○  russell conwell : acres of diamonds  ○

, a block of native silver eight inches square. that professor of mines, mining, and mineralogy who knew so much about the subject that he would not work for $45 a week, when he sold that homestead in massachusetts sat right on that silver to make the bargain. he was born on that homestead, was brought up there, and had gone back and forth rubbing the stone with his sleeve until it reflected his countenance, and seemed to say, “here is a hundred thousand dollars right down here just for the taking.” but he would not take it. it was in a home in newburyport, massachusetts, and there was no silver there, all away off-well, i don’t know were, and he did not, but somewhere else, and he was a professor of mineralogy.

my friends, that mistake is very universally made, and why should we even smile at him. i often wonder what has become of him. i do not know at all, but i will tell you what i “guess” as a yankee. i guess that he sits out there by his fireside to-night with his friends gathered around him, and he is saying to them something like this: “do you know that man conwell who lives in philadelphia?” “oh yes, i have heard of him.” “do you know of that man jones that lives in philadelphia?” “yes, i have heard of him, too.”

then he begins to laugh, and shakes his sides, and says to his friends, “well, they have done just the same thing i did, precisely”-and that spoils the whole joke, for you and i have done the same thing he did, and while we sit here and laugh at him he has a better right to sit out there and laugh at us. i know i have made the same mistakes, but, of course, that does not make any difference, because we don’t expect the same man to preach and practice, too.

as i come here to-night and look around this audience i am seeing again what through these fifty years i have continually seen – men that are making precisely that same mistake. i often wish i could see the younger people, and would that the academy had been filled to-night with

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