My mother was always reticent upon religious subjects.

She never mentioned these to me nor did she attend church, for she had no servant in those early days and did all the housework, including cooking our Sunday dinner.

A great reader, always, Channing the Unitarian was in those days her special delight.

She was a marvel! [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.