The English prejudice against Franklin on religious grounds is quite
unreasonable. He was suspected of being a Freethinker, and was
professedly a philosopher and man of science; he was a friend of
Tom Paine and other dreadful persons; he had actually published “An
Abridgment of the Church Prayer-Book,” dedicated “to the serious and
discerning,” by the use of which he had the audacity to suppose that
religion would be furthered, unanimity increased, and a more frequent
attendance on the worship of God secured. Any one of these charges
was sufficient to ruin a man’s religious reputation in respectable
England of the last generation, but it is high time that amends were
made in these days. Let us glance at the real facts. As a boy, Franklin
had the disease which all thoughtful boys have to pass through, and
puzzled himself with speculations as to the attributes of God and the
existence of evil, which landed him in the conclusion that nothing
could possibly be wrong in the world, and that vice and virtue were
empty distinctions. These views he published at the mature age of
nineteen, but became disgusted with them almost immediately, and
abandoned metaphysics for other more satisfactory studies. Living in
the eighteenth century, when happiness was held to be “our being’s end
and aim,” he seems to have now conformed to that popular belief; but as
he came also to the conclusion that “the felicity of life” was to be
attained through “truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between
man and man,” and acted up to this conclusion, no great objection from
a moral or religious standpoint can be taken to this stage of his
development. At the age of twenty-two he composed a little liturgy for
his own use, which he fell back on when the sermons of the minister
of the only Presbyterian church in Philadelphia had driven him from
attendance at chapel. He did not, however, long remain unattached, and
after his marriage joined the Church of England, in which he remained
till the end of his life. What his sentiments were in middle life may
be gathered from his advice to his daughter on the eve of his third
departure for England: “Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The
act of devotion in the Common Prayer-Book is your principle business
there, and if properly attended to will do more toward amending the
heart than sermons.... I do not mean you should despise sermons,
even of the preachers you dislike, for the discourse is often much
better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty
earth. I am the more particular on this head as you seem to express
some inclination to leave our church, which I would not have you do.”
As an old man of eighty, he reminded his colleagues of the National
Convention (in moving unsuccessfully that there should be daily prayers
before business) how in the beginnings of the contest with Britain
“we had daily prayers in this room.... Do we imagine we no longer
need assistance? I have lived now a long time, and the longer I live
the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God rules in the
affairs of men.” Later yet, in answer to President Yates, of Yale
College, who had pressed him on the subject, he writes, at the age of
eighty-four: “Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of
the universe; that he governs it by his providence; that he ought to
be worshipped; that the most acceptable service we render to him is
doing good to his other children; that the soul of man is immortal, and
will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct
in this.” These are his “fundamentals,” beyond which he believes that
Christ’s system of morals and religion is the best the world is ever
likely to see, though it has been much corrupted. To another friend he
speaks with cheerful courage of death, which “I shall submit to with
less regret as, having seen during a long life a good deal of this
world, I feel a growing curiosity to be acquainted with some other;
and can cheerfully, with filial confidence, resign my spirit to the
conduct of that great and good Parent of mankind who has so graciously
protected and prospered me from my birth to the present hour.” One more
quotation we cannot resist; it is his farewell letter to his old friend
David Hartley: “I cannot quit the coasts of Europe without taking leave
of my old friend. We were long fellow-laborers in the best of all
works, the work of peace. I leave you still in the field, but, having
finished my day’s task, I am going home to bed. Wish me a good night’s
rest, as I do you a pleasant evening. Adieu, and believe me ever yours
most affectionately,—B. FRANKLIN.”
As to his relations with Paine, they should have reassured instead
of frightened the orthodox, for he did his best to keep the author
of “The Rights of Man” from publishing his speculations. Franklin
advises him that he will do himself mischief and no benefit to others.
“He who spits against the wind, spits in his own face.” Paine is
probably indebted to religion “for the habits of virtue on which you
so justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent
talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain
a rank amongst our most distinguished authors. For among us it is not
necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the
company of men, should prove his manhood by beating his mother.”