actively, the head!

VIII. HIS SPLENDID EFFICIENCY

CONWELL has a few strong and efficient executive helpers who have long been associated with him; men and women who know his ideas and ideals, who are devoted to him, and who do their utmost to relieve him; and of course there is very much that is thus done for him; but even as it is, he is so overshadowing a man (there is really no other word) that all who work with him look to him for advice and guidance the professors and the students, the doctors and the nurses, the church officers, the Sunday-school teachers, the members of his congregation. And he is never too busy to see any one who really wishes to see him.

He can attend to a vast intricacy of detail, and answer myriad personal questions and doubts, and keep the great institutions splendidly going, by thorough systematization of time, and by watching every minute. He has several secretaries, for special work, besides his private secretary. His correspondence is very great. Often he dictates to a secretary as he travels on the train. Even in the few days for which he can run back to the Berkshires, work is awaiting him. Work follows him. And after knowing of this, one is positively amazed that he is able to give to his country-wide lectures the time and the traveling that they inexorably demand. Only a man of immense strength, of the greatest stamina, a veritable superman, could possibly do it. And at times one quite forgets, noticing the multiplicity of his occupations, that he prepares two sermons and two talks on Sunday!

Here is his usual Sunday schedule, when at home. He rises at seven and studies until breakfast, which is at eight-thirty. Then he studies until nine-forty-five, when he leads a men’s meeting at which he is likely also to play the organ and lead the singing. At ten-thirty is the principal church service, at which he preaches, and at the close of which he shakes hands with hundreds. He dines at one, after which he takes fifteen minutes’ rest and then reads; and at three o’clock he addresses, in a talk that is like another sermon, a large class of men--not the same men as in the morning. He is also sure to look in at the regular session of the Sunday-school. Home again, where he studies and reads until supper-time. At seven-thirty is the evening service, at which he again preaches and after which he shakes hands with several hundred more and talks personally, in his study, with any who have need of talk with him. He is usually home by ten-thirty. I spoke of it, one evening, as having been a strenuous day, and he responded, with a cheerfully whimsical smile: “Three sermons and shook hands with nine hundred.”

That evening, as the service closed, he had said to the congregation: “I shall be here for an hour. We always have a pleasant time together after service. If you are acquainted with me, come up and shake hands. If you are strangers”--just the slightest of pauses--“come up and let us make an acquaintance that will last for eternity.” I remember how simply and easily this was said, in his clear, deep voice, and how impressive and important it seemed, and with what unexpectedness it came. “Come and make an acquaintance that will last for eternity!” And there was a serenity about his way of saying this which would make strangers think--just as he meant them to think--that he had nothing whatever to do but to talk with them. Even his own congregation have, most of them, little conception of how busy a man he is and how precious is his time.

One evening last June to take an evening of which I happened to know--he got home from a journey of two hundred miles at six o’clock, and after dinner and a slight rest went to the church prayer-meeting, which he led in his usual vigorous way at such meetings, playing the organ and leading the singing, as well as praying and talk-ing. After the prayer-meeting he went to two dinners in succession, both of them important dinners in connection with the close of the university year, and at both dinners he spoke. At the second dinner he was notified of the sudden illness of a member of his congregation, and instantly hurried to the man’s home and thence to the hospital to which he had been removed, and there he remained at the man’s bedside, or in consultation with the physicians, until one in the morning. Next morning he was up at seven and again at work.

“This one thing I do,” is his private maxim of efficiency, and a literalist might point out that he does not one thing only, but a thousand things, not getting Conwell’s meaning, which is that whatever the thing may be which he is doing he lets himself think of nothing else until it is done.

Dr. Conwell has a profound love for the country and particularly for the country of his own youth. He loves the wind that comes sweeping over the hills, he loves the wide-stretching views from the heights and the forest intimacies of the nestled nooks. He loves the rippling streams, he loves the wild flowers that nestle in seclusion or that unexpectedly paint some mountain meadow with delight. He loves the very touch of the earth, and he loves the great bare rocks.

He writes verses at times; at least he has written lines for a few old tunes; and it interested me greatly to chance upon some lines of his that picture heaven in terms of the Berkshires:

The wide-stretching valleys in colors so fadeless, Where trees are all deathless and flowers e’er bloom.

That is heaven in the eyes of a New England hill-man! Not golden pavement and ivory palaces, but valleys and trees and flowers and the wide sweep of the open.

Few things please him more than to go, for example, blackberrying, and he has a knack of never scratching his face or his fingers when doing so. And he finds blackberrying, whether he goes alone or with friends, an extraordinarily good time for planning something he wishes to do or working out the thought of a sermon. And fishing is even better, for in fishing he finds immense recreation and restfulness and at the same time a further opportunity to think and plan.