Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
The liturgical statements are followed by another direction that it will
not be improper now to read part of some such book as Ray's _Wisdom of God
in the Creation_, or _Blackmore on the Creation_, or the Archbishop of
Cambray's _Demonstration of the Being of a God_, etc., or else to spend
some minutes in a serious silence contemplating on those subjects. Then
follows another direction calling for Milton's glorious _Hymn to the
Creator_; then still another calling for the reading of some book, or part
of a book, discoursing on, and inciting to, Moral Virtue; then a succession
of resonant supplications, adjuring the aid of the particular Wise and Good
God, who is the author and _owner_ (or subfeudatory) of our System, in
Franklin's efforts to shun certain vices and infirmities, and to practice
certain virtues; all of the vices, infirmities and virtues being set forth
in the most specific terms with the limpidity which marked everything that
Franklin ever wrote, sacred or profane. One of the supplications was that
he might be loyal to his Prince and faithful to his country. This he was
until it became impossible for him to be loyal to both. Another was that he
might avoid lasciviousness. The prayer was not answered; for William
Franklin, on account of whose birth he should have received twenty-one
lashes under the laws of Pennsylvania, was born about two years after it
was framed. Creed and liturgy end with a series of thanks for the benefits
which the author had already received. Both creed and liturgy, we are told
by James Parton, were recorded with the utmost care and elegance in a
little pocket prayer-book, and the liturgy Franklin practiced for many
years. For a large part of his life, he bore his book of devotions and his
book of moral practice about on his person wherever he went, as if they
were amulets to ward off every evil inclination upon his part to yield to
what he calls in the _Autobiography_ "the unremitting attraction of ancient
habits."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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