“I went to Wilbraham, and, in 1861, entered Yale College, taking up law, but the breaking out of the war interrupted my studies. I enlisted, but, being only eighteen years of age, my father made me ‘right about face’, and come home. If I could not fight, I could speak, and I delivered orations all over my native state, and was in some demand in Boston. Finally, in 1862, I could stand the strain no longer, and my father, already greatly interested in the war, permitted me to go to the field. “I returned a colonel, suffering from a wound, campaigns and imprisonment, and entered the law school of the Albany University, from which I was graduated in 1865. “I married and moved to the great far west, to the then small town of Minneapolis. There I suffered the usual uphill experiences and privations of a young lawyer trying to make his way single-handed. I opened a law office in a two-story stone building on Bridge square. My clients did not come, and poverty stared my wife and me in the face. I became an agent for Thompson Brothers, of St. Paul, in the sale of land warrants. “Fortune favored me in business, and I also became the Minneapolis correspondent of the St. Paul ‘Press.’ I acquired some real estate, and took part in politics. Having once dipped into journalism, I started a paper of my own called ‘Conwell’s Star of the North.’ Then the sheriff made his appearance, and turned the concern over to a man with more capital. Next, I brought the Minneapolis daily ‘Chronicle’ to life. It united with the ‘Atlas,’ and the combined papers formed the foundation for the great journal of Minneapolis, the ‘Tribune.’” HOUSEKEEPING IN TWO SMALL ROOMS. “I continued to practice law. My wife and myself lived in two small rooms. The front one was my office, and the back one, kitchen, parlor, sitting room and bedroom. I had never fully recovered from my wound received in the war. I knew Governor Marshall, and it was he who appointed me emigration commissioner for the state of Minnesota. My duties, of course, took me to Europe.” When Dr. Conwell arrived in Europe, his health, that had been breaking down, gradually gave way, and he gave up his place as commissioner. For awhile, he rested; then, for several months, he attended lectures at the University of Leipsic. That pilgrimage was followed by a number of other journeys across the Atlantic to the principal countries of Europe, and to northern Africa. “In 1870,” continued Dr. Conwell, “I made a tour of the world as special correspondent for the New York ‘Tribune’ and the Boston ‘Traveler.’ I then exposed the iniquities of Chinese contract immigration. I next returned to Boston and law, and became editor of the Boston ‘Traveler.’” “But, doctor, had you never entertained a desire to enter the ministry?” I asked.