Acres of Diamonds |
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the gift, it was not until very recently that she was told how opportune it was. And the change it made in Dr. Conwell! He is a great man for maxims, and all of us who are associated with him know that one of his favorites is that 'It will all come out right some time!' And of course we had a rare opportunity to tell him that he ought never to be discouraged. And it is so seldom that he is!"
When the big new church was building the members of the church were vaguely disturbed by noticing, when the structure reached the second story, that at that height, on the side toward the vacant and unbought land adjoining, there were several doors built that opened literally into nothing but space!
When asked about these doors and their purpose, Dr. Conwell would make some casual reply, generally to the effect that they might be excellent as fire-escapes. To no one, for quite a while, did he broach even a hint of the great plan that was seething in his mind, which was that the buildings of a university were some day to stand on that land immediately adjoining the church!
At that time the university, the Temple University as it is now called, was not even a college, although it was probably called a college. Conwell had organized it, and it consisted of a number of classes and teachers, meeting in highly inadequate quarters in two little houses. But the imagination of Conwell early pictured great new buildings with accommodations for thousands! In time the dream was realized, the imagination became a fact, and now those second-floor doors actually open from the Temple Church into the Temple University!
You see, he always thinks big! He dreams big dreams and wins big success. All his life he has talked and preached success, and it is a real and very practical belief with him that it is just as easy to do a large thing as a small one, and, in fact, a little easier! And so he naturally does not see why one should be satisfied with the small things of life. "If your rooms are big the people will come and fill them," he likes to say. The same effort that wins a small success would, rightly directed, have won a great success. "Think big things and then do them!"
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