Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/163

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144 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS increase faster than it is possible to raise the money to meet the ever-varying demands. In the vision that came to the lawyer when he decided he must lay down everything and listen to the insistent voice within him that had been struggling to be heard, there were three distinct obligations laid upon him : to preach the gospel, to give instruction to him who could not otherwise procure it for himself, and to heal the sick. He did not need to seek these obligations ; each in its turn presented itself before him in such manner that it was inevitable that he, being the man- ner of man he was, should take it up. Soon after the Temple was finished and while the Univer- sity was still erecting its first building, a small hospital in the northern part of the city had been compelled to close its doors for lack of funds. An appeal was made to Dr. ConweU, who called together a number of friends whose interest might be secured. They decided to reopen the little hospital with one ward and one nurse in a private house. The hospital was christened the Samaritan. Today it occupies half of a city square, with a training school of sixty nurses and a hundred and fifty beds, besides a large dispensary, an active social service department, and all the other activities that charac- terize the best of modern hospitals. The Garretson Hospital, a smaller hospital in the center of great industrial plants, is also a part of the University work. The Samaritan Hospital as now constituted is also a part of the University, being under the same government. Dr. ConweU is the pastor of the Baptist Temple and president of the board of trustees of Temple University and its hospitals, but the latter are en- tirely independent of the church, having a board of trustees of their own selected from the alumni and friends of the Uni- versity. For some years now both the University and its hos- pitals have been receiving State aid, which has materially re- lieved the strain upon Dr. ConweU. Through all these exacting years President ConweU has continued lecturing, averaging three or four lectures a week. These lecture tours have taken him aU over the United States and brought him in contact with aU the great men of his age.