○  russell conwell : acres of diamonds  ○

t in front of my men to be shot in front by the enemy and in the back by my own men? that is no place for an officer. the place for the officer in actual battle is behind the line. how often, as a staff officer, i rode down the line, when our men were suddenly called to the line of a battle, and the rebel yells were coming out of the woods, and shouted: “officers to the rear! officers to the rear!” then every officer gets behind the line of private soldiers, and the higher the officer’s rank the farther behind he goes. not because he is any less brave, but because the laws of war require that.

and yet he shouted, “i, with my shining sword-“ in that house there sat the company of my soldiers who had carried that boy across the carolina rivers that he might not wet his feet. some of them had gone far out to wet his feet. some of them had gone far out to get a pig or a chicken. some of them had gone to death under the shell-swept pines in the mountains of tennessee, yet in the good man’s speech they were scarcely known. he did refer to them, but only incidentally. the hero of the hour was this boy. did the nation own him anything? no, nothing then and nothing now. why was he the hero? simply because that man fell into that same human error-that this boy was great because he was an officer and these were only private soldiers.

oh, i learned the lesson then that i will never forget so long as the tongue of the bell of time continues to swing for me. greatness consists not in the holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life. to be great at all one must be great here, now, in philadelphia. he who can give to this city better streets and better sidewalks, better schools and more colleges, more happiness and more civilization, more of god, he will be great anywhere. let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you

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