We have not time to follow the companionship of these two youth. It was intimate, and Benjamin succeeded in making a Shaftesbury disciple of John, so that one was about as much of an unbeliever as the other. In his "Autobiography," Benjamin confesses that he "_was made a doubter by reading Shaftesbury and Collins_," although he began to dissent from his father, as we have already seen, in his boyhood, when he read the religious tracts of Boyle. We know that Benjamin was charged with being an atheist by his brother. True, it was when his brother was angry because he left him; still, he would not have been likely to make such a statement to others without some foundation for it. Franklin himself gives one reason for his leaving Boston (in his "Autobiography"): "My indiscreet disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel and atheist." Another admission in his "Autobiography" reflects upon this subject: "The time I allotted for writing exercises and for reading, was at night, or before work began in the morning, _or on Sundays_, when I contrived to be in the printing house, avoiding as much as I could the constant attendance upon public worship, which my father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which I still continued to consider a duty, though I could not afford time to practise it." There is an intimate connection between loose religious views and the non-observance of the Sabbath. Skeptics are not friendly to the Sabbath as a class. It is an institution they inveigh against with much spirit. No doubt the change going on in Benjamin's opinions had much to do with his ceasing to attend public worship. Fifteen years afterwards, when Benjamin was fully established in business in Philadelphia, his parents became very anxious about his skeptical ideas, and wrote to him about it. Their letter is not preserved, but we have his in reply, which, while it confirms the fact, shows him to be more reverent and thoughtful than they feared. It is, also, evidence of a filial regard for his father and mother that is always as beautiful as it is honorable. We furnish the letter below: "PHILADELPHIA, April 13, 1738. "_Honored Father_,--I have your favors of the 21st of March, in which you both seem concerned lest I have imbibed some erroneous opinions. Doubtless I have my share, and when the natural weakness and imperfection of human understanding is considered, the unavoidable influence of education, custom, books, and company, upon our ways of thinking, I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false. And, perhaps, the same may be justly said of every sect, church, and society of men, when they assume to themselves that infallibility which they deny to the pope and councils.