aim seeming to be to make Presbyterians rather than good citizens, so that he preferred to spend his Sundays at home and pursue his own private studies. He adds, "As our province (Pennsylvania) increased in people and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contributions, my mite for such purpose, whatever the sect, was never refused." He composed a little liturgy or form of prayer and used it for himself instead of attendance upon public worship. He felt on a particular occasion the incongruity of the preaching when a minister took for his text, "Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, think of these things," and then only spoke of Sabbath observance, reading the Bible, attending public worship, taking the sacrament and paying due respect to God's ministers. "These might be all good things," said Franklin, "but they were not the kind of good things I expected from that text."

This failure of many preachers to inculcate and enforce the moral duties of life, restricting their preaching to matters of ritual and external service, is the same reproach to religion now in the twentieth century as it was in the eighteenth century. An eminent layman in the city of New York, prominent in one of the great churches of the country and a regular attendant at church, has made the public statement that most of the sermons he heard had no reference to the second table of the divine law, which enjoins the moral duties that we owe to one another. And he comments upon it in view of the fact, that members of the church and attendants upon its worship, were chargeable with the notorious peculations and frauds in the great public trusts and corporations of that city, at which the country has stood aghast. "Vital religion," said Franklin, "always suffers when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue." Happy would it be for the Christianity of America if all denominations shall heed the lessons of the American sage, and all preachers preach morality as the essential

constitutent of religion, the wedded wife of the love of God in the soul, never to be divorced. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

Finally, passing over a thousand features of interest in the life and character of Franklin, let me commend his example of industry and skill and conscientiousness in one great department of the world's work, to printers and editors and bookmakers. Ever since the invention of printing the press has been one of the prime factors in the civilization of mankind. The state, the church, the school, are powerless without it. But like every other agency that falls into human hands, man may pervert and abuse it. Consequently it has been told that an index expurgatorius was necessary to regulate and control all issues of the press on the same principle that a court of inquisition was necessary in the Church to regulate and control the administration of religion and keep out heresy and schism. But in the course of time the inquisition and the index proved themselves bulwarks of superstition and tyranny and gave way to our established ideas of the freedom of religion and the freedom of the press. But with this priceless boon of freedom, it is only the more important that printers and editors and publishers maintain the standard set up by the printer who was born two hundred years ago, who made his press an organ of truth, the handmaid of virtue and moral order, who sent forth from year to year for twenty-five years, "Poor Richard's Almanac," full of wisdom and instruction, humor and good cheer. His autobiography is among the classics of American literature and should be in every house and be read by every boy.

Printers and editors should combine to send forth clean and wholesome publications and make newspapers and books stand for the enlightening of the world. The last report of the state board of control says that a large portion of the victims of insanity and crime in the public institutions of Iowa have been readers

of vicious and debasing newspapers and novels, which have put the demons and furies into their brains. Every consideration of humanity calls for reformation in printing and circulating such incentives to the degeneracy and misery of the world.

With the memory and example of Franklin now called to new honor and renown by the American people, may there be a revival of his virtues, of his simple and strenuous life, of his independence of character, of his lofty manhood, of his fidelity and integrity in every public trust, of his large and generous philanthropy, of his consideration for the welfare of posterity, for reciprocity and the Golden Rule in commerce and trade, for good-will and human brotherhood among all mankind, for putting an end to war, and making love and goodness regnant and supreme.

"Be good, and do good," were the cardinal principles of Franklin's mind and life, and they were the sentiments which he recommended to others, especially to the young. I join in the exhortation of a prince among the New England divines in his own lifetime, to "keep this illustrious example in your eye of the great man, who, in the morning of life, was surrounded by uncommon difficulties and embarrassments, but by dint of genius and application surmounted every obstacle, and hath risen, step by step, to the first offices and honors of his country, hath appeared with dignity in the courts of Britain and of France, and now fills more than half the globe with his fame.1 May merciful heaven grant a succession of such men, so sagacious and so sage, to the American people in this and in every generation to the end of time! Then shall glory dwell in the land, and our sun no more go down.”

1 Nathanael Emmons. Sermon on "Dignity of Man." Works, V. 22.

XXXI

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. LEV. 25: 10.

THE

HE government of England over her American colonies was a reproach to her. It was marked by neglect, injustice, and oppression.

The same year in which Captain John Smith founded the colony of Virginia under a royal patent of King James, the same king was "harrying" the Pilgrim Fathers, before they made good their escape into Holland the next year.

It was "a long train of abuses," that goaded the colonies into revolution. Both Washington and Jefferson heard Patrick Henry's invective against King George in 1765. Ten years later Washington took command of the Revolutionary army; the next year Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The name of Washington stands alone, without a parallel in human annals, majestic, sublime. Jefferson said of him, "His integrity was most pure, his justice most inflexible; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision."

At the age of twenty-six Jefferson was elected to the House of Burgesses where he advocated the prohibition of the further importation of slaves from Africa into Virginia, which was vetoed by King George; he also maintained the rights of the colonies against unjust and oppressive taxation of Great Britain. At the age of thirty-three he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he wrote the most original, important, and generative

state-paper in the annals of the world. It is its peculiar glory that it is based upon the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It glows with religious sentiment. It appeals to the Supreme Judge of the world. It was welcomed in the churches and read by ministers from the pulpit. It was read at the head of the army, by order of General Washington. The Father of his Country joined with its author and with Congress, in pledging. to its support his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor. It was the Declaration of Independence which gave us our distinctive character among the nations, and set us at the front in the march of civilization.

Immediately afterwards Jefferson left his seat in Congress, being elected to the legislature of Virginia, he labored with untiring zeal to bring the laws of Virginia into harmony with the principles of the Declaration. The importation of slaves was prohibited. Primogeniture and entail and the union of church and state were abolished. No longer was one member of a family to be rich, and the others poor, in the interest of a landed estate and an aristocratic society, nor one man taxed to support the church of another, but every man free to support his own. It was one of Jefferson's objections afterwards to the Constitution of the United States, that it did not provide for religious freedom, and he gave himself no rest until the amendment was adopted that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That he was the author of the statute of Religious Freedom he regarded as among his greatest services to the country, and he directed it to be inscribed upon his tomb with the other great acts of his life, as author of the Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia. It is to his credit, more than to any other one man, that the United States stands for civil and religious