member having earned; but his first regular position, which
paid him a dollar and a quarter per week, was in a bookstore in
Philadelphia.

At that time it was the boy's intention to become a clergyman, and partly
in preparation for such a calling, he became a member of the Young Men's
Christian Association. A remark made by one of its members was responsible
for the change in his intentions, for he intimated to young Wanamaker that
if he worked as hard for himself as he did for the association he would
become a rich man. Acting on this advice, the boy obtained a situation as
stock clerk in a large clothing establishment.

After passing successively through the various grades of clerks and
salesmen, he finally formed a partnership with his brother-in-law to go
into the clothing trade. Their joint capital was thirty-five hundred
dollars. On the first day the firm did a business of twenty-four dollars
and sixty-seven cents, and for the year, twenty-four thousand dollars. But
although year after year the business increased, Wanamaker never lost
interest in religious gatherings. Among other things, he founded a
Sabbath-school, which, commencing with only twenty-seven pupils, has grown
into the Bethany of to-day, with its several thousand members.

Always abstemious in his way of living and credited with many acts of
generosity, it is related that one day, on being requested for the story
of his life, Mr. Wanamaker replied:

"Thinking, trying, toiling, and trusting--in those four words you have all
of my biography."

AN OIL KING'S START.

Massachusetts Newsboy Gets an Attack
of Wanderlust and Finds Fortune in
Pennsylvania Wells.

H.H. Rogers, future master builder of industrial organizations, did odd
chores for the neighbors, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, when a boy, and
earned on the average fifty cents a week. His first step in real business
was when he established a news route of forty-seven subscribers for the
New Bedford _Standard_. In one week he doubled the number and struck for
seventy-five cents more a week than the seventy-five cents he was
receiving. This was granted and he also got an increased commission on new
subscribers. A few months in a grocery store completed his Fairhaven
business experience, and then, with Charles Ellis, a schoolfellow, he went
to the Pennsylvania oil fields to make his fortune. Each had about two
hundred dollars and they started in the refining business. It did not go
the