able as gold, he was prompted to husband it as well. To some observers he might have appeared to be penurious, but those who knew him saw that he reduced another of his own maxims to practice: "We must save, that we may share." He never sought to save time or money that he might hoard the more of worldly goods to enjoy in a selfish way. He was ever generous and liberal, as we shall see hereafter. The superficial observer might suppose that a niggardly spirit prompted him to board himself, that he adopted a vegetable diet for the sake of filthy lucre. But nothing could be wider from the truth than such a view. We cannot discover the least desire to hoard the money he saved. He laid it out in books, and such things as aided him in self-improvement. He believed in temperate eating, as we have already said, and the following maxims of his show the same thing:

"Who dainties love, shall beggars prove."

"Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them." "Buy what thou hast no need of, and erelong thou shalt sell thy necessaries."

He saw that he could never possess the books he needed, or command the time, if his appetite for luxuries was gratified. In his circumstances, the most marked self-denial was necessary, to gain his object. At the same time, he believed it would make him more healthy to be abstemious. There was not an iota of stinginess in his habitual economy.

Economy of time or money is praiseworthy only when it is done to command the means of being useful, which was true of Franklin. When it is practised to gratify a sordid love of money, it is ignoble and sinful.

About this time, Benjamin and John Collins had another interview, differing somewhat from the one already described, as the following dialogue will show:

"What book is this, Ben?" inquired John, taking up one from the table.

"It is an old English Grammar which I came across the other day," answered Benjamin. "It has two chapters, near the close, on Rhetoric and Logic, that are valuable."

"Valuable to you, perhaps, but not to me," said John. "What shall I ever want of Rhetoric or Logic?"

"Everybody ought to know something about them," answered Benjamin. "They have already helped me, in connection with the works of Shaftesbury, to understand some things about religion better. I have believed some doctrines just because my parents taught me so.'

"Then you do not believe all that you have been taught about religion, if I understand you?"

66 No, I am free to say that I do not. There is neither reason nor wisdom in portions of the creed of the Church."

"Why, Ben, you surprise me. You are getting to be quite infidel for a boy. It won't do for you to read Logic and Shaftesbury any more, if you are so easily upset by them."

"Made to understand better by them what is right and what is wrong," answered Benjamin. "The fact is, very few persons think for themselves. They are religious because they are so instructed. They embrace the religion of their parents without asking themselves what is true or false."

"There is not much danger that you will do that," said John. "Present appearances rather indicate that the religious opinions of your father will be blown sky-high," — though John did not mean quite so much as his language denotes.

"You do not understand me. I respect my parents and their religious opinions, though I doubt some of the doctrines they have taught, and which I never carefully examined until recently."

"I must go," said John; "at another time, I will hear more; and he hurried away to his business, which was waiting for him.

Benjamin had read carefully the works of Collins and Shaftesbury, which were well suited to unsettle his religious belief. At the time of this doubter, though not

interview, he was really a

avowedly opposed to religion. The fact shows the necessity of using care in selecting books to be

read, and the danger of tampering with those that speak lightly of the Gospel. Even a mind as strong as that of Benjamin was warped by the sophistries of such a book, and it was some years before he recovered wholly from the sad effects of such reading. His early religious culture, however, and his disposition and ability to perceive the truth, finally saved him from the abyss of infidelity, as will appear more evident in the pages that follow.

ON

XII.

THE NEWSPAPER.

was

N THE seventeenth day of January, 1721, James Franklin began to issue a newspaper, called "THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT." It was the third one at the time in the whole country. The first paper "THE BOSTON NEWSLETTER established in 1704, two years before the birth of Benjamin. It was only a half-sheet of paper, about the size of an eight by twelve inch pane of glass, "in two pages folio, with two columns on each page." Consequently, it could not have contained more printed matter than is now compressed into half a page of one of our Boston dailies. Yet it was considered a very important undertaking for the times.

When James Franklin proposed to start the third paper in America, some of his friends thought it was a wild project, and endeavored to dissuade him from it. They saw nothing but ruin before him, and used every persuasion to lead him to abandon the enterprise. They thought that two newspapers, such as would now excite a smile by their inferior size, were quite enough for a country like this. Take this

H