plenty of money, which was observable for several years after its publication." 94. Interested in Public Affairs. By this time Franklin had become a prominent person in the community; and his business success having put him in easier circumstances, he was able to turn his attention more fully to public affairs. In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, and the following year he was appointed postmaster at Philadelphia. As a publicspirited citizen he sought to improve the condition of the city, and to this end he organized a regular police force, supported by taxation, and a voluntary fire company. When the Quaker Assembly refused to pass a militia law during the war of the Spanish Succession, he strongly set forth the defenceless condition of the province, and proposed the organization of a voluntary body of troops. The success of the enterprise was astonishing. At a public meeting in Philadelphia, the enrolment numbered more than five hundred in a single evening; and including the enlistment in the country, the number of volunteers at length reached ten thousand men, who formed themselves into companies and regiments, chose officers, and provided themselves with arms. 95. Honors and Educational Activity. —Labors and honors were now heaped upon him. He was appointed postmastergeneral for America. Both Harvard and Yale honored him with the master's degree. He was the chief promoter in establishing an academy which afterwards became the University of Pennsylvania. In his educational views he was progressive beyond his time. He deserves a place among educational reformers. While building up his business, he had also gained a reading knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish. From these he passed to Latin, for which he found the " preceding languages had greatly smoothed the way." Thus he was led by experience to recognize the truth of the maxim of Comenius, that "the nearer should precede the more remote." Hence he argued, as the philosopher Locke had done before him, that the ancient languages should be approached through the study of the modern languages. 96. Plan for Colonial Union. - In 1754 he was appointed a delegate to the Albany convention to consult with the Six Nations in regard to the common defence of the country against the French. It was then that he proposed "a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defence and other important general purposes." It always remained his opinion that the adoption of this plan of union would have averted or certainly delayed the conflict with the mother country. 'The colonies so united," he wrote in his old age, "would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves; there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course the subsequent pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. 'Look round the habitable world, how few 97. Defence of Western Pennsylvania. In Braddock's disastrous campaign, Franklin rendered the proud and over-confident general important aid; and if his prudent counsel had been followed, victory would have taken the place of defeat. Later he was commissioned to take charge of the defence of the western frontier of Pennsylvania, and discharged his difficult task in an energetic and successful manner. He knew the art of managing men, and under his direction three forts or stockades were built and provisioned in a short time. 98. Scientific Experiments. In 1746 Franklin began his electrical experiments, which in a few years gave him a reputation abroad as a philosopher. Besides a number of new experiments invented by him, he was the first to point out clearly the existence of positive and negative electricity, and by his wellknown experiment with the kite to prove the identity of lightning and electricity. His experiments and conclusions were set forth in various papers with the lucidity characteristic of his thought and style. His essays were read before the Royal Society, published in England, and afterwards, through the influence of the great naturalist Buffon, also in France. Though his views were attacked at various times, he abstained from all controversy on principle, and left his conclusions to take care of themselves. When urged, on one occasion, to defend his invention of the lightning-rod, he replied: "I have never entered into any controversy in defence of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one's temper and disturb one's quiet." In recognition of his important contributions to electrical science, he was elected a member of the Royal Society and awarded the Copley medal for the year 1753. Among the scientists of the eighteenth century Franklin occupies a high rank. 99. Honors Abroad. It would extend this sketch too far to trace in detail Franklin's labors abroad, first as the representative of Pennsylvania, and afterwards of the United States. In England he was cordially received as a philosopher and statesman. The universities of St. Andrews and Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Learned societies enrolled his name in their membership. The municipality of Edinburgh gave him the freedom of the city. In France he received a greater ovation than had been accorded Voltaire. The people were enthusiastic; the nobility fêted him, medals and medallions were struck off in great numbers. A Frenchman gave brilliant expression to Franklin's achievements in the famous line: "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis. It was chiefly through his influence that the independence of the United States was recognized by France, and that French aid was extended for its achievement. He was one of the five commissioners appointed by Congress to negotiate the peace that put an end to the War of the Revolution in 1782. 1 He has seized the lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants. 100. Governor of Pennsylvania. — In 1785, at his own request, he was relieved of his duties as minister to France, and returned to his native country. He received an enthusiastic welcome. After his fifty years of public service, it was his desire to spend his few remaining days in quiet. "I am again surrounded by my friends," he writes, "with a fine family of grandchildren about my knees, and an affectionate, good daughter and son-inlaw to take care of me.' His hopes, however, were disappointed. He was called to the gubernatorial chair of Pennsylvania for three successive years the limit fixed by law. In 1787 he was a member of the convention to frame the Constitution of the United States. It was owing, perhaps, to his influence that the Constitution was unanimously adopted. 101. Closing Years. The two or three last years of his life were a fitting close to his extraordinary career. Though suffering at times much physical pain, he lived in comfortable retirement, in the midst of his grandchildren and the company of friends. He retained his faculties to the last; and that genial humor which characterized his life never deserted him. His manners were easy and obliging; and his large benevolence diffused about him an atmosphere of unrestrained freedom and satisfaction. He looked forward to his approaching end with philosophic composure. "Death I shall submit to," he said, "with the 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." The end came the 17th of April, 1790, at the age of eighty-four years; and his body, followed by an immense throng of people, was laid to rest by that of his wife in the yard of Christ Church. JONATHAN EDWARDS JONATHAN EDWARDS 102. Standard of Judgment. In considering a man's life, we should take into consideration its historic environment. We should judge it, not by the standards of our day, but by the standards then prevailing. Only for moral obliquity must there be small allowance; for whatever may be the laxity of the times, every man has in his breast a monitor against vice. If we study Jonathan Edwards 103. A Great, Austere Life. with proper sympathy, we must pronounce his life a great life. Though his character was colored by Puritan austerity, and his religious experience involved what many believe to have been morbid emotions, there is no questioning the fact of his masterful intellect and his stainless integrity. He certainly was not, what a ferocious critic has styled him, a theological "monomaniac." There is much less reason to dissent from the judgment of another reviewer who says of him: "Remarkable for the beauty of his face and person, lordly in the easy sweep and grasp of his intellect, wonderful in his purity of soul and in his simple devotion to the truth, the world has seldom seen in finer combination all the great qualities of a godlike manhood." 1 1 Bibliotheca Sacra, xxvi. 255. |