Thus wrote Andrew Carnegie in his "Gospel of Wealth," published in the North American Review for June, 1889. This article so interested Mr. Gladstone that he asked the editor of the Review to permit its republication in England, which was done. When the world follows this "Gospel," and those who have means consider themselves "trustees for their poorer brethren," and their money as "trust funds," we shall see little of the heartbreak and the poverty of the present age.
Always your friend,
Andrew Carnegie
"Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be."
Andrew Carnegie was born at Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, 1835, into a poor but honest home. His father, William Carnegie, was a weaver, a man of good sense, strongly republican, though living under a monarchy, and well-read upon the questions of the day. The mother was a woman of superior mind and character, to whom Andrew was unusually devoted, till her death in 1886, when he had reached middle life.
When Andrew was twelve years of age and his brother Thomas five, the parents decided to make their home in the New World, coming to New York in a sailing-vessel in 1847. They travelled to Pittsburg, Penn., and lived for some time in Allegheny City.