opportune it was. And the change it made
in Dr. Conwell! He is a great man for maxims, and all of us who are
associated with him know that one of his favorites is that 'It will all
come out right some time!' And of course we had a rare opportunity to
tell him that he ought never to be discouraged. And it is so seldom that
he is!"
When the big new church was building the members of the church were
vaguely disturbed by noticing, when the structure reached the second
story, that at that height, on the side toward the vacant and unbought
land adjoining, there were several doors built that opened literally
into nothing but space!
When asked about these doors and their purpose, Dr. Conwell would make
some casual reply, generally to the effect that they might be excellent
as fire-escapes. To no one, for quite a while, did he broach even a
hint of the great plan that was seething in his mind, which was that
the buildings of a university were some day to stand on that land
immediately adjoining the church!
At that time the university, the Temple University as it is now called,
was not even a college, although it was probably called a college.
Conwell had organized it, and it consisted of a number of classes and
teachers, meeting in highly inadequate quarters in two little houses.
But the imagination of Conwell early pictured great new buildings
with accommodations for thousands! In time the dream was realized, the
imagination became a fact, and now those second-floor doors actually
open from the Temple Church into the Temple University!
You see, he always thinks big! He dreams big dreams and wins big
success. All his life he has talked and preached success, and it is a
real and very practical belief with him that it is just as easy to do
a large thing as a small one, and, in fact, a little easier! And so he
naturally does not see why one should be satisfied with the small things
of life. "If your rooms are big the people will come and fill them," he
likes to say. The same effort that wins a small success would, rightly
directed, have won a great success. "Think big things and then do them!"
Most favorite of all maxims with this man of maxims, is "Let Patience
have her perfect work." Over and over he loves to say it, and his
friends laugh about his love for it, and he knows that they do and
laughs about it himself. "I tire them all," he says, "for they hear me
say it every day."
But he says it every day because it me
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