Adore this God who did us Save O Bless his kind and pow'rfull Hand. The wild sailor "coldly entertained" his uncle's simple piety; but over the younger Benjamin he would naturally have had greater influence. He brought with him from England his volumes of poetry and his short-hand sermon books; but not, as we shall discover by and by, his collection of pamphlets, which, probably, he sold to help defray the expenses of his voyage. He brought his intelligent, inquiring, suggestive mind, his quaint humor, his guileless heart. He imparted whatever he had of knowledge and accomplishment to his young namesake; taught him his system of short-hand, strengthened in him all his tendencies toward good, and, doubtless, placed a firm and kindly veto upon the boy's sea-going scheme. Uncle Benjamin lived four years in the house of his brother Josiah; and then, his son Samuel having married and established a home, he went to live with him. He died in 1727; aged seventy-seven. In an obituary notice in a Boston newspaper, he is spoken of as a person who was justly esteemed and beloved as a rare and exemplary Christian;" "one who loved the people and ministers of Christ;" whose "presence in the House of God, was always solemn and affecting ;" "who courted not the observation of men; yet there were many who could not but take notice of and admire the peculiar excellences that vividly adorned him.”* The poetry books of Uncle Benjamin, which are still in perfect preservation, though it is a hundred and eighty years ago since he bought the first of them, are neatly written and carefully indexed. Many of the pieces are acrostics, and several are curiously shaped on the page dwindling or expanding in various forms, according to the quaint fancy of the poet. Uncle Benjamin lies in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston, near the grave of his brother Josiah. The stone that marks his last resting-place is still legible; but perhaps some good Bostonians, mindful of what he did for his nephew, will one day renew the stone, as has been done with that which covered the remains of Franklin's parents. *Drake's "History of Boston," p. 574. CHAPTER IV. FIRST BOOKS. THE boy, as we have remarked, was a devouring reader. There are those who read from infancy to old age, and, so far as their friends can discover, learn nothing. There are those in whose fertile minds every chance seed of knowledge, or suggestion, takes root and bears fruit. Young Franklin was one of these. He had also, the knack of getting from a book the one thing to which it owes its value. His first love, as well as his first possession, was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," from which he learned the charm that is given to narrative by mingling dialogue with it; a method which, he long afterward said, is very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting parts, finds himself, as it were, admitted into the company and present at the conversation. Of this mode of composition, frequently practiced by Franklin, he considered Bunyan the originator-Defoe and Richardson being imitators of Bunyan. He sold his "Pilgrim's Progress" in order to buy Burton's "Historical Collections," in forty little volumes, famous in their day, and extensively sold, both in America and England, by peddlers. These books contained history, travels, adventures, fiction, natural history, biography, and every thing curious and marvelous which the compiler could discover. "He has melted down," says Dunbar, "the best of our English histories into twelve-penny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities, and curiosities." Dr. Johnson alludes to these books in one of his letters: "There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the booksellers on the bridge, and which I must entreat you to procure me. They are called Burton's Books. The title of one is 'Admirable Curiosities, Rarities and Wonders in England.' They seem very proper to allure backward readers."* The library of Josiah Franklin contained few works that were not theological; but even these the boy contrived to read. Plu *Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," p. 807. tarch's Lives, so popular once among young people, he read over and over again. Robinson Crusoe he just missed-for it was not published till 1719, when it appeared in a London periodical. But Defoe's Essay upon Projects, a household book at that time, he read with lasting pleasure and benefit. Defoe's Essay upon Projects treats of matters beyond most boys of twelve; but the racy earnestness of Defoe's style would have rendered the abstrusest subjects interesting to a young Franklin. The projects for the public advantage proposed by Defoe, were of three kinds: political, commercial, and philanthropic. Among the particular schemes and improvements suggested by the author, and original with him, were a better system of private and national banking; better roads s; improved bankrupt laws; friendly societies, for the relief of members in distress; an asylum for idiots, who ought to be, he says, "a perpetual rent-charge on the great family of mankind;" academies for giving instruction in single brauches of knowledge, and for educating youth for special professions. Among his suggestions of the kind last named, are military academies, and colleges for girls. Most of Defoe's leading suggestions have since been carried out in all the civilized nations of the New and Old World. It is ques. tionable if there is any other book that has so much benefited mankind in the practical manner as this little essay by the author of Robinson Crusoe. Sir James Mackintosh says: "Defoe produced Richardson, who has copied him in those minute strokes which give to fiction such an air of reality. Defoe, and perhaps also Swift, produced Franklin, who applied their familiar eloquence to moral and prudential purposes. Paine was the follower of Franklin; but the calm familiarity, and almost sly pleasantry of the American Socrates were, in his disciple, exchanged for those bold speculations and fierce invectives which indicate the approach of civil confusion."* But Franklin learned from Defoe far more than the artifices of his style. There was another little book, read by Franklin in boyhood, concerning which he has left a remarkable testimony. "When I was a boy," he wrote to Mr. Samuel Mather, in his eightieth year, "I met with a book entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was written by your father (Cotton Mather). It had been so little regarded * "Life of Sir James Mackintosh," by his son, xi., 92. by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation; and, if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owe the advantage of it to that book." These words induced the Sunday School Society of Massachusetts to republish the little volume in 1845; so that every one can now easily gratify his curiosity concerning it. It consists of twenty-two short essays, which, besides extolling benevolence in general, give directions to particular classes of men, how to turn their private occupations to the public advantage. There are suggestions of this kind for magistrates, ministers, doctors, lawyers, schoolmasters, gentlemen, deacons, captains of ships, ladies, husbands, wives, mechanics, and, indeed, all sorts and conditions of men. The advancement of religion, the author maintains, is the object to be chiefly sought by all of these; but there are many quaint, strong passages in the book, pointing out benevolent labors of another kind. Cotton Mather was as earnest in this matter of doing good as he had been in hanging the Salem witches. "My friend," he says, "place thyself in dying circumstances; apprehend and realize thy approaching death. Suppose thy last hour come; the decretory hour; thy breath failing, thy throat rattling, thy hands with a cold sweat upon them, only the turn of the tide expected for thy expiration. In this condition, what wouldst thou wish to have done more than thou hast already done, for thy own soul, for thy family, or for the people of God ?" His last Essay ends thus: "Were a man able to write in seven languages; could he converse daily with the sweets of all the liberal sciences, that more polite men ordinarily pretend unto; did he entertain himself with all ancient and modern histories; and could he feast continually on the curiosities which all sorts of learning may bring unto him; none of all this would afford the ravishing satisfaction, much less would any grosser delights of the senses do it, which he might find in relieving the distresses of a poor, mean, miserable neighbor; and which he might much more find in doing any extensive service for the kingdom of our great Saviour in the world; or any thing to redress the miseries under which mankind is generally languishing." Elsewhere, he exclaims: "Protestants, why will you be outdone by Popish idolaters? Oh! the vast pains which those bigots have taken to carry on the Romish merchandise and idolatries! No less than six hundred clergymen, in that one order of the Jesuits, did, within a few years, at several times embark themselves for China, to win over that mighty nation unto their bastard Christianity. No less than five hundred of them lost their lives in the difficulties of their enterprise, and yet the survivors go on with it, expressing a sort of trouble that it fell not unto their share to make a sacrifice of their lives in enterprising the propagation of religion. 'O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face unto thee, my God !'" " The humor, the familiar learning, the impetuous earnestness, the yearning tenderness, of this little book were well calculated to impress the mind of such a boy, at such a time. How exceedingly strange, that such a work as this should have been written by the man who, in 1692, at Salem, when nineteen people were hanged, and one was pressed to death for witchcraft, appeared among the crowd, openly exulting in the spectacle! Probably his zeal against the witches was as much the offspring of his benevolence as his "Essays to do Good." Concede his theory of witches, and it had been cruelty to man not to hang them. Were they not in league with Satan, the arch enemy of God and man? Had they not bound themselves by solemn covenant to aid the devil in destroying human souls and afflicting the elect? Cotton Mather had not the slightest doubt of it. Mather powerfully influenced the boy in other ways. Samuel, the son of Cotton, tells us, in his life of his father, that Cotton Mather was the originator of a kind of Neighborhood Benefit Societies, one of which he endeavored to form in each church, and to twenty of which Cotton himself belonged. "He drew up," says his biographer, "certain 'Points of Consideration,' to be, with due Pauses, read in the Societies every time they met, for any to offer what Proposal he pleased upon any of the points at the Reading of it." These "Points of Consideration" were the following: 1. Is there any remarkable disorder in the place, that requires our endeavor for the suppression of it; and in what fair, likely way may we endeavor it? 2. Is there any particular Person whose disorderly Behavior may |