e of Entrance on Lecture Platform.
Number of Lectures Given. The Press on His Lectures. Some Instances of
How His Lectures Have Helped People. Address at Banquet to President
McKinley.

In the maze of this church, college and hospital work, Dr. Conwell
finds time to lecture from one hundred to two hundred and twenty-five
times in a year. Indeed, he frequently leaves Philadelphia at midnight
after a Sunday of hard work, travels and lectures as far as Kansas and
is back again for Friday evening prayer meeting and for his duties the
following Sunday.

As a lecturer, he is probably known to a greater number of people
than he is as a preacher, for his lecturing trips take him from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. Since he began, he has delivered more than
six thousand lectures.

He has been on the lecture platform since the year 1862, giving on
an average of two hundred lectures in a year. In addition, he has
addressed many of the largest conventions in America and preaches
weekly to an audience of more than three thousand. So that he has
undoubtedly addressed more people in America than any man living. He
is to-day one of the most eminent and most popular figures on the
lecture platform of this country, the last of the galaxy of such men
as Gough, Beecher, Chapin. "There are but ten real American lecturers
on the American platform to-day," says "Leslie's Weekly." "Russell
Conwell is one of the ten and probably the most eminent."

His lectures, like his sermons, are full of practical help and good
sense. They are profusely illustrated with anecdote and story that
fasten the thought of his subject. He uses no notes, and gives his
lecture little thought during the day. Indeed, he often does not know
the subject until he hears the chairman announce it. If the lecture is
new or one that he has not given for many years, he occasionally has a
few notes or a brief outline before him. But usually he is so full
of the subject, ideas and illustrations so crowd his mind that he is
troubled with the wealth, rather than the dearth, of material. He
rarely gives a lecture twice alike. The main thought, of course, is
the same. But new experiences suggest new illustrations, and so, no
matter how many times one hears it, he always hears something new.
"That's the third time I've heard Acres of Diamonds," said one
delighted auditor, "and every time it grows better."

Perhaps the best idea of his lectures can be gleaned from the press
noti