[Illustration:  ANDREW CARNEGIE’S MOTHER]

During my childhood the atmosphere around me was in a state of violent disturbance in matters theological as well as political.  Along with the most advanced ideas which were being agitated in the political world—­the death of privilege, the equality of the citizen, Republicanism—­I heard many disputations upon theological subjects which the impressionable child drank in to an extent quite unthought of by his elders.  I well remember that the stern doctrines of Calvinism lay as a terrible nightmare upon me, but that state of mind was soon over, owing to the influences of which I have spoken.  I grew up treasuring within me the fact that my father had risen and left the Presbyterian Church one day when the minister preached the doctrine of infant damnation.  This was shortly after I had made my appearance.

Father could not stand it and said:  “If that be your religion and that your God, I seek a better religion and a nobler God.”  He left the Presbyterian Church never to return, but he did not cease to attend various other churches.  I saw him enter the closet every morning to pray and that impressed me.  He was indeed a saint and always remained devout.  All sects became to him as agencies for good.  He had discovered that theologies were many, but religion was one.  I was quite satisfied that my father knew better than the minister, who pictured not the Heavenly Father, but the cruel avenger of the Old Testament—­an “Eternal Torturer” as Andrew D. White ventures to call him in his autobiography.  Fortunately this conception of the Unknown is now largely of the past.

One of the chief enjoyments of my childhood was the keeping of pigeons and rabbits.  I am grateful every time I think of the trouble my father took to build a suitable house for these pets.  Our home became headquarters for my young companions.  My mother was always looking to home influences as the best means of keeping her two boys in the right path.  She used to say that the first step in this direction was to make home pleasant; and there was nothing she and my father would not do to please us and the neighbors’ children who centered about us.

My first business venture was securing my companions’ services for a season as an employer, the compensation being that the young rabbits, when such came, should be named after them.  The Saturday holiday was generally spent by my flock in gathering food for the rabbits.  My conscience reproves me to-day, looking back, when I think of the hard bargain I drove with my young playmates, many of whom were content to gather dandelions and clover for a whole season with me, conditioned upon this unique reward—­the poorest return ever made to labor.  Alas! what else had I to offer them!  Not a penny.