I will speak ill of no man, not even in matter of truth; but
rather excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon
proper occasion speak all the good I know of everybody.
--_Franklin's Journal_
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]
Benjamin Franklin was twelve years old. He was large and strong and fat
and good-natured, and had a full-moon face and red cheeks that made him
look like a country bumpkin. He was born in Boston within twenty yards of
the church called "Old South," but the Franklins now lived at the corner
of Congress and Hanover Streets, where to this day there swings in the
breeze a gilded ball, and on it the legend, "Josiah Franklin,
Soap-Boiler."
Benjamin was the fifteenth child in the family; and several having grown
to maturity and flown, there were thirteen at the table when little Ben
first sat in the high chair. But the Franklins were not superstitious, and
if little Ben ever prayed that another would be born, just for luck, we
know nothing of it. His mother loved him very much and indulged him in
many ways, for he was always her baby boy, but the father thought that
because he was good-natured he was also lazy and should be disciplined.
Once upon a time the father was packing a barrel of beef in the cellar,
and Ben was helping him, and as the father always said grace at table, the
boy suggested he ask a blessing, once for all, on the barrel of beef and
thus economize breath. But economics along that line did not appeal to
Josiah Franklin, for this was early in Seventeen Hundred Eighteen, and
Josiah was a Presbyterian and lived in Boston.
The boy was not religious, for he never "went forward," and only went to
church because he had to, and read "Plutarch's Lives" with much more
relish than he did "Saints' Rest." But he had great curiosity and asked
questions until his mother would say, "Goodness gracious, go and play!"
And as the boy wasn't very religious or very fond of work, his father and
mother decided that there were only two careers open for him: the mother
proposed that he be made a preacher, but his father said, send him to sea.
To go to sea under a good strict captain would discipline him, and to send
him off and put him under the care of the Reverend Doctor Thirdly would
answer the same purpose--which course should be pursued? But Pallas
Athene, who was to watch over this lad's destinies all through life,
preserved him from either.
His parents' aspirations extended even to his becoming captain of a
schooner or pastor of the First Church at Roxbury. And no doubt he could
have sailed the schooner around the globe in safety, or filled the pulpit
with a degree of power that would have caused consternation to reign in
the heart of every other preacher in town; but Fate saved him that he
might take the Ship of State, when she threatened to strand on the rocks
of adversity, and pilot her into peaceful waters, and to preach such
sermons to America that their eloquence still moves us to better things.
Parents think that what they say about their children goes, and once in an
awfully long time it does, but the men who become great and learned
usually do so in spite of their parents--which remark was first made by
Martin Luther, but need not be discredited on that account.
Ben's oldest brother was James. Now, James was nearly forty; he was tall
and slender, stooped a little, and had sandy whiskers, and a nervous
cough, and positive ideas on many subjects--one of which was that he was a
printer. His apprentice, or "devil," had left him, because the devil did
not like to be cuffed whenever the compositor shuffled his fonts. James
needed another apprentice, and proposed to take his younger brother and
make a man of him if the old folks were willing. The old folks were
willing and Ben was duly bound by law to his brother, agreeing to serve
him faithfully, as Jacob served Laban, for seven years and two years more.
Science has explained many things, but it has not yet told why it
sometimes happens that when seventeen eggs are hatched, the brood will
consist of sixteen barnyard fowls and one eagle.
James Franklin was a man of small capacity, whimsical, jealous and
arbitrary. But if he cuffed his apprentice Benjamin when the compositor
blundered, and when he didn't, it was his legal right; and the master who
did not occasionally kick his apprentices was considered derelict to duty.
The boy ran errands, cleaned the presses, swept the shop, tied up bundles,
did the tasks that no one else would do; and incidentally "learned the
case." Then he set type, and after a while ran a press. And in those days
a printer ranked considerably above a common mechanic. A man who was a
printer was a literary man, as were the master printers of London and
Venice. A printer was a man of taste. All editors were printers, and
usually composed the matter as they set it up in type. Thus we now have
the expressions: a "composing-room," a "composing-stick," etc. People once
addressed "Mr. Printer," not "Mr. Editor," and when they met "Mr. Printer"
on the street removed their hats--but not in Philadelphia.
Young Franklin felt a proper degree of pride in his work, if not vanity.
In fact, he himself has said that vanity is a good thing, and whenever he
saw it come flaunting down the street, always made way, knowing that there
was virtue somewhere back of it--out of sight perhaps, but still there.
James, being a brother, had no confidence in Ben's intellect, so when Ben
wrote short articles on this and that, he tucked them under the door so
that James would find them in the morning. James showed these articles to
his friends, and they all voted them very fine, and concluded they must
have been written by Doctor So-and-So, Ph.D., who, like Lord Bacon, was a
very modest man and did not care to see his name in print.
Yet, by and by, it came out who it was that wrote the anonymous "hot
stuff," and then James did not think it was quite so good as he at first
thought, and moreover, declared he knew whose it was all the time. Ben was
eighteen and had read Montaigne, and Collins, and Shaftesbury, and Hume.
When he wrote he expressed thoughts that then were considered very
dreadful, but that can now be heard proclaimed even in good orthodox
churches. But Ben had wit and to spare, and he leveled it at government
officials and preachers, and these gentlemen did not relish the
jokes--people seldom relish jokes at their own expense--and they sought to
suppress the newspaper that the Franklin brothers published.
The blame for all the trouble James heaped upon Benjamin, and all the
credit for success he took to himself. James declared that Ben had the big
head--and he probably was right; but he forgot that the big head, like
mumps and measles and everything else in life, is self-limiting and good
in its way. So, to teach Ben his proper place, James reminded him that he
was only an apprentice, with three years yet to serve, and that he should
be seen seldom and not heard all the time, and that if he ran away he
would send a constable after him and fetch him back.
Ben evidently had a mind open to suggestive influences, for the remark
about running away prompted him to do so. He sold some of his books and
got himself secreted on board a ship about to sail for New York.
Arriving at New York, in three days he found the broad-brimmed Dutch had
small use for printers and no special admiration for the art preservative;
and he started for Philadelphia.
Every one knows how he landed in a small boat at the foot of Market Street
with only a few coppers in his pocket, and made his way to a bakeshop and
asked for a threepenny loaf of bread, and being told they had no
threepenny loaves, then asked for threepenny's worth of any kind of bread,
and was given three loaves. Where is the man who in a strange land has not
suffered rather than reveal his ignorance before a shopkeeper? When I was
first in England and could not compute readily in shillings and pence, I
would toss out a gold piece when I made a purchase and assume a 'igh and
'aughty mien. And that Philadelphia baker probably died in blissful
ignorance of the fact that the youth who was to be America's pride bought
from him three loaves of bread when he wanted only one.
The runaway Ben had a downy beard all over his face, and as he took his
three loaves and walked up Market Street, with a loaf under each arm,
munching on the third, he was smiled upon in merry mirth by the buxom
Deborah Read, as she stood in the doorway of her father's house. Yet
Franklin got even with her, for some months after, he went back that way
and courted her, grew to love him, and they "exchanged promises," he says.
After some months of work and love-making, Franklin sailed away to England
on a wild-goose chase. He promised to return soon and make Deborah his
wife. But he wrote only one solitary letter to the broken-hearted girl and
did not come back for nearly two years.
* * * * *
Time is the great avenger as well as educator; only the education is
usually deferred until it no longer avails in this incarnation, and is
valuable only for advice--and nobody wants advice. Deathbed repentances
may be legal-tender for salvation in another world, but for this they are
below par, and regeneration that is postponed until the man has no further
capacity to sin is little better. For sin is only perverted power, and the
man without capacity to sin neither has ability to do good--isn't that so?
His soul is a Dead Sea that supports neither ameba nor fish, neither
noxious bacilli nor useful life. Happy is the man who conserves his
God-given power until wisdom and not passion shall direct it. So, the
younger in life a man makes the resolve to turn and live, the better for
that man and the better for the world.
Once upon a time Carlyle took Milburn, the blind preacher, out on to
Chelsea embankment and showed the sightless man where Franklin plunged
into the Thames and swam to Blackfriars Bridge. "He might have stayed
here," said Thomas Carlyle, "and become a swimming-teacher, but God had
other work for him!" Franklin had many opportunities to stop and become a
victim of arrested development, but he never embraced the occasion. He
could have stayed in Boston and been a humdrum preacher, or a thrifty
sea-captain, or an ordinary printer; or he could have remained in London,
and been, like his friend Ralph, a clever writer of doggerel, and a
supporter of the political party that would pay the most.
Benjamin Franklin was twenty years old when he returned from England. The
ship was beaten back by headwinds and blown out of her course by
blizzards, and becalmed at times, so it took eighty-two days to make the
voyage. A worthy old clergyman tells me this was so ordained and ordered
that Benjamin might have time to meditate on the follies of youth and
shape his course for the future, and I do not argue the case, for I am
quite willing to admit that my friend, the clergyman, has the facts.
Yes, we must be "converted," "born again," "regenerated," or whatever you
may be pleased to call it. Sometimes--very often--it is love that reforms
a man, sometimes sickness, sometimes sore bereavement.
Doctor Talmage says that with Saint Paul it was a sunstroke, and this may
be so, for surely Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute
Christians was not in love. Love forgives to seventy times seven and
persecutes nobody.
We do not know just what it was that turned Franklin; he had tried
folly--we know that--and he just seems to have anticipated Browning and
concluded:
"It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce;
It's better being sane than mad."
On this voyage the young printer was thrust down into the depths and made
to wrestle with the powers of darkness; and in the remorse of soul that
came over him he made a liturgy to be repeated night and morning, and at
midday. There were many items in this ritual--all of which were corrected
and amended from time to time in after-years. Here are a few paragraphs
that represent the longings and trend of the lad's heart. His prayer was:
"That I may have tenderness for the meek; that I may be kind to my
neighbors, good-natured to my companions and hospitable to strangers. Help
me, O God!
"That I may be averse to craft and overreaching, abhor extortion and every
kind of weakness and wickedness. Help me, O God!
"That I may have constant regard to honor and probity; that I may possess
an innocent and good conscience, and at length become truly virtuous and
magnanimous. Help me, O God!
"That I may refrain from calumny and detraction; that I may abhor deceit,
and avoid lying, envy and fraud, flattery, hatred, malice and ingratitude.
Help me, O God!".
Then, in addition, he formed rules of conduct and wrote them out and
committed them to memory. The maxims he adopted are old as thought, yet
can never become antiquated, for in morals there is nothing either new or
old, neither can there be.
On that return voyage from England, he inwardly vowed that his first act
on getting ashore would be to find Deborah Read and make peace with her
and his conscience. And true to his vow, he found her, but she was the
wife of another. Her mother believed that Franklin had run away simply to
get rid of her, and the poor girl, dazed and forlorn, bereft of will, had
been induced to marry a man by the name of Rogers, who was a potter and
also a potterer, but who Franklin says was "a very good potter."
After some months, Deborah left the potter, because she did not like to be
reproved with a strap, and went home to her mother.
Franklin was now well in the way of prosperity, aged twenty-four, with a
little printing business, plans plus, and ambitions to spare. He had had
his little fling in life, and had done various things of which he was
ashamed; and the foolish things that Deborah had done were no worse than
those of which he had been guilty. So he called on her, and they talked it
over and made honest confessions that are good for the soul. The potter
disappeared--no one knew where--some said he was dead, but Benjamin and
Deborah did not wear mourning. They took rumor's word for it, and thanked
God, and went to a church and were married.
Deborah brought to the firm a very small dowry; and Benjamin contributed a
bright baby boy, aged two years, captured no one knows just where. This
boy was William Franklin, who grew up into a very excellent man, and the
worst that can be said of him is that he became Governor of New Jersey. He
loved and respected his father, and called Deborah mother, and loved her
very much. And she was worthy of all love, and ever treated him with
tenderness and gentlest considerate care. Possibly a blot on the
'scutcheon may, in the working of God's providence, not always be a dire
misfortune, for it sometimes has the effect of binding broken hearts as
nothing else can, as a cicatrice toughens the fiber.
Deborah had not much education, but she had good, sturdy commonsense,
which is better if you are forced to make choice. She set herself to help
her husband in every way possible, and so far as I know, never sighed for
one of those things you call "a career." She even worked in the
printing-office, folding, stitching, and doing up bundles.
Long years afterward, when Franklin was Ambassador of the American
Colonies in France, he told with pride that the clothes he wore were spun,
woven, cut out, and made into garments--all by his wife's own hands.
Franklin's love for Deborah was very steadfast. Together they became rich
and respected, won world-wide fame, and honors came that way such as no
American before or since has ever received.
And when I say, "God bless all good women who help men do their work," I
simply repeat the words once used by Benjamin Franklin when he had Deborah
in mind.
* * * * *
When Franklin was forty-two, he had accumulated a fortune of seventy-five
thousand dollars. It gave him an income of about four thousand dollars a
year, which he said was all he wanted; so he sold out his business,
intending to devote his entire energies to the study of science and
languages. He had lived just one-half his days; and had he then passed
out, his life could have been summed up as one of the most useful that
ever has been lived. He had founded and been the life of the Junto
Club--the most sensible and beneficent club of which I ever heard.
The series of questions asked at every meeting of the Junto, so mirror the
life and habit of thought of Franklin that we had better glance at a few
of them:
1. Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider
what you might have to offer the Junto, touching any one of them?
2. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or
suitable to be communicated to the Junto; particularly in history,
morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanical arts, or other parts of
knowledge?
3. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a worthy action,
deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately committed an error,
proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
4. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or
heard; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly?
5. What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of moderation, or of any
other virtue?
6. Do you think of anything at present in which the members of the Junto
may be serviceable to mankind, to their country, to their friends, or to
themselves?
7. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting that you
have heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or
merits? And whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to
oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
8. Do you know of any deserving young beginner, lately set up, whom it
lies in the power of the Junto in any way to encourage?
9. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of
which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment? Or do
you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
10. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the
people?
11. In what manner can the Junto, or any of its members, assist you in any
of your honorable designs?
12. Have you any weighty affair on hand in which you think the advice of
the Junto may be of service?