The Archbishop of York, at a recent meeting, told how, when he was at Portsmouth, he had induced a working man to sign the pledge. The man said: “Ah, sir, I won’t be able to keep this pledge. Every night I have to pass ten public-houses, and my mates are with me, and we treat each other.”
The archbishop said, “Do you think it would help you if I were to see you home?”
At this the meeting broke out into a cheer.
“Don’t cheer that,” said the archbishop; “that is the kind of work which the clergy are doing every day.” The man replied, “If you could only see me past these houses, I should get home all right.”
(2394)
PLUCK
What a characteristic story of poverty and pluck is that of Andrew Carnegie! His father, a Scotch weaver who worked with hand-looms, thrown out of employment by improved machinery, came to Pittsburg when “Andy” was but ten years of age. The boy went to work as a bobbin-boy at $1.20 a week. At thirteen he was promoted to the post of engineer of the factory engine. At fourteen he became telegraph boy, and was promoted at sixteen, for quick intelligence, to the post of telegraph operator at a salary of $300 a year. About this time his father died, and the support of the family devolved on him. He soon got a dollar a week extra for copying telegrams for the papers, which he called his “first bit of capital.” His salary went for household expenses, but the dollar surplus he invested wisely, first in the express business, then in sleeping-cars, and, finally, as an outcome of his management of transportation in the Civil War, in a plant to manufacture iron railway bridges. And so by alertness and economy and untiring energy he came to be the world’s most distinguished manufacturer and philanthropist, putting as much talent into giving as he had before put into getting.
(2395)
See [Courage in Life]; [Stedfastness].
POET APPRECIATED