He knew enough of biology to know that religions are not ''revealed''--they are evolved.Yet he recognized the value of the Church as a social factor.To him it was a good police system,and so when rightly importuned he gave,with becoming moderation,to all faiths and creeds.
A couple of generations back in his ancestry there was a renegade Jew who loved a Christian girl,and thereby moulted his religion.When Cupid crosses swords with a priest,religion gets a death stroke.This stream of free blood was the inheritance of John Jacob Astor.
William B.Astor,the son of John Jacob,was brought up in the financial way he should go.He was studious,methodical,conservative,and had the good sense to carry out the wishes of his father.His son John Jacob Astor was very much like him,only of more neutral tint.The time is now ripe for another genius in the Astor family.If William B.Astor lacked the courage and initiative of his parent,he had more culture,and spoke English without an accent.The son of John Jacob Astor second,is William Waldorf Astor,who speaks English with an English accent,you know.
John Jacob Astor,besides having the first store for the sale of musical instruments in America,organized the first orchestra of over twelve players.He brought over a leader from Germany,and did much to foster the love of music in the New World.
Every worthy Maecenas imagines that he is a great painter,writer,sculptor or musician,side-tracked by material cares thrust upon him by unkind fate.John Jacob Astor once told Washington Irving that it was only business responsibility that prevented his being a novelist;and at other times he declared his intent to take up music as a profession as soon as he had gotten all of his securities properly tied up.And whether he worked out his dreams or not,there is no doubt but that they added to his peace,happiness and length of days.Happy is the man who escapes the critics by leaving his literary masterpiece in the ink.
End
The intelligence and alertness of the lad made him look like good timber for a minister.
He learned to read and was duly confirmed as a member of the church.
Under the kindly care of the village parson John Jacob grew in mind and body--his estate was to come later.When he was seventeen,his father came and made a formal demand for his services.The young man must take up his father's work of butchering.
That night John Jacob walked out of Waldorf by the wan light of the moon,headed for Antwerp.He carried a big red handkerchief in which his worldly goods were knotted,and in his heart he had the blessings of the Lutheran clergyman,who walked with him for half a mile,and said a prayer at parting.
To have youth,high hope,right intent,health and a big red handkerchief is to be greatly blessed.
John Jacob got a job next day as oarsman on a lumber raft.
He reached Antwerp in a week.There he got a job on the docks as a laborer.The next day he was promoted to checker-off.The captain of a ship asked him to go to London and figure up the manifests on the way.He went.
The captain of the ship recommended him to the company in London,and the boy was soon piling up wealth at the rate of a guinea a month.
In September,Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-three,came the news to London that George Washington had surrendered.In any event,peace had been declared--Cornwallis had forced the issue,so the Americans had stopped fighting.
A little later it was given out that England had given up her American Colonies,and they were free.
Intuitively John Jacob Astor felt that the ''New World''was the place for him.He bought passage on a sailing ship bound for Baltimore,at a cost of five pounds.He then fastened five pounds in a belt around his waist,and with the rest of his money--after sending two pounds home to his father,with a letter of love--bought a dozen German flutes.
He had learned to play on this instrument with proficiency,and in America he thought there would be an opening for musicians and musical instruments.
John Jacob was then nearly twenty years of age.
The ship sailed in November,but did not reach Baltimore until the middle of March,having to put back to sea on account of storms when within sight of the Chesapeake.Then a month was spent later hunting for the Chesapeake.There was plenty of time for flute-playing and making of plans.
On board ship he met a German,twenty years older than himself,who was a fur trader and had been home on a visit.
John Jacob played the flute and the German friend told stories of fur trading among the Indians.
Young Astor's curiosity was excited.The Waldorf-Astoria plan of flute-playing was forgotten.He fed on fur trading.
The habits of the animals,the value of their pelts,the curing of the furs,their final market,was all gone over again and again.The two extra months at sea gave him an insight into a great business and he had the time to fletcherize his ideas.He thought about it--wrote about it in his diary,for he was at the journal-age.Wolves,bears badgers,minks,and muskrats,filled his dreams.
Arriving in Baltimore he was disappointed to learn that there were no fur traders there.He started for New York.
Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne,a Quaker,who bought and sold furs.
Young Astor set himself to learn the business--every part of it.He was always sitting on the curb at the door before the owner got around in the morning,carrying a big key to open the warehouse.He was the last to leave at night.He pounded furs with a stick,salted them,sorted them,took them to the tanners,brought them home.
He worked,and as he worked,learned.
To secure the absolute confidence of a man,obey him.Only thus do you get him to lay aside his weapons,be he friend or enemy.
Any dullard can be waited on and served,but to serve requires judgment,skill,tact,patience and industry.
