LIFE OF DOCTOR FRANKLIN. BY JOHN N. NORTON, A. M., RECTOR OF ASCENSION CHURCHI, FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY; AUTHOR OF OF WASHINGTON," "LIVES OF BISHOPS," ETC. "Every penny stamp is a monument to Franklin, earned, if not established by ROBERT C. WINTHROP. "He professes himself to be a Protestant of the Church of England, and holds FRANKLIN'S Preface to Abridgment of Prayer-Book, FRANKFORT, KY.: S. I. M. MAJOR & CO. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, BY JOHN N. NORTON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. RENNIE, SHEA & LINDSAY, STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 81, 83 & 85 Centre-street, NEW YORK, E302 ΤΟ ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE, LL.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED STATES COAST SURVEY. Ir is your happy lot to be a lineal descendant of the illustrious Franklin. I dedicate this his brief portraiture to you, because it is even your happier lot to reproduce his lineaments in characteristic services to our country and race. Franklin was ever the fittest man in the fittest place; secundis dubiisque rectus. The calm philosopher of a colony whose chief maxim was Peace, he was captain, colonel, and generalissimo, when peace had to be fought for. Agent of the colonies to preserve existing relations with the mother-land, he became ambassador, with more than "Plenipotentiary" powers, to secure Independence, when those relations were no longer tolerable. The greatest philosopher and the greatest statesman of his age, having filled the world with his fame, he yet gave even his octogenarian years to the Presidency of Pennsylvania, and at the same time to the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. And as one of the founders of their empire, he labored first and last in the cause of education, morals, and religion, as the foundation of its durability. You, too, have borne arms; you, too, have laid broad foundations in education, morals, and religion; you, too, beyond any other than your great ancestor, have illustrated American science. That the work of both ancestor and descendant may contribute largely to the welfare of this people, and that all things may be so ordered and settled upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety may be established among us for all generations, is the humble, earnest prayer of THE AUTHOR M3C "Franklin appreciated the devout and transcendent labors of such men as Jonathan Edwards, in laying the foundations, and could empty his pockets at the heart-stirring appeals of Whitefield. His friendships, in England and America, were with bishops and divines. The Bishop of St. Asaph, of Sodor and Man, no less than the Methodist Whitefield, were his friends; and he could cast an eye backward with affection and reverence from the glittering salons of Paris to the dark shades of Puritan ancestors. There was a sound vein of piety in his composition, which bore its fruits; nor had French levity, or companionship with the encyclopædists, blunted his religious education. His warning hand, raised to Paine on the eve of his infidel publication, deserves to be remembered."-Duyckinck's Cyclopædia. "One of the most grateful things in my experience among the middle classes in England, France, and Germany, is, that I have been there recognized as the countryman of Franklin, and by virtue of this, have been often received as a friend."-Goodrich's Recollections of a Lifetime. "Zealous theologians have attacked the orthodoxy of his creed; casuists have cavilled at the materialism of his ethical precepts; but he was doubtless a good man; he was unquestionably a great man, and he richly merits the title of the most useful man of any age'-a title which he would have envied beyond all the gifts of fortune and laurels of fame."-Macaulay. |