There it is. This young merchant understood human nature. He put his customer at ease. He showed interest in the things that interested the farmer. He was frank and open with him, and just familiar enough not to lose a bit of the respect and deference that superiority commands. CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. Meantime Mr. Wanamaker was interesting himself in Sunday school work, as well as in Christian Association matters. He established a Sunday school in one of the most unpromising of the down-town sections, and there built up the largest school of the kind in the world,—with a membership of something like three thousand. This school proved a powerful factor for good. He was also active in general philanthropic work. He was making his mark on almost every phase of the city’s life. Such activity and forceful good sense are always sure to make their mark. When the great store was started in 1877 at Thirteenth and Market streets, Mr. Wanamaker announced certain fundamental principles that should mark the course of the enterprise. The one-price thought was continued, of course. But he went far beyond that. He announced that _those who bought goods of him were to be satisfied with what they bought, or have their money back_. To the old mercantile houses of the city this seemed like committing business suicide. It was also unheard of that special effort should be made to add to the comfort of visitors, to make them welcome whether they cared to buy or not, to induce them to look upon the store as a meeting-place, a rendezvous, a resting-place,—a sort of city home, almost. Yet these things that were thought to forebode so much of disaster to the old generation of merchants, have completely overturned the methods of retailing throughout the United States. That “Wanamaker way” is now almost the universal way. When asked what he attributed his great success to, Mr. Wanamaker said: “To thinking, toiling, trying and trusting in God.” Surely, his life has been crowded with work. Even now, when wealth and honor have been heaped upon him, he is likely to be the earliest man at the store, and the last to leave at night,—just as when a boy at Tower Hall. HIS ADVICE TO YOUNG MERCHANTS. He cares little for money, and even less for fame. When I asked him to name the essentials of success, he replied, curtly: “I might write a volume trying to tell you how to succeed. One way is to not be above taking a hint from a master. I don’t care to tell why I succeeded, because I object to talking about myself. It isn’t modest.” Mr. Wanamaker is epigrammatical at times. I asked him if a man with means but no experience would be safe in embarking in a mercantile business, and he replied, quickly:— “A man can’t drive a horse who has never seen one. No; a man must have training, must know how to buy and sell; only experience teaches that.” When I asked him whether the small tradesmen has any “show” to-day against the great department stores, he said:—