IN SERVICE AGAIN.
IT has been said that Franklin forgot to be old. Verging upon eighty, he
had asked to be recalled from France, and he dreamed of quiet old age
among his grandchildren on the banks of the Schuylkill, where so many
happy years of his middle life had been spent. He was recalled from
France, but, as we have before stated, this was an age in America when
men sought the councils of wisdom and experience.
Pennsylvania needed a President or Governor who could lay the
foundations of early legislation with prudence, and she turned to the
venerable Franklin to fill the chair of state. He was nominated for the
office of President of Pennsylvania, and elected, and twice re-elected;
and we find him now, over eighty years of age, in activities of young
manhood, and bringing to the office the largest experience of any
American.
He was among the first of most eminent Americans to crown his life after
the period of threescore and ten years with the results of the
scholarship of usefulness.
We have recently seen Gladstone, Tennyson, King William, Bismarck, Von
Moltke, Whittier, Holmes, and many other men of the enlightened world,
doing some of their strongest and most impressive work after seventy
years of age, and some of these setting jewels in the crown of life
when past eighty. We have seen Du Maurier producing his first great work
of fiction at sixty, and many authors fulfilling the hopes of years at a
like age.
We have a beautiful pen picture of Franklin in these several years, in
his youth's return when eighty years were past. It shows what is
possible to a life of temperance and beneficence, and it is only such a
life that can have an Indian summer, a youth in age.
"Dr. Franklin's house," wrote a clergyman who visited him in his old
age, "stands up a court, at some distance from the street. We found him
in his garden, sitting upon a grass-plot, under a very large mulberry
tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr.
Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand,
expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me
to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance
open, frank, and pleasing. I delivered to him my letters. After he read
them he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compliments,
introduced me to the other gentlemen.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S LAST DAYS.]
"Here we entered into a free conversation, and spent our time most
agreeably until it was quite dark. The tea table was spread under the
tree, and Mrs. Bache, who is the only daughter of the doctor and lives
with him, served it out to the company. She had three of her children
about her. They seemed to be excessively fond of their grandpa. The
doctor showed me a curiosity he had just received, and with which he was
much pleased. It was a snake with two heads, preserved in a large
vial. It was taken near the confluence of the Schuylkill with the
Delaware, about four miles from this city. It was about ten inches long,
well proportioned, the heads perfect, and united to the body about one
fourth of an inch below the extremities of the jaws. The snake was of a
dark brown, approaching to black, and the back beautifully speckled with
white. The belly was rather checkered with a reddish color and white.
The doctor supposed it to be full grown, which I think is probable; and
he thinks it must be a _sui generis_ of that class of animals. He
grounds his opinion of its not being an extraordinary production, but a
distinct genus, on the perfect form of the snake, the probability of its
being of some age, and there having been found a snake entirely similar
(of which the doctor has a drawing, which he showed us) near Lake
Champlain in the time of the late war. He mentioned the situation of
this snake if it was traveling among bushes, and one head should choose
to go on one side of the stem of a bush and the other head should prefer
the other side, and neither of the heads would consent to come back or
give way to the other. He was then going to mention a humorous matter
that had that day occurred in the convention in consequence of his
comparing the snake to America, for he seemed to forget that everything
in the convention was to be kept a profound secret. But this secrecy of
convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him and deprived
me of the story he was going to tell.
"After it was dark we went into his house, and he invited me into his
library, which is likewise his study. It is a very large chamber and
high studded. The walls are covered with bookshelves filled with books;
besides, there are four large alcoves extending two thirds of the length
of the chamber, filled in the same manner. I presume this is the largest
and by far the best private library in America.
"He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling
on philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natural history,
while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. This was a
favorable circumstance for me, for almost the whole of his conversation
was addressed to me; and I was highly delighted with the extensive
knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his
memory, and the clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties,
notwithstanding his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything
about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has
an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which
seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call
on him again, but my short stay would not admit. We took our leave at
ten, and I retired to my lodgings."
The convention to frame a Constitution for the United States assembled
at this time in Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin was elected to bring his ripe
statesmanship into this great work.
He was a poet in old age. When past eighty he fulfilled one of the hopes
of Uncle Ben. When the Constitution had been adopted by a majority of
the States, the event was celebrated by a grand festival in
Philadelphia. There were a long procession of the trades, an oration,
the booming of cannon, and the ringing of bells. Some twenty thousand
people joined in the festivities. They wanted a poet for the joyful
occasion. Poets were not many in those days. Who should appear? It was
Silence Dogood, the Poor Richard of a generation gone.
To the draft of the Constitution of the United States Benjamin Franklin
placed his signature, and thus again honored his Boston writing-master
of seventy years ago.
But he gave to this august assembly an influence as noble as his
signature to the document that it produced. Franklin had been skeptical
in his youth, and a questioner of religious teachings in other periods
of his life. Mature thought had convinced him of the glory of the
Christian faith, of the doctrine of immortality and the power of prayer.
The deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly were long, and they
were sometimes bitter. In the midst of the debates, the divisions of
opinion and delays, Dr. Franklin arose one day--it was the 28th of June,
1787--and moved
"That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its
blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning
before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of
this city be requested to officiate in that service."
In an address supporting this resolution he said: "I have lived, sir, a
long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of
this truth: _That_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men!_ And if a sparrow
can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an
empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the
Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in
vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that
without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building
no better than the building of Babel; we shall be divided by our
partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we
ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And,
what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance
despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to
chance, war, and conquest."
To consummate the American Government now only one thing was lacking--a
power to interpret the meaning of the Constitution, and so to decide any
disputes that should arise among the States.
In Mr. Vernon's garden, after the controversy between the fishermen of
Maryland and Virginia, a plan to settle such disputes was produced. It
was a high court of final appeal.
So rose the Supreme Court. And this court to decide questions of
controversy arising among the States, we may hope, was the beginning of
a like body, a Supreme Court of the nations of the world that shall
settle the questions in dispute among nations, without an appeal to war
or the shedding of human blood.
These were glorious times, and although Dr. Franklin was not actively
engaged in this last grand movement for the government of the people, he
lived to give his influence to make George Washington President, and see
the new order of a popular government inaugurated. He entered the doors
of that golden age of liberty, equality, and progress, when the
destinies might say to their spindles, "Thus go on forever!"