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 where, 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 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 practise, 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 our
high-school scholars and our grammar-school scholars, that I could have
them to talk to. While I would have preferred such an audience as that,
because they are most susceptible, as they have not grown up into their
prejudices as we have, they have not gotten into any custom that they
cannot break, they have not met with any failures as we have; and while
I could perhaps do such an audience as that more good than I can do
grown-up people, yet I will do the best I can with the material I have.
I say to you that you have "acres of dia