Roland Dwight Grant and his oratorical masterpiece, Snakes in Paradise

              Roland Dwight Grant
AND   HIS   ORATORICAL   MASTERPIECE
SNAKES IN PARADISE
PROFOUND  THINGS   MADE  PLAIN    ::    PLAIN   THINGS   MADE   BEAUTIFUL
Dr. Grant's Platform
THE ART OF LECTURING
The art of entertaining must ever stand at head of list among all arts. Even the good conversationalist can command any place he wills in the social group.
Lecturing as an art at its best, is the purest conversation. The silent response of the audience is in their keen appreciation and real pleasure. But their pleasure can never equal that of the artistic speaker, for his sometimes approximates a* real mental intoxication. The truly Artistic Lecture is the one that gives delight and entertainment while it is being delivered, and forces mental and educational stimulus the days following. But the choicest entertainment must predominate during the Lecture. Entertainment now, and mental stimulus to-morrow. These two elements and without these two the Lecture is not a success.
Successful is the Physician who can make his patient smile while he takes his medicine and to-morrow is healed. There is no reason why an audience should not laugh and be happy to-night, if to-morrow it is to be glad and inspired.
Other Lectures
THE STORY OF A  SPADE
IS  EVOLUTIONISM   A FAILURE
BIRTH   OF  ART IN   EUROPE
IN   ROME WITH   MICHAELANGELO YELLOWSTONE—Scenic and Scientific WILD LIFE IN THE   SELKIRKS JOBVS  WIFE VINDICATED
THE MIGHTY  COLUMBIA
JOSEPH COOK America's great thinker says : There is very little to be added  when   Dr. Grant has  done with the  discussion of any topic.
GILMAN PARKER If you have a good story just tell it to Dr. Grant, and let him tell it over to you so you can appreciate it.
THIS  CIRCULAR   IS  PREPARED   FOR   THOUGHTFUL  PEOPLE
DIRECTION
THE COIT LYCEUM  BUREAU, CLEVELAND, OHIO
DR. GRANT-THE MAN
ROLAND DWIGHT GRANT, A.M., D.D., was born in "ye ancient Windsor Connecticut." The old Grant homestead is still in splendid shape, that has grandly sheltered eight generations unbroken since 1697, when the house was built. Two score of the family had brave part in the Revolution, as well as in the Colonial and Indian Wars. Of these, Dr. Grant has rare personal documents and commissions of ten generations. These include letters of John Hancock, Chief Justice Ellsworth, Oliver Wolcott, John Fitch, Timothy Edwards, and others, all written to the Grant family.  Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., was first President, and Dr. Grant first Vice-President, of the   Grant  Family Association  of  America.     He   has   traced  the  family name  over a
thousand years to their settlement of Cambridge, England, originally known as Grantbridge.
He is a passionate  lover of Nature,  having many  thousands of beautiful specimens  of Natural History.
Indeed, the Grant home is a regular Kensington  Museum of rare and choice collections,  and Mrs.  Grant
and the family, who travel much with him, are in perfect sympathy in entertaining those who appreciate
their world of gems.
Aside from European  travel  and  study, he has made
thirty-six trips from ocean to ocean. His gift of observation is of that rare sort that misses nothing.
 His pastorates have been in and about Boston and at
Portland,  Oregon, where  the  stone White  Temple  was
built for  him at a cost  of $185,000, with  accommodation
for  twenty-five  hundred,  and  during  his  pastorate  was
none too large.
 At present he has a lovely home in Vancouver, B. C,
overlooking snowcapped mountains along the Pacific, and
also a  Summer  Anchorage in the deepest forest farther
north.    His influence in his home city is marked by the
fact that 10 lectures given there last winter brought $2,400,
most of which was given in kindness to others.
 Waterloo, N. H., has been their summer hiding place
for twenty years,  where, with   Senator  Chandler,  who
owns the next farm, cross country riding has made many
a happy day's companionability.    Letters will always reach
him at Vancouver, B. C, or Tremont Temple, Boston.
WORD   MERCHANT
A Lecturer is a Word Merchant.    He should deliver his
goods to every customer in such manner that everyone
can rest and enjoy while he receives that for which he
has paid.    It is as dishonest for a Preacher to fail to deliver
his goods as for a Grocer.    Every word must be freighted with good things and carried by the voice to each
listener so that he has no effort to enjoy it.      The moment the listener has to make any effort to catch
the words, that  moment the Word  Merchant fails, or is dishonest.

DR. GRANT   BLAZING  A   NEW  TRAIL,—THROUGH THE  LYCEUM   WILDERNESS.
YOU  NEVER  MISS A WORD  OF  THE  GRANT LECTURES AND YOU  NEVER WANT TO
1"The lecture was delightful. I never saw before such a wealth of illustration, and your power of description and expression could never be rivaled, and the voice was all that a voice could be."
The above words could not come from one more capable or sensitive than Mrs. Thorpe, the successor to Madame Seiler, the world's great¬est vocal authority. It was Madame Seiler who revealed to Dr. Grant the proper use of the vocal chords, and variety of voice. It never wearies an audience.
Wm. Smith, 25 years secretary of the largest course in New England, writes from Worcester, where Dr. Grant has been five years in succession, and lectured twice in 1904.    Mr. Smith says :
" Our committee are again unanimous that you are the first choice for their next season, so give us a date if you can. You might well consider yourself a fixture in our course."
Dr. Grant is interested in several Mountain Clubs, like the Appalachian, the Sierras, and the Mazamas, of which he is Vice-President and helped organize on top of Mt. Hood.
THE GRANT LECTURES
In tbe South
JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES, in ATLANTA NEWS, says:
Dr. Grant has been coming South every year for a long time, and
eagerness with which his annual visits are anticipated constitutes
the best evidence of his merit and attractiveness.    Dr. Grant is a man
of great information and experience.    He has traveled a great deal
and he has a faculty of observation which enables him to see much
more than a dozen ordinary men.    But the charm of his manner in telling what he has seen, and in voicing his opinions on the great questions of life, has few parallels. He is one of the most entertaining men on the American platform.
The claim that last night's effort would prove the best of the many splendid lectures delivered in this city by Dr. Grant was fully sustained by that distinguished entertainer. When Dr. Grant lectured here two years ago, he set himself a high standard, but last year he climbed higher in the estimation of the Lyceum patrons. Last night's effort was in the nature of a grand climax in Dr. Grant's career as a lecturer in this city, etc., etc.—The Augusta (Ga.) Herald, 1905.
It was a beautiful conversational address, brimful of word pictures that are pathetic, tragic and comic. If presented on canvas his word pictures could scarcely be more realistic ; the thought is profound and points logical and well taken. Refreshing originality is one of the characteristics of this speaker.—Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.
There are many lecturers.    This one possesses in a remarkable what most of them lack — the true magnetic, masterful power of the orator—Asheville (North Carolina) Gazette.
I am sorry for such as did not hear Dr. Grant's wonderful lecture.
I have heard the great lectures of this country, but must honestly
sav, never heard one to compare with that, and shall not forget it
while I live.—J. H. Foster, President Chautauqua, Anniston, Ala.
A PEN PICTURE BY A LONG-TIME FRIEND
Dr. B. A. Green, of Chicago, a man who knows how to use words with classic effect, writes to a friend as follows :
I should like to have heard him in Tremont Temple, for Dr. Grant
has to stand in front of an audience to let his kingly self stand forth.
There he is so challenged by a sea of faces that his whole active force leaps to  the front and the reserves are near enough to be felt.    He is
calm in the midst of a storm of thinking.    He dares to wait a moment
to sharpen a phrase to a razor edge.    He packs mental stuff into condensed
sentences.    The condensation is not baled hay or cotton, but
something useful when unpacked and used in the after quiet.    It is a
storage of electricity ; then and there It thrills and works.    When he
is tender he can cut cameo.     He has the swift stroke-power, the
sketchy vividness of flashes.    He knows where the heart beats.    And
that voice of his, is it magnetic or hypnotic?     Fairies carved away at
his epiglottis and dug out cavernous spaces to give that resonance
which women like to hear — and men, too.    Afterwards to think of
him brings flashes of memory pictures.

SPOTS ON THE SUN —A CRITIC
Dr. Grant's lectures are uniformly enjoyable for a variety of causes. In the first place he has a fine well-modulated voice—and so musical and artistically used a voice is unhappily rare among public speakers. Again, Dr. Grant is naturally dramatic and artistically sensitive—his temperament apparently is keenly responsive to all the beauties of color, form, sound, harmony in anything; and it is as immediately resentful of the slightest discord, a jarring note, an antagonistic color tone, a sentence not euphonious or incomplete. When as a complement to such sensitive refinement of taste is given the ability to intelligently and enthusiastically describe and reproduce inword pictures the scenes and things of beauty which impress them¬selves upon the observant traveler, the " lecture " naturally obtains a certain magnetic charm of its own that is no less delightful by reason of its evasiveness. Unquestionably an egoist to a degree, yet withal the Doctor has mental, poetic and artistic qualities that raise him above the common herd. It would be maddening to such a man to face the crude, inartistic, harsh existence of the workaday world, yet even there he would be sure to find some solace in beneficent, beautiful nature. The Doctor is among the favored few who can say with the Philistine: "Had I but two loaves of bread, I should sell the one and buy white lilies to feed my soul." The religion taught in Dr. Grant's lectures fe the gospel of the true aesthete—the doctrine of refinement, taste and appreciation of grace and beauty in its every form. The Doctor's style has very much in common with the late Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, or a surface reading of his nature is most misleading.    And this is not at all uncomplimentary.
—Editor of Vancouver World.
MASTER OF THE SITUATION
The Doctor is absolutely master of the situation. That he absorbed so as to reproduce in such realistic description so much of Rome is a mark of his superior genius.—Concord (N. H.) Monitor.
He gives the readers of The Standard some views on the theory of evolution which they will find interesting and perhaps convincing, presented in a style which will command for the reading an attention no less eager than is the hearing which Dr. Grant never fails to have when he speaks.—Chicago Standard.
AMUSES  AND THRILLS A LARGE  AUDIENCE ON THE PACIFIC
Dr. Grant attracted a very large audience and evoked most intense interest and enthusiasm. . . . His word cartoons were immensely funny and caused peals of laughter. The audience could not find words to express their admiration —Daily Times, Victoria, B. C.
THEN ON THE ATLANTIC
Dr. Grant s full, rich voice, his pleasing articulation, dramatic delivery, ready wit, graphic description of and love for the beauty and grandeur of American scenery, but above all his knowledge of the hidden corners of our continent, unite in furnishing an entertainment which few should miss, particularly students. His lecture was instructive, entertaining, broad and refined. At times the listeners were thrilled.—Boston Journal.
Suspension Bridge at the Summer Anchorage. All Lyceumites Welcome.
Dr. Grant's Summer Anchorage, Gulf of Georgia, B. C
THE GRANT LECTURES
DR. GRANT LECTURES AT BOSTON COLLEGE
The Boston Globe says:
Boston Catholic College Hall witnessed last night one of the most unusual scenes in its history—a Baptist minister lecturing to a Roman Catholic audience on a subject most dear to the Catholic mind. The lecturer was Dr. Roland D. Grant on V Pope Leo's Palace.''
The audience filled the entire hall (1800 people) and was as appreciative as it was large. . . . While in no way truckling to the prejudices that his audience might have on his subject, he gave from his own standpoint impressions wrought on the visitor by contact with scenes of the early Christian struggles. After the lecture he was congratulated by many, including Father Mullan, the president, who entertained the Doctor in his private apartments and also wrote him a beautiful letter of thanks and appreciation. The lecture was delivered again a month later to a fashionable Boston Catholic Club.
BY SPECIAL WIRE
MY DEAR MR. LABADIE:
Dr. Grant has appeared and gone, and I only wish we could arrange to have him again this season. His lecture was simply magnificent. I cannot find words to express our appreciation of Dr. Grant's work. Very truly yours, W. A. Rogers, Sec'y Y. M. C. A.
Mauch Chunk, Pa., Jan. 14, 1905.
A BEAUTIFUL  COMMENT
The Columbian, Tennessee, Herald says editorially: "It was worth the cost of the whole course." Any seeming extravagant praise we might give would be fully concurred in by the entire delighted audience, and even then not do the speaker justice. It was a combination of eloquence, pathos and humor, with a charming cordiality of manner rarely seen, and a rich, round, clear voice delightful to listen to.
To epitomize the lecture would be but to mar the memory of a] delightful evening.    It will linger with us and do us good.    By all manner of means come again.
THE WHITE TEMPLE AUDIENCES
The Oregonian, the  great paper of the  Northwest, speaking of Dr. Grant's audiences in Portland, says :
" Since the opening of the new White Temple it has proved too small for the vast crowds  that  throng its  doors to hear its pastor I Roland D. Grant.    Each night for many weeks the two large rooms have been filled with people an hour before service time, and many • hundreds, by actual count, have been turned away.
" Besides two hundred and twenty  pews, there are  over hundred chairs, and standing ones pack the corners and vestibules."
Three out of five of these audiences were men.

Lakes in the Clouds
THE WATCHMAN SAID EDITORIALLY
When Dr. Grant is on the lecture platform you feel that he ought to stay there, and when he is in the pulpit you wonder how he dares leave it for a moment. He ranks among the comparative few who are recognized as natural orators.
ONE ROLAND TO ANOTHER
Your lecture that I listened to yesterday in the Marquam Grand is a grand thing.    That whole combination is a beautiful piece of work.
Roland Reed. (America's late favorite on the stage.)
When Dr. Grant tells a story in his inimitable way it is always new whether it is new or not. Shakespeare might be thought a chestnut if repetition would make it so, but surely not if told by Booth or Irving. The art of acting makes every story new in the hands of a classic.                              William H. Eaton, [D.D.] Boston, Mass.
He is the most popular speaker who ever appeared in Holyoke. He so pleased the first time that he was called back twice the same season.                                              C. F. Powlison, Sec. Y. M. C. A.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF  "AMERICA"
.    .    .    I note your great success on the platform, and rejoice in it and congratulate you.    May the future be as the past and the present, and more.                             Fraternally yours,           S. F. Smith.
It was an elegant and effective lecture. No one has done more to make us love the beautiful in nature, and we of the Northwest appreciate it.                                               Hon. Geo. H. Williams,
Attorney-General in Grant's Cabinet.
Mr. Grant is a delightful speaker, and packs into his lectures an immense amount of information.—Hartford Courant.
THE FREE PRESS OF NANAIMO, B. C.
Everyone who heard Dr. Grant lecture last evening will agree that he is a great entertainer.    So many people as the building would hold heard him.    They were amused by his witticisms and impressed  with his philosophy.    The doctor on the platform is an attractive looking gentleman and he has a voice and style of delivery that at once lays hold on the attention of an audience.    All the story telling is directly to the point.