Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the manBurr, Agnes Rush
Religion
Russell H. Conwell, founder of the Institutional church in America : $b the work and the man
Burr, Agnes Rush
Conwell, Russell H., 1843-1925; Minneapolis (Minn.) -- Biography
England, they kept that hour with the same solemn services which
characterized my father's family. When the call came for volunteers
the young men of New England enlisted in the army, and sang again and
again, that old song, "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
but his soul goes marching on." His soul is still marching on. And
while I am one of those who would be the first to resist any attempt
to mar the sweet fraternity that now characterises the feeling between
the North and South, as I believe that the Southern soldier fought
for what he believed to be right, and consequently is entitled to our
fraternal respect, and while I believe that John Brown was sometimes a
fanatic, yet this illustration teaches us this great lesson and that
John Brown's advice was true. His happiest days were passed far back
in the quiet of his old home.
Near to our home, in the town of Cummington, lived William Cullen
Bryant, one of the great poets of New England. He came back there to
spend his summers among the mountains he so clearly loved. He promised
the people of Cummington that he would again make his permanent home
there. I remember asking him if he would come clown to the stream
where he wrote "Thanatopsis" and recite it for us. The good, old
neighbor, white haired and trembling, came down to the banks of that
little stream and stood in the shade of the same old maple where he
had written that beautiful poem, and read from the wonderful creation
that made his name famous.
"So live that when thy summons comes, to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each must take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
"Yes," he said, "I will come back to Cummington." So he went to Europe
but came not back to occupy that home. He loved the old home. We were
driving by his place one day when we saw him planting apple trees in
July. We all know that apple trees won't grow when planted in July, so
my father, knowing him well, called to him and said, "Mr. Bryant, what
are you doing there? They won't grow." Mr. Bryant paused a moment and
looked at us, and then said half playfully: "Conwell, drive on, you
have no part nor lot in this matter. I do not expect these trees to
grow; I am setting them out because I want to live over again the days
when my father used to set trees when they would grow. I want to renew
that memory." He was wise, for in his work on "The Transmigration of
Races" he used that experience wonderfully.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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