d fell into shallow water; and in a few moments he was dragged out,
unconscious, and hurried to a hospital.

"He lingered for a day or so, still unconscious, and then came to
himself and smiled a little as he found that the sword for which he
had given his life had been left beside him. He took it in his arms. He
hugged it to his breast. He gave a few words of final message for me.
And that was all."

Conwell's voice had gone thrillingly low as he neared the end, for it
was all so very, very vivid to him, and his eyes had grown tender and
his lips more strong and firm. And he fell silent, thinking of that
long-ago happening, and though he looked down upon the thronging traffic
of Broad Street, it was clear that he did not see it, and that if the
rumbling hubbub of sound meant anything to him it was the rumbling of
the guns of the distant past. When he spoke again it was with a still
tenser tone of feeling.

"When I stood beside the body of John Ring and realized that he had died
for love of me, I made a vow that has formed my life. I vowed that from
that moment I would live not only my own life, but that I would also
live the life of John Ring. And from that moment I have worked sixteen
hours every day--eight for John Ring's work and eight hours for my own."

A curious note had come into his voice, as of one who had run the race
and neared the goal, fought the good fight and neared the end.

"Every morning when I rise I look at this sword, or if I am away from
home I think of the sword, and vow anew that another day shall see
sixteen hours of work from me." And when one comes to know Russell
Conwell one realizes that never did a man work more hard and constantly.

"It was through John Ring and his giving his life through devotion to
me that I became a Christian," he went on. "This did not come about
immediately, but it came before the war was over, and it came through
faithful Johnnie Ring."

There is a little lonely cemetery in the Berkshires, a tiny
burying-ground on a wind-swept hill, a few miles from Conwell's old
home. In this isolated burying-ground bushes and vines and grass grow in
profusion, and a few trees cast a gentle shade; and tree-clad hills go
billowing off for miles and miles in wild and lonely beauty. And in
that lonely little graveyard I found the plain stone that marks the
resting-place of John Ring.

II. THE BEGINNING AT OLD LEXINGTON

IT is not because he is a minister that Russell