Born in 1843, Russell H. Conwell was trained as a lawyer, serve as a Union Soldier, and worked as an international journalist. He was ordained and worked as Baptist minister before founding Temple University in Philadelphia, 1888, to meet the educational needs of the younger members of his congregation. Conwell serve Temple University's first president, and his Conwell School of Theology became the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, one of the largest interdenominational seminaries in the United States Acre of Diamonds began as an inspirational lecture he delivered more than six thousand times before his death in 1925.