Temple University - Templar Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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RUSSELL H. CONWELL An Addrtii Dtlitirtd Dtstmbtr 9, I92S By Forrest E. Dager ‘ID) EAUTIFUL for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is MS Mount Zion, the city of the great King. Bountiful tor peerless service, the joy of the whole land, is Russell H. Conwell, a child of the King. At an hour like this it is blessed to know that death is not a state, but an act; not a condition, but a transition. As I look back through forty years of association, his record challenges my admiration, his character compels my respect, his personality constrains my love. One of our earliest conversations was in a little basement room, where, as we sat upon rough boards in the presence of a few students (the beginning of Temple University), and talked about life’s changes, in answer to my question How came you to Philadelphia?, he replied I suppose that I got to Philadelphia as Abram got into Canaan, by the call of the Lord. When I hinted that Abram had the promise that God would make of him a great nation, he quickly replied My capital is the promise of God. A great nation bows before Mr. Conwell's silent form today. Mind would not serve, nor would heart permit me just now to give you an adequate appreciation of our departed brother. The foundation of his life of service was a supreme and unquestioned confidence in the Living Word and the written Word—in Jesus Christ and the Bible. His life was influenced less by the definition of Christ, more by the imitation of Christ. Throwing himself with resistless energy into those great institutions of learning, he yet held that the cultivation of the mind was but a preparatory step to the cultivation of the heart. The wrong accent upon a word was infinitely less than the wrong accent upon a deed. Back of those wonderful campaigns that opened in Africa a highway for Christianity and civilization was the loving, bleeding Christ-in-dwelt heart of David Livingstone; back of the emancipation of the colored race and the banishment of human slavery from our Republic was the big, broken heart of Abraham Lincoln; back of all these institutions that lift their noble heads around us today was thecourageous, loving, brotherly heart of Russell Conwell. I see them linking hands in the congregation yonder- Livingstone, Lincoln, Conwell, a trinity whose efforts for the uplift of humanity have no superior on the pages of modern history. Henry Drummond, with whom it was my privilege to talk right where I am now standing when he came to get a conception of Russell Conwell's great work, tells us that he constantly found his science overflowing in his theology, and his theology overflowing into his science. Mr. Conwell, a man of rare administrative talents, ever mingled his business with his religion and his religion with his business. With him the secular did not neutralize the sacred, but the sacred transfused and transformed the secular. He was the ideal religious man in business and the ,[11

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 10 ] RUSSELL H. CONWELL fOUNflER OF TEMPLE UNIVERSIT Y

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RUSSELL H. CONWELL ideal businessman in religion. His biography is epitomized in one expression of the Word: Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” His work was pre-eminently constructive. He did not emphasize the definition or the defense of Christianity, but challenged man for a decision in its favor. In the struggling days of the College when we could not see from day to day, save by faith, whence might come the means to continue our work, I frequently talked with him into the late hours of the night, but always left him with a strange feeling of that mystic magnetism conveyed by the grip of his hand as he said, It is His work; we must do our best —a magnetism which, interpreted in Christian terms, was the prayer-sought presence of God. Christianity is often charged with being anomic, lacking in physical and mental manhood. Before us is a body which was the earthly tool-chest of the most virile, aggressive, and manly character that ever enlisted its energies in the uplift of Philadelphia. When a member of the National House said I should like to put my arms beneath the capital and lift it toward Heaven the sentiment was fine, but the only way to do it is to put helping arms under the boys and girls, our coming citizens, and lift them toward Heaven. This work in a superlative way our brother did. When the Temple Magazine was put editorially under my care he impressed upon me the importance of how. His thoughc was that we waste time and energy simply lamenting the vices and transgressions and indifference of people. We should strive to show them a way out of sin and trouble and sorrow. Today the hospitals are the embodiment of his sympathy for the sick, the injured, the suffering; the University is his concrete effort to lift out of ignorance into knowledge and power; this Temple is his contribution to the work of helping man out of sin into the light and liberty of God. Young in life he put his hand into the pierced hand of the Man of Galilee, and together they walked through the gates of salvation. During all these years they have never parted, and early in the morning of the first day of this week (peculiarly suggestive of that early Judean morning when the angel sat by the empty tomb), that hand Divine clasped his more tightly and together they passed through the Valley of the Shadow and entered the Gates of Glory. May 1 not say to this great multitude of weeping friends, to these hundreds of companions in Christian ministry, to these dear ones of the home of this esoteric circle of his heart that the same pierced hand holds us and we shall be united with our departed brother forever, for 1 am persuaded that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 18 8 4 12 J