In the Almanac of 1757 he collected the sayings of the last twenty-five years into a timely essay on "The Way to Wealth," making an old man deliver a speech filled with quotations from "Poor Richard." This contained not only sound practical advice for any time but was also pertinent to a political issue of the moment, and so applied to the state as well as to all the people in it. It was reprinted by itself and had an immense circulation in America and abroad, in the original and in several translations. Very likely since "The Day of Doom," in 1662, nothing had been so influential in the colonies as "The Way to Wealth," in 1757; and no contrast could better indicate the change that had taken place between those two dates. Said Father Abraham, the old speaker: It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its People one-tenth Part of their Time, to be employed in its Service. But _Idleness_ taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute _Sloth_, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle Employments or Amusements, that amount to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on Diseases, absolutely shortens Life. _Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than Labour wears; while the used Key, is always bright_, as _Poor Richard_ says. _But dost thou love life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff Life is made of_, as _Poor Richard_ says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that _The sleeping Fox catches no Poultry_, and that _There will be sleeping enough in the Grave_, as _Poor Richard_ says. This was the sort of workaday advice that was shouldering the old-time theology into modest Sabbath-day retirement. Franklin's "Autobiography" is the greatest of his writings if not the greatest of all his achievements. "Poor Richard" and "The Way to Wealth" are full of good common sense, but they belong only to the "efficiency" school of ideas and morality; they are neither distinguished in form nor inspiring in content, and they are chiefly interesting because they so well mirror what was in the eighteenth-century mind. The "Autobiography" has a larger claim to attention than these, for by general consent it has come to be regarded as one of the great classics of literature. Several features have combined to make it deserve this high place. Simply stated they are all nothing more than ways of explaining that this book is the simple, definite, honest life-story of an eminent man, as he recalled it in his old age.