"Be to thy parents an obedient son; Man's danger lies in, Satan, sin, and self. "Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee, None but the Three in One for evermore." When the boy was five years old occurred the great fire of Boston, which laid the heart of the town in ruins, deprived of shelter, at the beginning of winter, a hundred and ten families, and caused the death of seven or eight persons; "the occasion of which," says an old chronicler, "is said to have been by the careless sottishness of a woman who suffered a flame which took the oakum, the pulling whereof was her business, to gain too far before it could be mastered." No harm befell the home of the Franklins, and their happy escape furnished a theme for Uncle Benjamin's muse. year after the dread event, a ship from Europe brought to Josiah Franklin an acrostic on his name, in which his brother celebrated the escape of him and his from the fire. Imagine the father reading this pious ditty to his family at tea-time, rosy Ben, aged six, listening with open mouth, in his high chair: A AN ACROSTIC HYMN OF PRAISE. Sent on the 22d September, 1712. "I come, Dear Lord before thy Throne, And There upon my thankful stone, To Write thy Love and sing thy Praise. "O, may it Ne'er Forgotten be, That all along, I've been thy care, "Sons, Daughters, Brother, Sisters all, Joyne With us in this Great Address; Who saved us when in Great Distress. "In unrelenting Flames for sin, God's much provoked Anger Rose, "Ah! hateful. Thy promis'd sweet, We see to heaps of Rubbish Burn'd. "Had not the Lord, Now may we say, Had not the Lord Great pitty shown; "Fear seized upon us and a Flame, Our minds and Dwellins did Surprise: Wealth wing'd away toward the skyes. "Rouze up my Soule, Take Wing, too, Fly; Leave here Thy Dust that turns to smoke, With Swifter speed surmount the Sky, Earth only serves to blind and choak. "Awake my Glory and my Heart, Shake off Dull Sloth, my better powers, And every member doe your part With his perfections may compare ; "King's Haughty pride He Does Abase, And Worldly Wisdom Quite Confound. "Let all both High and Low Revere, "I am a Brand pluck'd out unharm'd; "Not unto me, Lord, Not to us, But to thy Holy Name always : For Great Salvation Wrought out Thus, These frequent arrivals of verse from Uncle Benjamin which, doubtless, were duly extolled in the family and handed about among friends, inspired the boy, at length, to attempt a return in kind. At the age of seven, he wrote something, perhaps a letter, with a few lines of doggerel, which called forth a joyful response from his uncle: ""T is time for me to throw aside my pen, When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men, This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop; For, if the bud bear grain, what will the top! If plenty in the verdant blade appear, What may we not soon hope for in the ear! When flowers are beautiful before they 're blown, If trees good fruit un'noculated bear, You may be sure 't will afterward be rare. If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow, What laden boughs, Engedi-like, may we expect in end!"* The quickening and educating effect upon a boy of such a correspondence as this, continued until he was nine years old, would be noticeable if the boy were a blockhead; how great its value to a young Franklin, large-brained, inquisitive, humorous! It was much for him even to know that there was a good old man in old England who cared for him. If an abstract proposition were allowable here, we might venture the remark, that a good uncle is a capital thing for a boy to have. Not less useful, but often more so, is a good aunt. Such relations can do some services for children better than their parents can, and their peculiar influence is essential to perfect breeding. One incident of Franklin's childhood is familiar to all the world. "When I was a child of seven years old," he wrote, sixty-six years after the event, "my friends, on a holiday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. "This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression. continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don't give too much *Sparks, i., 540. for the whistle; and I saved my money." With other reflections printed in numberless school books. An anecdote is preserved of Benjamin's minnow-fishing days. There was a marsh in the outskirts of Boston, on the edge of which the boy and his friends used to fish at high tide for min. nows. By much trampling the spot having been made a mere quagmire, Benjamin proposed to construct a wharf for the boys to stand upon, and pointed out a large heap of stones, intended for a new house near by, which, he said, would answer their purpose perfectly. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone home, he assembled his playfellows, and very soon the wharf was completed. Complaints, detection, and punishment quickly followed. In vain did Benjamin demonstrate to his father the utility of the measure. His father, he says, convinced him, that that which is not honest cannot be truly useful. Perhaps the idea of this structure was suggested to the youngster's mind by the building of the Long Wharf of Boston, which, after being talked of for some years, was ordered to be built in 1710. Benjamin, besides being the tithe of his father's sons, showed from his earliest childhood a remarkable fondness for reading; and these two considerations induced his father to dedicate him to the service of the Church; a resolution which had the hearty concurrence of Uncle Benjamin, who offered to set him up with his volumes of short-hand sermons. His brothers were all put to trades, except Josiah, who ran away to sea when Benjamin was an infant, and had never been heard of since. At the age of eight years, Benjamin was placed at the Boston Grammar School. In less than a year, he rose to the head of his class, and was promised other promotion, but before the year came to a close, his father discovered that he had undertaken too much for one with his narrow means and large family. He was of opinion, too, that young men educated for the ministry were poorly compensated for their labor in America; but he may have made this observation in the hearing of the boy, to reconcile him to his removal from the Latin school. Benjamin was next sent to a school kept by Mr. George Brownwell, noted for his skill in teaching writing and arithmetic. He remained at this school about a year, learned to write a good hand, but failed entirely in arithmetic. At ten his school life was over forever, and he was taken by his father to assist him in his business, |