Acres of Diamonds (Modern, Updated Translation)

Book Summary

Russell H. Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds" (1890), originally delivered as a speech over 6,000 times, presents a powerful message about finding success and opportunity in one's own backyard rather than searching for fortune in distant places. The work begins with its famous parable about an African farmer who sells his land to search for diamonds, only to learn that the land he sold contained one of the largest diamond mines in the world.

The core message of the work centers on Conwell's assertion that opportunities for success surround us in our daily lives, but we often fail to recognize them because we're looking elsewhere. Through numerous real-life examples from his extensive travels and observations, Conwell demonstrates how many of America's most successful individuals found their fortunes by addressing local needs and opportunities.

Conwell emphasizes that wealth creation should serve a moral purpose, arguing that becoming rich through honest service to one's community is a noble pursuit. He challenges the notion that poverty is virtuous, instead suggesting that accumulating wealth through ethical means allows one to do more good in the world.

The work provides practical advice about identifying opportunities, including studying local market needs, developing expertise in one's chosen field, and maintaining awareness of changes and developments in one's immediate environment. Conwell particularly emphasizes the importance of developing skill at one's current occupation rather than constantly seeking new ventures.

Throughout the text, Conwell addresses the psychological barriers that prevent people from recognizing opportunities, including the tendency to romanticize distant possibilities while overlooking local ones. He argues that success comes not from exceptional circumstances but from exceptional observation and application of one's talents to existing needs.

The book includes numerous inspirational stories of individuals who built successful enterprises by identifying and addressing needs in their local communities. These examples range from small business owners to major industrialists, all of whom found success by being attentive to opportunities in their immediate vicinity.

Acres of Diamonds (Modern, Updated Translation)

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Friends, this lecture has been given under these circumstances: I visit a town or city and try to get there early enough to meet the postmaster, the barber, the hotel manager, the school principal, and some of the church ministers. I also visit some factories and stores to talk with the people and understand the local conditions of that town or city. I learn about their history, the opportunities they had, and what they failed to do—because every town misses out on something. Then, I go to the lecture and talk to those people about topics relevant to their area. The idea of "Acres of Diamonds" has always been the same. The idea is that in this country of ours, every person has the chance to achieve more in their own environment, using their own skills, energy, and friends.

RUSSELL H. CONWELL.

Many years ago, while traveling down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with a group of English travelers, I found myself under the guidance of an old Arab guide we hired in Baghdad. I've often thought about how that guide reminded me of our barbers in certain ways. He believed it was not only his job to guide us down those rivers and do what he was paid for but also to entertain us with stories that were curious and strange, both ancient and modern, familiar and unfamiliar. I've forgotten many of those stories, and I'm glad I have, but there's one I'll never forget.

The old guide was leading my camel by its halter along the banks of those ancient rivers, and he kept telling me story after story until I got tired of his storytelling and stopped listening. I was never annoyed with that guide when he lost his temper because I stopped paying attention. But I remember that he took off his Turkish cap and swung it in a circle to get my attention. I could see it out of the corner of my eye, but I decided not to look directly at him because I was afraid he would start another story. However, even though I'm not a woman, I eventually looked, and as soon as I did, he launched into another story.

He said, "I'm going to tell you a story now that I save for my special friends." When he emphasized "special friends," I paid attention, and I'm really glad I did. I'm truly thankful that there are 1,674 young men who have gone through college because of this lecture, and they are also glad I listened. The old guide told me that there once lived, not far from the River Indus, an ancient Persian named Ali Hafed. He said that Ali Hafed owned a very large farm, with orchards, grain fields, and gardens; he had money earning interest and was a wealthy and content man. He was content because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was content. One day, an ancient Buddhist priest, one of the wise men of the East, visited the old Persian farmer. He sat by the fire and explained to the old farmer how our world was made. He said that this world was once just a bank of fog, and that the Almighty pushed His finger into this fog and began to move it slowly, increasing the speed until He finally spun this fog into a solid ball of fire. Then it rolled through the universe, burning its way through other banks of fog, and condensed the moisture outside, which fell in floods of rain onto its hot surface, cooling the outer crust. Then the internal fires burst outward through the crust, forming the mountains, hills, valleys, plains, and prairies of our amazing world. If this internal molten mass burst out and cooled very quickly, it became granite; less quickly, copper; less quickly, silver; less quickly, gold; and after gold, diamonds were made.

The old priest said, "A diamond is a solidified drop of sunlight." This is literally and scientifically true, as a diamond is actually a deposit of carbon from the sun. The old priest told Ali Hafed that if he had one diamond the size of his thumb, he could buy the entire county, and if he had a diamond mine, he could use the wealth to put his children on thrones.

Ali Hafed heard all about diamonds and how valuable they were, and that night he went to bed feeling like a poor man. He hadn't actually lost anything, but he felt poor because he was unhappy, and he was unhappy because he was afraid he was poor. He thought, "I want a diamond mine," and he stayed awake all night.

Early in the morning, he went to find the priest. From experience, I know that a priest can be quite grumpy when woken up early. When Ali Hafed shook the old priest out of his dreams, he said to him:

"Can you tell me where I can find diamonds?"

"Diamonds! Why do you want diamonds?" "Well, I want to be very rich." "Okay, then just go and find them. That's all you need to do; go and find them, and then they're yours." "But I don't know where to go." "Well, if you find a river that flows through white sands between high mountains, you'll always find diamonds in those white sands." "I don't think there's any river like that." "Oh yes, there are plenty of them. All you have to do is go and find them, and then they're yours." Ali Hafed said, "I will go."

So he sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in the care of a neighbor, and set off in search of diamonds. He started his search, quite sensibly in my opinion, at the Mountains of the Moon. After that, he traveled to Palestine, then wandered into Europe, and finally, when all his money was gone and he was in rags, misery, and poverty, he stood on the shore of the bay in Barcelona, Spain. A huge tidal wave came rolling in between the Pillars of Hercules, and the poor, suffering, dying man couldn't resist the overwhelming temptation to throw himself into the incoming tide, and he sank beneath its foamy crest, never to rise again in this life.

After the old guide shared that incredibly sad story with me, he stopped the camel I was riding and went back to fix the baggage that was falling off another camel. This gave me a chance to think about his story while he was away. I remember wondering to myself, "Why did he save that story for his 'special friends'?" It seemed to have no beginning, no middle, no end—nothing to it. It was the first story I had ever heard or read where the hero was killed in the first chapter. I only had one chapter of that story, and the hero was already dead.

When the guide returned and took hold of my camel's halter, he continued the story right into the second chapter, as if there had been no interruption. The man who bought Ali Hafed's farm one day led his camel into the garden to drink. As the camel dipped its nose into the shallow water of the garden brook, Ali Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream. He picked up a black stone with an eye of light reflecting all the colors of the rainbow. He took the pebble into the house, placed it on the mantel above the fireplace, and then forgot all about it.

A few days later, the same old priest came to visit Ali Hafed's successor. As soon as he opened the living room door, he saw a flash of light on the mantel. He rushed over and shouted, "This is a diamond! Has Ali Hafed returned?" "Oh no, Ali Hafed hasn't returned, and that's not a diamond. It's just a stone we found right here in our garden." "But," said the priest, "I'm telling you, I know a diamond when I see one. I'm absolutely sure that's a diamond."

Then together they hurried out into that old garden and dug into the white sands with their fingers, and behold! They found even more beautiful and valuable gems than the first ones. "This," the guide told me, and friends, it is historically true, "is how the diamond mine of Golconda was discovered, the most magnificent diamond mine in all of human history, surpassing even the Kimberly mine. The Kohinoor and the Orloff, part of the crown jewels of England and Russia and the largest diamonds on earth, came from that mine."

When that old Arab guide told me the second part of his story, he took off his Turkish cap and swung it around in the air again to emphasize the lesson. Those Arab guides have lessons in their stories, although they aren't always about morals. As he swung his hat, he said to me, "If Ali Hafed had stayed home and dug in his own cellar, or under his own wheat fields, or in his own garden, instead of facing misery, starvation, and death by suicide in a foreign land, he would have found 'acres of diamonds.' Every acre of that old farm, yes, every shovelful, later revealed gems that have since adorned the crowns of kings."

When he added the moral to his story, I understood why he saved it for "his close friends." But I didn't let him know that I understood. It was that sneaky old Arab's way of hinting at something, like a lawyer, to indirectly say what he didn't dare say directly: "In his private opinion, there was a certain young man currently traveling down the Tigris River who might be better off at home in America." I didn't let him know I understood that, but I told him his story reminded me of another one, and I told it to him quickly. I think I'll share it with you too.

I told him about a man in California back in 1847 who owned a ranch. He heard that gold had been discovered in southern California, and driven by a desire for gold, he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter and left, never to return. Colonel Sutter built a mill on a stream that ran through the ranch, and one day his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway into their home. As she sifted it through her fingers by the fire, a visitor noticed the first shiny flakes of real gold ever found in California. The man who had owned that ranch wanted gold, and he could have easily obtained it. In fact, thirty-eight million dollars have been extracted from just a few acres since then. About eight years ago, I gave this lecture in a city that now stands on that farm, and they told me that a one-third owner had been earning one hundred and twenty dollars in gold every fifteen minutes, whether awake or asleep, without any taxes. You and I would love an income like that—especially if we didn't have to pay income tax.

But an even better example happened right here in our own Pennsylvania. If there's one thing I really enjoy on stage, it's having one of these German audiences in Pennsylvania in front of me and sharing this story with them, and I'm enjoying it tonight. There was a man living in Pennsylvania, not unlike some Pennsylvanians you've seen, who owned a farm. He did with that farm exactly what I would do if I owned one in Pennsylvania—he sold it. But before he sold it, he decided to find a job collecting coal oil for his cousin, who was in the business in Canada, where they first discovered oil on this continent. Back then, they scooped it from the running streams. So this Pennsylvania farmer wrote to his cousin asking for a job. You see, friends, this farmer wasn't completely foolish. No, he wasn't. He didn't leave his farm until he had something else lined up. Of all the fools under the stars, I don't know a worse one than the person who leaves one job before securing another. That especially applies to my profession and has nothing to do with someone seeking a divorce. When he wrote to his cousin for a job, his cousin replied, "I can't hire you because you don't know anything about the oil business."

Then the old farmer said, "I will find out," and with great enthusiasm (typical of the students at Temple University) he dedicated himself to studying the entire subject. He started way back at the second day of God's creation when the world was covered with thick, rich vegetation that eventually turned into the original coal beds. He studied until he discovered that the runoff from these rich coal beds provided the coal-oil that was worth extracting, and then he learned how it surfaced with the natural springs. He studied until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and how to refine it. Then he wrote to his cousin, "I understand the oil business." His cousin replied, "Great, come on over."

According to the county records, he sold his farm for $833 (exact amount, "no cents"). He had barely left the area when the new owner went out to arrange for watering the cattle. The new owner discovered that the previous owner had, years earlier, placed a plank across the brook behind the barn, positioned edgewise just a few inches into the water. The purpose of this plank, set at a sharp angle across the brook, was to divert a nasty-looking scum to the other bank, which the cattle would avoid. With the plank directing the scum to one side, the cattle could drink from the cleaner water below. The man who moved to Canada had unknowingly been blocking a flow of coal oil for twenty-three years. Pennsylvania's state geologists told us ten years later that this oil was already worth a hundred million dollars to our state, and four years ago, our geologist declared the discovery to be worth a thousand million dollars. The man who owned the land where the city of Titusville now stands, including those Pleasantville valleys, had studied the area extensively, from the beginning of time to the present. Despite his knowledge, he reportedly sold it all for $833, and once again I say, "no sense."

Then together they rushed out into that old garden and stirred up the white sands with their fingers, and lo! there came up other more beautiful and valuable gems than the first. "Thus," said the guide to me, and, friends, it is historically true, "was discovered the diamond-mine of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond-mine in all the history of mankind, excelling the Kimberly itself. The Kohinoor, and the Orloff of the crown jewels of England and Russia, the largest on earth, came from that mine."

When that old Arab guide told me the second chapter of his story, he then took off his Turkish cap and swung it around in the air again to get my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have morals to their stories, although they are not always moral. As he swung his hat, he said to me, "Had Ali Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat-fields, or in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, and death by suicide in a strange land, he would have had 'acres of diamonds.' For every acre of that old farm, yes, every shovelful, afterward revealed gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs."

When he had added the moral to his story I saw why he reserved it for "his particular friends." But I did not tell him I could see it. It was that mean old Arab's way of going around a thing like a lawyer, to say indirectly what he did not dare say directly, that "in his private opinion there was a certain young man then traveling down the Tigris River that might better be at home in America." I did not tell him I could see that, but I told him his story reminded me of one, and I told it to him quick, and I think I will tell it to you.

I told him of a man out in California in 1847 who owned a ranch. He heard they had discovered gold in southern California, and so with a passion for gold he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter, and away he went, never to come back. Colonel Sutter put a mill upon a stream that ran through that ranch, and one day his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway into their home and sifted it through her fingers before the fire, and in that falling sand a visitor saw the first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in California. The man who had owned that ranch wanted gold, and he could have secured it for the mere taking. Indeed, thirty-eight millions of dollars has been taken out of a very few acres since then. About eight years ago I delivered this lecture in a city that stands on that farm, and they told me that a one-third owner for years and years had been getting one hundred and twenty dollars in gold every fifteen minutes, sleeping or waking, without taxation. You and I would enjoy an income like that--if we didn't have to pay an income tax.

But a better illustration really than that occurred here in our own Pennsylvania. If there is anything I enjoy above another on the platform, it is to get one of these German audiences in Pennsylvania before me, and fire that at them, and I enjoy it to-night. There was a man living in Pennsylvania, not unlike some Pennsylvanians you have seen, who owned a farm, and he did with that farm just what I should do with a farm if I owned one in Pennsylvania--he sold it. But before he sold it he decided to secure employment collecting coal-oil for his cousin, who was in the business in Canada, where they first discovered oil on this continent. They dipped it from the running streams at that early time. So this Pennsylvania farmer wrote to his cousin asking for employment. You see, friends, this farmer was not altogether a foolish man. No, he was not. He did not leave his farm until he had something else to do. Of all the simpletons the stars shine on I don't know of a worse one than the man who leaves one job before he has gotten another. That has especial reference to my profession, and has no reference whatever to a man seeking a divorce. When he wrote to his cousin for employment, his cousin replied, "I cannot engage you because you know nothing about the oil business."

Well, then the old farmer said, "I will know," and with most commendable zeal (characteristic of the students of Temple University) he set himself at the study of the whole subject. He began away back at the second day of God's creation when this world was covered thick and deep with that rich vegetation which since has turned to the primitive beds of coal. He studied the subject until he found that the drainings really of those rich beds of coal furnished the coal-oil that was worth pumping, and then he found how it came up with the living springs. He studied until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and how to refine it. Now said he in his letter to his cousin, "I understand the oil business." His cousin answered, "All right, come on."

So he sold his farm, according to the county record, for $833 (even money, "no cents"). He had scarcely gone from that place before the man who purchased the spot went out to arrange for the watering of the cattle. He found the previous owner had gone out years before and put a plank across the brook back of the barn, edgewise into the surface of the water just a few inches. The purpose of that plank at that sharp angle across the brook was to throw over to the other bank a dreadful-looking scum through which the cattle would not put their noses. But with that plank there to throw it all over to one side, the cattle would drink below, and thus that man who had gone to Canada had been himself damming back for twenty-three years a flood of coal-oil which the state geologists of Pennsylvania declared to us ten years later was even then worth a hundred millions of dollars to our state, and four years ago our geologist declared the discovery to be worth to our state a thousand millions of dollars. The man who owned that territory on which the city of Titusville now stands, and those Pleasantville valleys, had studied the subject from the second day of God's creation clear down to the present time. He studied it until he knew all about it, and yet he is said to have sold the whole of it for $833, and again I say, "no sense."

But I need another example. I found it in Massachusetts, and I regret that because that's the state I'm from. This young man from Massachusetts provides just another angle to my point. He went to Yale College to study mines and mining and became so skilled as a mining engineer that the university hired him to tutor students who were falling behind. During his senior year, he earned $15 a week for doing that work. When he graduated, they increased his pay from $15 to $45 a week and offered him a professorship. As soon as they did, he went straight home to his mother.

If they had increased that boy's pay from $15 to $15.60, he would have stayed and been proud of the place. But when they suddenly raised it to $45, he said, "Mother, I won't work for $45 a week. The idea of someone with a brain like mine working for $45 a week! Let's go out to California and find gold mines and silver mines and become incredibly rich."

Charlie's mother said, "Now, Charlie, being happy is just as good as being rich."

"Yes," said Charlie, "but it's just as good to be rich and happy, too." And they were both right about that. Since he was an only son and she was a widow, he naturally got his way. They always do.

They sold out in Massachusetts, and instead of heading to California, they went to Wisconsin. There, he started working for the Superior Copper Mining Company for $15 a week again, but with a clause in his contract that he would have a stake in any mines he discovered for the company. I don't think he ever discovered a mine, and if any stockholder of that copper company is reading this, you probably wish he had found something. I have friends who aren't here because they couldn't afford a ticket, and they owned stock in that company when this young man was employed there. This young man went out there, and I haven't heard a word from him. I don't know what happened to him, and I don't know if he found any mines or not, but I doubt he ever did.

But I do know the other end of the story. He had barely left the old homestead when the new owner went out to dig up some potatoes. The potatoes were already planted when he bought the farm, and as the new farmer was bringing in a basket of potatoes, it got stuck tightly between the ends of the stone fence. You know, in Massachusetts, our farms are mostly surrounded by stone walls. So, you have to be very careful with the front gateways to have a place to put the stones. When the basket got stuck, he set it down on the ground, pulled from one side, and tugged from the other. As he was pulling the basket through, the farmer noticed in the upper and outer corner of that stone wall, right next to the gate, a block of native silver eight inches square. That professor of mines, mining, and mineralogy, who knew so much about the subject that he wouldn't work for $45 a week, had sat right on that silver when he sold the homestead in Massachusetts to make the deal. He was born and raised on that homestead and had gone back and forth, rubbing the stone with his sleeve until it reflected his face and seemed to say, "Here is a hundred thousand dollars right here for the taking." But he wouldn't take it. It was in a home in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and he thought there was no silver there, all far away—well, I don't know where, and he didn't either, but somewhere else, and he was a professor of mineralogy.

My friends, that mistake is very commonly made, so why should we even smile at him? I often wonder what has happened to him. I don't know at all, but I'll tell you what I "guess" as an American. I guess he's sitting by his fireside tonight with his friends gathered around him, and he's saying something like this to them: "Do you know that man Conwell who lives in Philadelphia?" "Oh yes, I've heard of him." "Do you know that man Jones who lives in Philadelphia?" "Yes, I've heard of him, too."

Then he starts to laugh, shaking with amusement, and tells his friends, "Well, they did exactly the same thing I did!"—and that ruins the whole joke, because you and I have done the same thing he did. While we sit here and laugh at him, he has just as much right to sit out there and laugh at us. I know I've made the same mistakes, but, of course, that doesn't matter, because we don't expect the same person to both preach and practice what they say.

As I come here tonight and look around this audience, I see again what I have seen over these fifty years—people making the same mistake. I often wish I could see younger people, and I wish the Academy was filled tonight with our high school and middle school students so I could talk to them. I would have preferred such an audience because they are more open-minded; they haven't developed the prejudices we have, they aren't stuck in habits they can't break, and they haven't faced the failures we have. While I could perhaps help such an audience more than I can help adults, I will do my best with the audience I have. I tell you that you have "acres of diamonds" in Philadelphia, right where you live now. "Oh," you might say, "you can't know much about your city if you think there are any 'acres of diamonds' here."

I was really interested in that newspaper story about the young man who found a diamond in North Carolina. It was one of the purest diamonds ever discovered, and there have been several others found nearby. I went to a well-known professor of mineralogy and asked him where he thought those diamonds came from. The professor got out a map of the geological formations of our continent and traced it. He said the diamonds either came from the underlying carboniferous layers suitable for such production, moving westward through Ohio and the Mississippi, or more likely, they came eastward through Virginia and up the Atlantic Ocean shore. The fact is, the diamonds were there because they have been found and sold; they were carried down there during the drift period from some northern location. Now, who can say that someone drilling in Philadelphia won't find a trace of a diamond mine down here? Oh, friends! You can't say you're not sitting over one of the greatest diamond mines in the world, because a diamond like that only comes from the most profitable mines on earth.

But this just helps to explain my point, which I stress by saying that even if you don't literally own diamond mines, you have everything they would be valuable for. Since the Queen of England recently gave the highest compliment ever to an American woman for her outfit because she didn't wear any jewelry at all at the recent reception in England, it has almost eliminated the need for diamonds anyway. All you would want are the few you would wear if you want to be modest, and you would sell the rest for money.

So, let me say again that the chance to become wealthy, to achieve great riches, is right here in Philadelphia now, within reach of almost everyone listening to me tonight, and I truly mean it. I'm not here just to tell you a story. I'm here to share what I genuinely believe to be true, and if my life experience has given me any common sense, I know I'm right. The people sitting here, who might have struggled to buy a ticket for this event tonight, have "acres of diamonds" within their grasp—opportunities to become very wealthy. There has never been a place on earth more suited than Philadelphia today, and never in history has a person without capital had such a chance to get rich quickly and honestly as they do now in our city. I say this is the truth, and I want you to believe it; because if you think I'm just here to tell a story, then I shouldn't be here at all. I don't have time to waste on empty talk, but to share what I believe, and if some of you don't become wealthier from what I'm saying tonight, then my time is wasted.

I believe you should aim to become wealthy, and it's your responsibility to do so. Many of my religious friends ask me, "As a Christian minister, why do you spend your time traveling around the country advising young people to become wealthy and make money?" I respond, "Yes, of course I do." They then say, "Isn't that terrible! Why don't you preach the gospel instead of talking about making money?" My answer is, "Because making money honestly is a way of preaching the gospel." That's the reason. The people who become wealthy can often be the most honest individuals you find in the community.

"Oh," some young person might say tonight, "I've always been told that if someone has money, they're dishonest, dishonorable, mean, and contemptible." My friend, that's why you don't have any money—because you think that way about people. Your belief is completely wrong. Let me say clearly and briefly, even though I don't have time to discuss it fully here: ninety-eight out of one hundred wealthy people in America are honest. That's why they're rich. That's why they're trusted with money. That's why they run big businesses and have plenty of people willing to work with them. It's because they are honest people.

Another young man says, "I sometimes hear about people who make millions of dollars dishonestly." Yes, of course you do, and so do I. But these cases are actually so rare that the newspapers constantly report on them as news, which might make you think that all wealthy people got rich dishonestly.

My friend, if you provide the car, take me for a drive out to the suburbs of Philadelphia and introduce me to the people who own their homes around this great city. These beautiful homes with gardens and flowers, these magnificent homes so lovely in their design, and I will introduce you to the very best people in terms of character and enterprise in our city, and you know I will. A person isn't truly complete until they own their own home, and those who own their homes become more honorable, honest, pure, true, economical, and careful because of it.

It's not contradictory for a person to have money, even in large amounts. We often speak out against greed, and you know we do, from the pulpit. Sometimes we talk about "filthy lucre" so much that Christians start to think we believe it's wrong for anyone to have money—until it's time for the collection basket to go around. Then, we almost scold people for not giving more money. Oh, the inconsistency of such teachings!

Money is power, and you should be reasonably ambitious to have it. You should because you can do more good with it than without it. Money printed your Bible, money builds your churches, money sends your missionaries, and money pays your preachers, and you wouldn't have many of them if you didn't pay them. I am always open to my church increasing my salary because the church that pays the highest salary always finds it easiest to raise it. You've never seen an exception to this in your life. The person who gets the highest salary can do the most good with the power given to them. Of course, they can if their intentions are right and they use it for the purpose it was given to them.

I say, then, you should have money. If you can honestly become wealthy in Philadelphia, it is your Christian and moral duty to do so. It's a terrible mistake for these religious people to think you must be extremely poor in order to be devout.

Some people say, "Don't you feel sorry for those who are poor?" Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't have been giving lectures all these years. I won't deny that I feel for the poor, but the number of poor people who truly deserve sympathy is very small. To feel sorry for someone whom God has punished for their wrongdoings, and to help them when God intends for them to continue facing just consequences, is definitely wrong. We often do that more than we help those who truly deserve it. While we should feel for those who genuinely can't help themselves, let's remember that there isn't a poor person in the United States who didn't become poor due to their own mistakes or the mistakes of someone else. It's wrong to be poor, anyway. Let's accept that argument and move on.

A gentleman stands up back there and says, "Don't you think there are some things in this world that are better than money?" Of course I do, but right now, I'm talking about money. Sure, there are things more important than money. Oh yes, I know from the loss that has left me standing alone that there are things in this world that are more meaningful, sweeter, and purer than money. I am well aware that there are things higher and grander than gold. Love is the greatest thing on God's earth, but the lover who has plenty of money is fortunate. Money is power, money is force, and money can do good as well as harm. In the hands of good men and women, it can achieve, and it has achieved, good.

I hate to leave that behind me. I heard a man stand up in a prayer meeting in our city and thank the Lord that he was "one of God's poor." Well, I wonder what his wife thinks about that? She earns all the money that comes into their house, and he spends some of it on cigarettes while sitting on the porch. I don't want to see any more of the Lord's poor like that, and I don't believe the Lord does either. Yet, some people think that to be truly religious, you must be extremely poor and extremely dirty. That doesn't make sense at all. While we should sympathize with the poor, let's not promote a belief like that.

Nowadays, people are generally against advising a Christian person (or, as a Jewish person might say, a godly person) to pursue wealth. This bias is so widespread, and enough time has passed, that I feel it's safe to share a story from years ago at Temple University. There was a young man in our theological school who believed he was the only truly devout student in the department. One evening, he came into my office, sat down by my desk, and said, "Mr. President, I feel it's my duty to come in and discuss something with you." I asked, "What has happened now?" He replied, "I heard you say at the Academy, during the Peirce School commencement, that you thought it was an honorable ambition for a young man to want to have wealth, and that you believed it made him temperate, eager to have a good reputation, and industrious. You talked about a man's ambition to have money helping to make him a good person. Sir, I've come to tell you that the Holy Bible says 'money is the root of all evil.'"

I told him I had never seen it in the Bible and suggested he go to the chapel, get the Bible, and show me the passage. So, he went to get the Bible and soon returned to my office with it open, filled with the pride of someone who bases their Christianity on a misunderstanding of Scripture. He slammed the Bible down on my desk and almost shouted in my ear, "There it is, Mr. President; you can read it for yourself." I said to him, "Well, young man, you'll learn as you get older that you can't rely on another denomination to interpret the Bible for you. You belong to a different denomination. In theological school, you're taught that emphasis is interpretation. Now, will you take that Bible, read it yourself, and give it the proper emphasis?"

He picked up the Bible and confidently read, "The love of money is the root of all evil."

Then he got it right, and when someone quotes correctly from that same old Book, they quote the absolute truth. I have lived through fifty years of the greatest battle that old Book has ever faced, and I have lived to see its banners flying free; because never in the history of this world have the great minds of earth so universally agreed that the Bible is true—all true—as they do right now.

So, I say that when he quoted correctly, he was indeed quoting the absolute truth: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Anyone who tries to get it too quickly or dishonestly will definitely fall into many traps. The love of money—what does that mean? It means making money an idol, and idolatry, plain and simple, is condemned everywhere by the Holy Scriptures and by common sense. The person who worships money instead of considering the good purposes it should serve, the one who idolizes money, the miser who hoards money in the basement, hides it in a sock, or refuses to invest it where it could benefit the world—that person who clings to money so tightly that it becomes harmful has within them the root of all evil.

I think I'll move on from that and answer the question many of you are asking: "Is there a chance to get rich in Philadelphia?" Well, it's actually quite simple to see where the opportunity is, and once you see it, it's yours. Someone might stand up and say, "Mr. Conwell, have you lived in Philadelphia for thirty-one years and still don't know that the time has passed to make money in this city?" "No, I don't think that's true." "Yes, it is; I've tried." "What business are you in?" "I ran a store here for twenty years and never made more than a thousand dollars in all those years."

"Well then, you can measure the benefit you've brought to this city by what this city has paid you, because a person can often gauge their value by what they earn; that is, what they mean to the world at this moment. If you haven't made over a thousand dollars in twenty years in Philadelphia, it would have been better for Philadelphia if they had kicked you out of the city nineteen years and nine months ago. A person has no right to run a store in Philadelphia for twenty years without making at least five hundred thousand dollars, even if it's just a corner grocery uptown." You might say, "You can't make five thousand dollars in a store now." Oh, my friends, if you just look at the four blocks around you, figure out what people want and what you should provide, and jot it down with your pencil to calculate the profits you could make if you did supply them, you would quickly see it. There is wealth right within the sound of your voice.

Someone might say, "You don't know anything about business. A preacher never knows a thing about business." Well, I guess I'll have to prove that I'm an expert. I don't really want to do this, but I have to because my testimony won't be taken seriously if I'm not seen as an expert. My father ran a country store, and if there's any place where you get all sorts of experience in every kind of business transaction, it's in a country store. I'm not exactly proud of my experience, but sometimes when my father was away, he would leave me in charge of the store, though luckily for him, that wasn't very often. But this did happen many times, friends: A man would come into the store and ask me, "Do you have jackknives?" "No, we don't have jackknives," and I'd go off whistling a tune. What did I care about that man, anyway? Then another farmer would come in and ask, "Do you have jackknives?" "No, we don't have jackknives." Then I'd go away and whistle another tune. Then a third man would come in through the same door and ask, "Do you have jackknives?" "No. Why is everyone around here asking for jackknives? Do you think we're running this store to supply the whole neighborhood with jackknives?" Is that how you run a store in Philadelphia? The problem was, I hadn't learned yet that the foundation of godliness and the foundation of success in business are exactly the same. The person who says, "I can't bring my religion into business" is either advertising themselves as incompetent in business, on the road to bankruptcy, or a thief—one of the three, for sure. They will fail within a few years. They definitely will if they don't bring their religion into business. If I had been running my father's store on a Christian, godly plan, I would have had a jackknife ready for the third man when he asked for it. Then I would have actually done him a kindness, and I would have received a reward myself, which it would have been my duty to accept.

There are some overly religious Christian people who believe that if you make any profit from selling something, you are an unrighteous person. On the contrary, it would be wrong to sell goods for less than they cost. You have no right to do that. You can't trust someone with your money if they can't manage their own. You can't trust someone in your family who isn't faithful to their own spouse. You can't trust someone in the world who doesn't start with their own heart, character, and life. It would have been my responsibility to provide a pocketknife to the second or third person and to sell it to them while actually making a profit. I have no more right to sell goods without making a profit than I do to dishonestly overcharge beyond their worth. But I should sell each item in a way that allows the person buying from me to earn as much as I do.