Russell Conwell helped to transform a night school in a church basement in Philadelphia into Temple University. He did it by retelling a story that was told to him while in a camel caravan in Mesopotamia. It was a story about Al Hafed, a very wealthy farmer in ancient Persia. Al Hafed was living his dream life until one day a Buddhist priest visited him and during their conversation told him how the world was formed.

The old priest also told Al Hafed about diamonds and that if he had a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole country. With a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth.

That night Al Hafed went to bed a poor man -- not that he had lost anything. He was poor because he was discontented and discontented because he thought he was poor. After a sleepless night, he arose early the next morning and told the priest of his desire to be immensely rich. After a lengthy conversation the priest told him that he would find diamonds in a river that runs over white sand between high mountains. Al Hafed sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in the charge of a neighbor, and began his search for diamonds.

After years of exhaustive search throughout Palestine and across Europe, penniless, ragged and wretched, he threw himself into the incoming tide off the coast of Spain never to rise again.

In the meantime, back at the farm, Al Hafed