have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.

"I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being, in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness.

"I confide, that you will not expose me to criticisms and censures by publishing any part of this communication to you. I have let others enjoy their religious sentiments without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable or even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for the building their new places of worship; and, as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all."

As Edwards anticipated Berkeley in metaphysics, Franklin anticipated the theology of Matthew Arnold, and in definition actually surpassed in concision that master of English style. Matthew Arnold explained God as "A Power, not ourselves, that works for righteousness." Benjamin Franklin expressed the same idea in two words-Powerful Goodness.

The keynote to Franklin's temperament is the word Curiosity, used, not in its village connotation,

but in its highest and widest import. Boundless, unquenchable curiosity. Of reverence he had little; he was hampered by no tradition or convention; he must enquire into everything for himself. It was this quality which produced his discoveries in Electricity, which alone would have made him immortal. As a boy, I supposed the finding of Electricity was his sole occupation; whenever I thought of Franklin, I saw a picture of a portly man in knee-breeches, with a benevolent expression on his countenance, standing in the 1ain and flying a kite. Later, I knew that his discovery of electricity was only a halfholiday in his busy life. He invented the Franklin stove, still the best open stove in the world. It was intolerable to his mind that an implement which produced the blessing of heat should also contribute the curse of smoke. He invented the new streetlamps, making them shine all night by the simple device of an air-draught; he originated the streetcleaning department, the fire-department, the Philadelphia public library, the Saturday Evening Post, and the University of Pennsylvania. He invented the bi-focal eyeglasses-one of the greatest of blessings to fit his own needs. At Paris he frequently Idined out where there were beautiful women in the company. Like all sensible men, he was fond of good food, and fond of looking at lovely women. He declared it to be important to see your food before you put it into your mouth; but he also wished to see the faces of the guests that decorated the table. It was inconvenient to put on one pair of spectacles to eat, and another pair every time any

body spoke to him. He therefore hit upon the device of having the upper part of his glasses consist of one lens, and the lower of another, which proved in practice, like nearly everything he thought of, eminently satisfactory. To Franklin everything he saw, from a thunderstorm to a lamp-post, was a problem to be solved, the solution to be for the additional security and comfort of mankind.

Franklin has often been attacked for what has been called his parsimony. I read somewhere that Jefferson Davis denounced him as "the incarnation of the peddling, tuppenny Yankee." Was he mean? The answer to this is his own life. He never held up riches as a goal. Liberty and independence and the power of doing good can be obtained through money. If your expenses are greater than your income, he said, then you are some one's slave, and perhaps a burden to the whole community. If your income exceed your expenses, no matter by how small a margin, then you are free and can look everyone in the face. If God loves a cheerful giver, He must have loved Franklin. He went about doing good, and we cannot doubt that in this occupation he found his highest happiness. Most of us, even when we give, give reluctantly, often with painful effort; Franklin gave not only voluntarily, but eagerly. No man ever was more wisely generous. He formed the habit of doing good every day of his life. In a long letter sent to him about various matters from an acquaintance, the writer mentioned incidentally that his eyes were troubling him. I dare say that if the average person received such

a letter, he would either make no comment on that diseasement, or would content himself by an expression of vague hope. Franklin sent the man, who had asked for nothing, a number of pairs of glasses, saying that if his eyes were troubling him, it was probably owing to his not having the proper spectacles. He advised him to try them all, use the pair that relieved him, keep the stronger ones for use as he advanced in years, and give the weaker ones away to some younger person who might need them.

In public affairs he was equally generous. I suppose that every state in the Union has a town named after him. Some one in Franklin, Massachusetts, informed him of the honour done him there, and requested a donation of money to put a bell in the church-tower. Franklin sent the money, but suggested that instead of a bell, they buy a library; "for I have always preferred sense to sound." Having some curiosity to know whether this library existed, and how large it was, I received a letter from Mrs. H. A. Smith, giving the complete catalogue of books in the original Franklin library, founded there in 1786. There were 116 books in the original library, showing that the gift of money must have been considerable; and today there remain 86.

Franklin never regarded himself as a man of letters, and had apparently no ambition whatever for literary reputation. In his youth, Addison's Spectator was in the flush of its early fame, and he originally attempted to found his style on Addison,

so that he might be able to express himself clearly; and indeed his set pieces instantly remind one of the Spectator. But the beauty of the Autobiography is not the beauty of Addison-its stylistic charm is in its simplicity. Although Franklin did not pretend to be a literary man, and founded no school of letters, he accomplished one thing with his pen that seems miraculous-he made the most ephemeral form of writing live forever; he gave immortality to an Almanac!

Franklin has often been called the Typical American; but in one important aspect he was not typical at all. He was without the typical national nervousness. Nearly every educated American has either had nervous prostration, is having it now, or is just about to have it. The malady is so familiar that it is frequently diagnosed as Americanitis. It is difficult to imagine Franklin suffering with "nerves." One reason was that he was too steadily busy to think much about himself, but that does not altogether explain his happy immunity. He possessed the extraordinary faculty of being able at any moment to shift the gear of his mind; so that while doing one thing he was not thinking of another; never trying to solve tomorrow's problems while occupied with those of today; not having anxiety as a nocturnal bedfellow. He had the temper of a stage Dutchman. It was his tranquil way of mind that enabled him to turn the full power of his brain on any selected object. His equable judgment is particularly well shown in the manner of regarding those who had injured him. Most of us