RUSSELL HERRMAN CONWELL

ACRES OF DIAMONDS

[Lecture by Russell H. Conwell, clergyman, platform orator, pastor of the Baptist Temple, Philadelphia, since 1882, and President of Temple College (born in South Worthington, Mass., February 15, 1843; -), the most famous of his series of popular lectures, delivered on many platforms.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-The title of this lecture originated away back in 1869. When going down the Tigris River, we hired a guide from Bagdad to show us down to the Arabian Gulf. That guide whom we employed resembled the barbers we find in America. That is, he resembled the barbers in certain mental characteristics. He thought it was not only his duty to guide us down the river, but also to entertain us with stories; curious and weird, ancient and modern, strange and familiar; many of them I have forgotten, and I am glad I have. But there was one which I recall to-night. The guide grew irritable over my lack of appreciation, and as he led my camel by the halter he introduced his story by saying: "This is a tale I reserve for my particular friends." So I then gave him my close attention. He told me that there once lived near the shore of the River Indus, toward which we were then traveling, an ancient Persian by the name of Al Hafed. He said that Al Hafed owned a large farm, with orchards, grain fields and gardens; that he had money at interest, had a beautiful wife and lovely children, and was a wealthy and contented man. Contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented.

One day there visited this old Persian farmer one of those ancient Buddhist priests, one of the wise men of the

Copyrighted, Russell H. Conwell, 1901.

East, who sat down by Al Hafed's fireside and told the old farmer how this world was made. He told him that this world was once a great bank of fog, and that the Almighty thrust His finger into this bank of fog, and began slowly to move his finger around, and then increased the speed of his finger until he whirled this bank of fog into a solid ball of fire; and as it went rolling through the universe, burning its way through other banks of fog, it condensed the moisture, until it fell in floods of rain upon the heated surface of the world, and cooled the outward crust; then the internal fires, bursting the cooling crust, threw up the mountains, and the hills, and the valleys of this wonderful world of ours.

"And" said the old priest, "if this internal melted mass burst forth and cooled very quickly it became granite, if it cooled more slowly, it became copper; if it cooled less quickly, silver; less quickly, gold; and after gold, diamonds were made." Said the old priest, “A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight." That statement is literally true. 3

And the old priest said another very curious thing. He said that a diamond was the last and the highest of God's mineral creations, as a woman is the last and highest of God's animal creations. 5 That is the reason, I suppose, why the two have such a liking for each other. [Applause.]

The old priest told Al Hafed if he had a diamond the size of his thumb, he could purchase a dozen farms like his. “And,” said the priest, "if you had a handful of diamonds, you could purchase the county, and if you had a mine of diamonds you could purchase kingdoms, and place your children upon thrones, through the influence of your great wealth."4

Al Hafed heard all about the diamonds that night, and went to bed a poor man. He wanted a whole mine of diamonds. Early in the morning he sought the priest and awoke him. Well, I know, by experience, that a priest is very cross when awakened early in the morning.

Al Hafed said: "Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?"

The priest said: "Diamonds? What do you want of diamonds?"

Said Al Hafed: "I want to be immensely rich."

"Well," said the priest, "if you want diamonds, all you have to do is to go and find them, and then you will have them."

"But," said Al Hafed, "I don't know where to go."

"If you will find a river that runs over white sands, between high mountains, in those white sands you will always find diamonds," answered the priest.

"But," asked Al Hafed, "do you believe there is such a river?"

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'Plenty of them; all you have to do is just go where they are.'

"Well," said Al Hafed, "I will go."

So he sold his farm; collected his money that was at interest; left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds.

He began his search, very properly to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he came around into Palestine, and then wandered on into Europe. At last, when his money was all gone and he was in rags, poverty and wretchedness, he stood on the shore at Barcelona, in Spain, when a great tidal wave swept through the pillars of Hercules; and the poor, starving, afflicted stranger could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide; and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.

When the old guide had told me that story, he stopped the camel I was riding upon and went back to arrange the baggage on another camel, and I had an opportunity to muse over his story. And I asked myself this question: "Why did this old guide reserve this story for his particular friends?" But when he came back and took up the camel's halter once more, I found that was the first story I ever heard wherein the hero was killed in the first chapter. For he went on into the second chapter, just as though there had been no break.

Said he: "The man who purchased Al Hafed's farm, led his camel out into the garden to drink, and as the animal put his nose into the shallow waters of the garden brook, Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream. Reaching in he pulled out a black stone containing a strange eye of

light. He took it into the house as a curious pebble and putting it on the mantel that covered the central fire went his way and forgot all about it.

"But not long after that that same old priest came to visit Al Hafed's successor. The moment he opened the door he noticed the flash of light. He rushed to the mantel and said:

"Here is a diamond! Here is a diamond! Has Al Hafed returned?'

"Oh no, Al Hafed has not returned and we have not heard from him since he went away, and that is not a diamond. It is nothing but a stone we found out in our garden.'

"But,' said the priest, 'I know a diamond when I see it. I tell you that is a diamond.'

"Then together they rushed out into the garden. They stirred up the white sands with their fingers, and there came up other more beautiful, more valuable gems than the first.

"Thus," said the guide,-and friends it is historically true,"was discovered the diamond mines of Golconda, the most valuable diamond mines in the history of the ancient world."

Well, when the guide had added the second chapter to his story, he then took off his Turkish red cap, and swung it in the air to call my special attention to the moral; those Arab guides always have morals to their stories, though the stories are not always moral.

He said to me: "Had Al Hafed remained at home, and dug in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat field, instead of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange land, he would have had ACRES OF DIAMONDS."

Acres of Diamonds! For every acre of that old farm, yes, every shovelful, afterwards revealed the gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs.

When the guide had added the moral to this story, I saw why he reserved it for his particular friends. But I didn't tell him that I could see it. It was that mean, old Arab's way of going around a thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he didn't dare say directly; that in his private opinion "there was a certain young man trav