et
to this lecture or gathering to-night, have within their reach "acres of
diamonds," opportunities to get largely wealthy. There never was a place
on earth more adapted than the city of Philadelphia to-day, and never
in the history of the world did a poor man without capital have such an
opportunity to get rich quickly and honestly as he has now in our city.
I say it is the truth, and I want you to accept it as such; for if you
think I have come to simply recite something, then I would better not be
here. I have no time to waste in any such talk, but to say the things I
believe, and unless some of you get richer for what I am saying to-night
my time is wasted.

I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich. How
many of my pious brethren say to me, "Do you, a Christian minister,
spend your time going up and down the country advising young people to
get rich, to get money?" "Yes, of course I do." They say, "Isn't that
awful! Why don't you preach the gospel instead of preaching about man's
making money?" "Because to make money honestly is to preach the gospel."
That is the reason. The men who get rich may be the most honest men you
find in the community.

"Oh," but says some young man here to-night, "I have been told all my
life that if a person has money he is very dishonest and dishonorable
and mean and contemptible." My friend, that is the reason why you have
none, because you have that idea of people. The foundation of your faith
is altogether false. Let me say here clearly, and say it briefly, though
subject to discussion which I have not time for here, ninety-eight out
of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest. That is why they
are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they
carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them.
It is because they are honest men.

Says another young man, "I hear sometimes of men that get millions of
dollars dishonestly." Yes, of course you do, and so do I. But they are
so rare a thing in fact that the newspapers talk about them all the time
as a matter of news until you get the idea that all the other rich men
got rich dishonestly.

My friend, you take and drive me--if you furnish the auto--out into the
suburbs of Philadelphia, and introduce me to the people who own their
homes around this great city, those beautiful homes with gardens and
flowers, those magnificent homes so lovely in their art, and I will
int