ertain broad currents of thought, tendencies which were obscured by all sorts of cross waves and chop seas. And it should be mentioned that the Puritan with the greatest mind of them all, Jonatha

wed extraordinary precocity, which appeared in his early excursions into philosophy and

o appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God.... I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of God's sovereignty

RARY INTEREST

reading those words, 1 Tim. i. 17, Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever

oad alone, in a solitary place in my father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking up on the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not

in the case of John Cotton and the Mathers, by pulpit presence or flights of eloquence. His sermons were at once irresistible in their logic (provided his auditors were willing to start with his assumptions) and, at the same time, irresistibly cogent in their simple, concrete methods of illustration. His most famous discourse, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is a complete illustration of his method. Notwithstanding his sincerity and his talents as a preacher his ministeria

d men had found in the same book. Moreover, it was concerned with life on earth chiefly as a prelude to a future life of reward or punishment. In all the tide of human event which was making the eighteenth century each year more interesting as a matter of present living, men could not g

wonderful o

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cal one. In education and character he offered a succession of contrasts to the leaders of seventeenth-century New England. He did not come of a cultured family; he was not a college man; he did not enter any of the learned professions-m

y articles published in his brother's paper, The New England Courant. In 1723, as the result of troubles with his brother, he ran away to Philadelphia. From there he went to London for two years, on the promise of the irresponsible Governor Keith to set him up in the printing business on his return. The failure of the governor to keep his word did him

he proved the identity of lightning and electricity in 1752, and went on from that to further investigations which sooner or later brought him election to the Royal Academy of London and their Copley gold medal, an appointment as one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences, and medals and diplomas from other societies in St. Petersburg, Madrid, Edinburgh, Padua, and Turin. As a holder of public trusts and offices he became clerk of the Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1736; postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737; deputy postmaster-general of the colonies in 1753; commissioner from Pennsylvania to the Albany Congress in 1754; colonia

teenth century than in eternity, more actively concerned with Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and the United States of America than with the mansions prepared above. This attitude of mind was not

ough to take their chances in the new world for the sake of liberty of conscience. But the lesson that he learned from his parents was rather more practical than theological and was, perhaps unconsciously

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arly reading was almost wholly in the field of what might be called common-sense literature-discussions of different aspects of daily life and how to get on in it. He read "Pilgrim's Progress," which of all religious books is one of the most definite on questions of earthly conduct. He read a great deal of history and biography: Defoe "Upon Projects,"

iscussion. Little newspapers had sprung up in surprising numbers, the coffeehouses had provided centers for conversation, and a common-sense age was settling down to a rather sordid and common-sense existence. Sometimes under the impulse of a world movement a few leaders of thought have a great deal to do with actually molding the character of the period in which they live, but in less inspiring times the popular writers produce just about "what the public wants." The period of Franklin's youth was one of the latter kind, and Addison, Pope, and their followers were writing for a public who wanted to keep on the surface of life. It was as if the people had said: "All this religious zeal of the last century only made England uncomfortable. Just see what confusion it threw us in

which is given to assure correctness in the simplest product which is put into type. A textbook, for example, after being written, revised, recopied, and revised is criticized by a special expert and once more revised before the publisher's editor goes over it word by word. Then when it goes to the printer it is set up in long strips, or galleys, from these into pages (still in type), and from these is cast into plates, and after each of these three operations is read over with microscopic

s model, put paragraphs into his own words, then tried to set them back into the original form, compared the two products, and made up his mind wherein Addison's versions were better than his and wherein, as he sometimes thought, his were better than his teacher's. He also followed up the art of discussion both in speech and in writing, making it always a point to convince his opponents without antagonizing them. These things he did, not in

that time he put his powers to even greater use as a speaker and as a writer of articles and pamphlets on affairs of public interest. He was almost always simple, definite, and practical, for he wrote to the mass of people with little education. He realiz

. There had been, however, only one great almanac editor to precede Franklin in America-Nathaniel Ames, who began publishing his series in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1726. Besides the calendar, the astronomical data for the year, and the half-jocular weather predictions, the chief feature of Ames's was the poetry, very considerable in bulk, and the "interlined wit and humor," which was brief and usually rather pointless. Franklin, realizing the fondness of his generation for the wise sayings of which Alexander Pope was then the master-hand in the English-speaking world, dropped the poetry and studied to expand the interlined material of Ames into the chief contribution of his "Richard Saunders." "I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful," he said

time but was also pertinent to a political issue of the moment, and so applied to the state as well as to all the people in it. It was reprinted by itself and had an immense circulation in America and abroad, in the original and in several translations. Ve

in idle Employments or Amusements, that amount to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on Diseases, absolutely shortens Life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than Labour wears; while the used Key, is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love life, then d

hat was shouldering the old-time theol

ished in form nor inspiring in content, and they are chiefly interesting because they so well mirror what was in the eighteenth-century mind. The "Autobiography" has a larger claim to attention than these, for by general consent it has come to be regarded as one of the

only when the insistence of his friends and relatives made it easier to do it than to leave it undone. Moreover, he dropped it for the thirteen years from 1771 to 1784, took it up again when wearied, old, and ill, and left it at his death hardly more than well sta

embered. Some of the details make real the conditions of living in those simple times-the invention of the stove named after him, the improvements in street lighting and paving, the organization of a fire company. Oth

cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of principle: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had

e how far his voice would carry, and thus to verify the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields. Franklin went away full of admiration for the preacher's voice, but with no word of comment on his sermon. He went often to hear Whitefield, but always as a very human public speaker and never as a "divine." A biographe

ach; but, all things considered, he was willing to let it stand for what it was. In consequence, if one reads his story as honestly as Franklin wrote it,-and few people do,-it will appear that not only was he disorderly and unmethodical but that he was not always truthful, that he was sometimes unscrupulous in business, and that he was at times self-indulgent

use of money intrusted to him for Mr. Vernon and his unfaithfulness while in London to Miss Read, his betrothed-he afterward made the fullest possible atonement. In his glorification of usefulness at every turn he was at once the greatest ex

sed in these

one God, who m

s the world by

shipped by adoration, p

eptable service of Go

soul is

reward virtue and punish vic

hich his life was a remarkable fulfillment. In his theory of life Franklin seemed to make no claims for the finer emotions, but in his actual citi

should not know the man as intimately as we do, for t

bt during the next year, and of decision for revolt in 1776 were all echoed and often led by Franklin in his political writings. Moreover, it is of especial significance in these days to recall another fact unrecorded in his own story-that he was the first American to represent his nation among other nations, and that in his feeling for Ame

K L

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accessible is that in four volumes which appeared originally in 1843 and has been reprinted nine times, the last

hy and

New England and New York (

es from an Old Vo

Varieties of Religio

w. Essays in Pu

peculative Philosophy, Vol.

Living Age, Vol. V (ser.

n. Ten New Engla

pendent, Vol. LV, No

. July, 1904. The Congregationalist and Christian Worl

10 vols. Poor Richard Improved, 1757. This was later issued as Father Abraham's Speech, over 150 editions and reprints of which are recorded. Autobiography. First issued in Paris, 1791. Best recent editi

and Bi

ed: A Biographical and Critical Study base

e Many-Sided F

from original documents most of which are now p

njamin Franklin (A

n France. Atlantic Monthly

ge History of American Lit

s relating to Benjamin Franklin i

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story of American Litera

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J. F. Sa

F. The Ch

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tory (edited by B. E.

AND P

y to read at first-hand one or two sermons about which so many careless generalizations have been made. The chief points of interest a

"Oldtown Folks" (especially chap. ) for a faithful portra

to allow his emotions to carry him away (whether anger, love, religious fervor, or desire for revenge); his willingness to act uns

ssages of this and the Spectator); his respect for Pope and his likeness in use of apothegms; his similarity t