Franklin was reared "piously in the Dissenting way"[i-387] by a "pious and prudent" Calvinistic father who died as he lived, with "entire Dependence on his Redeemer."[i-388] "Religiously educated as a Presbyterian,"[i-389] young Benjamin was taught that _Major est Scripturae auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenü capacitas_. He was nurtured on the Bible and "books in polemic divinity," and he regularly attended services at the Old South Church. Doubtless without reflection he was led to identify goodness with the church and its worship. He was a part of New England's bibliolatry. Not long before he was apprenticed to his brother James he read Cotton Mather's _Bonifacius--An Essay upon the Good that is to be Devised and Designed by those who desire to Answer the Great End of Life, and to do good while they live_, and Defoe's _Essays upon Several Projects: or Effectual Ways for Advancing the Interests of the Nation_. He confessed in 1784 that _Bonifacius_ "gave me such a turn of thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a _doer of good_ than on any other kind of reputation."[i-390] Mather, as an exponent of Christian charity, urged that man help his neighbors "with a rapturous assiduity,"[i-391] that he may discover the "ravishing satisfaction which he might find in relieving the distresses of a poor miserable neighbor."[i-392] It is ironic that Mather should have apparently aided a young man to divorce himself from the strenuous subtleties of theology. (Franklin was too young to gather that Mather circumspectly warned against a covenant of works, and hence was Pauline in his advocacy of _charity_ rather than of humanitarianism.) And from Defoe's _Essays_ Franklin received more than a penchant for projects. Like Mather, Defoe observed that "God Almighty has commanded us to relieve and help one another in distress."[i-393] Defoe seemed to young Franklin to dwell on fellow-service--to promise that the good man need not have understood all of the dogma of Old South meetinghouse.