cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" Independent thinking, fortified by the authority of Locke and Sidney, Bacon and Tillotson, and the author of Cato's Letters, enabled him to announce, in the very spirit and all but the very words of Diderot and Rousseau, of whom he had never heard, that "the design of Christianity was not to make good riddle-solvers or good mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects." And so he renounced the ministry in favor of "that science by which mankind raise themselves from the forlorn, helpless state, in which nature leaves them, to the full enjoyment of all the inestimable blessings of social union." It is but an evidence of the force of this new ideal that Benjamin Franklin, in whose life and writings it finds best expression, became the most influential American of his time and won in two continents the veneration that men accord to saints and prophets. At the age of sixteen some books against Deism came his way; but "the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me to be stronger than the refutations; [and] I soon became a thorough Deist." Yet experience straightway led this original pragmatist to the conclusion that, although a materialistic philosophy of life "might be true, it was not very useful." Without faith in religions, yet unable to do without religion, he set down the list of virtues which he thought might be of benefit to himself and at the same time of service to his fellows; qualities which all the sects might unite in proclaiming good, and which any man might easily acquire by a little persistence in self-discipline. Aiming to become himself "completely virtuous," he dreamed of some day formulating the universal principles of the "Art of Virtue," and of uniting all good men throughout the world in a society for promoting the practice of it. And what was this Art of Virtue but a socialized religion divested of doctrine and ritual? "I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue; and the Scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined what we _thought_, but what we _did_; and our recommendation will be that we did good to our fellow creatures." The evangelist Whitefield, when Franklin once promised to do him a personal service, assured the philosopher that if he made that kind offer for Christ's sake he should not miss a reward. It was in the spirit of the new age speaking to the old that the sage replied: "Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for yours."