anch of his life-work, for it would take a great
deal of time in watching and thinking and in the reading and writing
of letters. "But it is mainly," he went on, "that I do not wish to hold
over their heads the sense of obligation."

When I suggested that this was surely an example of bread cast upon the
waters that could not return, he was silent for a little and then said,
thoughtfully: "As one gets on in years there is satisfaction in doing a
thing for the sake of doing it. The bread returns in the sense of effort
made."

On a recent trip through Minnesota he was positively upset, so his
secretary told me, through being recognized on a train by a young man
who had been helped through "Acres of Diamonds," and who, finding that
this was really Dr. Conwell, eagerly brought his wife to join him in
most fervent thanks for his assistance. Both the husband and his wife
were so emotionally overcome that it quite overcame Dr. Conwell himself.

The lecture, to quote the noble words of Dr. Conwell himself, is
designed to help "every person, of either sex, who cherishes the high
resolve of sustaining a career of usefulness and honor." It is a lecture
of helpfulness. And it is a lecture, when given with Conwell's voice
and face and manner, that is full of fascination. And yet it is all so
simple!

It is packed full of inspiration, of suggestion, of aid. He alters it
to meet the local circumstances of the thousands of different places in
which he delivers it. But the base remains the same. And even those to
whom it is an old story will go to hear him time after time. It amuses
him to say that he knows individuals who have listened to it twenty
times.

It begins with a story told to Conwell by an old Arab as the two
journeyed together toward Nineveh, and, as you listen, you hear the
actual voices and you see the sands of the desert and the waving palms.
The lecturer's voice is so easy, so effortless, it seems so ordinary
and matter-of-fact--yet the entire scene is instantly vital and alive!
Instantly the man has his audience under a sort of spell, eager to
listen, ready to be merry or grave. He has the faculty of control, the
vital quality that makes the orator.

The same people will go to hear this lecture over and over, and that is
the kind of tribute that Conwell likes. I recently heard him deliver
it in his own church, where it would naturally be thought to be an old
story, and where, presumably, only a few of the faithf