LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

forgetful of self. Young Wanamaker’s sunny face,
his warm grasp of the hand, made him immediately
seem a friend to the roughest man he accosted.

His school grew in numbers, and was moved
‘into a tent. While the young men of his time en-
joyed their leisure, the encouraged superintendent,
laboring all day to earn his bread, went on gladly
giving his evenings and his Sabbaths to lifting the
lowly; year by year his hope, and his faith, and the
school grew. One after another the saloons dis-
appeared. Pleasant homes were built in their
places. The years still went on. By and by a
beautiful stone structure arose, with these words
graven on its front: A Luttle Child Shall Lead
Them. On Sundays three thousand scholars gath-
ered in the spacious assembly room. This room
was of itself attractive, with its frescoes of blue
and gold, and its cool silvery fountain in the centre.
Presently, too, the adjoining church was built for
the twelve hundred members which had grown up
from the Sabbath-school, the poor young man, now
a millionnaire, giving sixty thousand dollars as his
thank-offering for God’s blessing on his work.

The last time I stood in Bethany Sunday-school
and heard the exquisite music, and listened to the
dying message of one of the boys, “Thank the
superintendent for the help he has been to me,”
I bowed my head in gratitude that here and there,
like a beacon light, there shines out an ideal life
like that superintendent’s to inspire noble aspira-
tions in others — noble aspirations and courage to
undertake Christian work.

John Wanamaker was born in 1838. His par-
ents were Christian people, but they were poor,
and all his early life was a struggle with poverty.
Of a summer-morning, before school-time, little
John turned five hundred bricks for his father,
that they might dry in the sun, thus earning two
cents each day. When a mere boy, he worked ina
bookstore at a dollar and a quarter a week, walk-
ing four miles each morning and. evening to do
it, often buying a two-cent dinner—a cup of
milk and a biscuit, that he might save the more
money for his mother. A good boy he, be sure,
who would undertake four-mile walks and _ two-
cent dinners to earn money for his mother!

“Her smile was like a bit of heaven,” he once
said to me, ‘and it never faded out of her face to
her dying day.” If akiss from Benjamin West’s
mother made him a painter, the smile of John
Wanamaker’s mother gave the inspiration and
cheer which have made him the warm-souled
“ Merchant Prince.”

By and by the cheerful lad obtained a place in
a Clothing store at a dollar and a half a week.
There he soon won the approval of his employer,
because he determined to be “the best in what-
ever he had in hand.” This sort of ambition has
been the keystone of many a bridge over which
boys have passed from penury to plenty.

279

Balzac, the French author, when urged by his
father to enter law, because in literature one must
be either king or hodman, replied, “ Very well ; I
will be king.”

The boy’s first intellectual stimulus was from
hearing a sermon which he did not understand.
Writing down all the difficult words, he looked
up the meaning of each in the dictionary, as soon
as opportunity offered. Not content simply to
sell goods, at eighteen, with another lad, he pub-
lished a paper called Everybody's Journal, he solic-
iting the advertisements and serving the subscrib-
ers. The partnership could not be other than
harmonious, as he did all the labor. Until he was
nearly twenty-three years of age, he worked on
in the store, every week carrying his money to
his parents. Does this seem business folly and
weakness to any of you? Well, I have never
known son or daughter who obeyed the fifth com-
mandment to go unrewarded.

And now the work of the Bethany Sunday-
school was begun. There was but one life to live,
and how could he make the most of it? Full of
the reaching, leaping strength and the unlimited
enthusiasms of youth, he was yet deeply medita-
tive and reflective. Should he study for the min-
istry? He pondered the subject. Then, instead,
he considered men like George H. Stuart and
William E. Dodge, prominent business men who
had done honor to Christianity in their daily deeds,
preaching a noble and very convincing gospel in
all their dealings, great and small. Surely there
was as sore need for consecrated business men,
on ’Change and in the counting-room, in these days
of marvellous commerce with the ends of the earth,
as in the pulpit. :

On his twenty-third birthday he had decided,
It was then, I think, that he wrote over his name
the resolutions which have governed his life. He
said, “I will embark in the clothing business,
because I understand it, and I will Jet nobody dis-
suade me from my purpose.” Two of his mottoes
were these:

“ He is a rewarder of them that diligently seck
him.”

“ Vo man ts ever lost on a straight road.”

And now his life was well ballasted with a pur-
pose. That grand old Scotchman, Carlyle, once
said, “The man without a purpose is like a ship
without a rudder —a waif, a nothing, a no-man.
Have a purpose in life, if it is only to kill and divide
and sell oxen well, but have a purpose; and hav-
ing it, throw such strength of mind and muscle
into your work as God has given you.”

Young Wanamaker now began to showhis busi-
ness sagacity. He invested the first one hundred
dollars which he was able to save, in an undivided
interest in an estate, bought two more shares on
credit, settled the matter to the satisfaction of all
parties, and cleared for himself a trifle less than