night? ¶ 12 And Abraham said, Let not the anger of the Lord wax hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned; forgive me I pray thee. ¶ 13 And Abraham arose and went forth into the wilderness and sought diligently for the man and found him, and returned with him to the tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts. ¶ 14 And God spake unto Abraham, saying, For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land. ¶ 15 But for thy repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with power and gladness of heart, and with much substance.” The parable was, indeed, older than Taylor for Taylor said he had found it in “The Jews’ Book,” and at length it was discovered in a Latin dedication of a rabbinical work, called “The Rod of Judah,” published at Amsterdam in 1651, which ascribed the parable to the Persian poet Saadi. None of them, however, had thought of introducing it into the Old Testament, nor had they told it so well as Franklin, who gave it a new currency, and it was reprinted as a half-penny tract and also in Lord Kames’s “Sketches of the History of Man.” While on this question of plagiarism it may be said that Franklin’s admirable style was in part modelled on that of the famous Massachusetts divine, Cotton Mather, whom he had known and whose books he had read in his boyhood. The similarity is, indeed, quite striking, and for vigorous English he could hardly have had a better model. But he improved so much on Mather that his style is entirely his own. It is the most effective literary style ever used by an American. Nearly one hundred and fifty years have passed since his Autobiography was written, yet it is still read with delight by all classes of people, has been called for at some public libraries four hundred times a year, and shows as much promise of immortality as the poems of Longfellow or the romances of Hawthorne. Besides his almanac and newspaper, Franklin extended his business by publishing books, consisting mostly of religious tracts and controversies. He also imported books from England, and sold them along with the lamp-black, soap, and groceries contained in that strange little store and printing-office on Market Street. He sent one of his journeymen to Charleston to establish a branch printing-office, of which Franklin was to pay one-third of the expense and receive one-third of the profits. After continuing in this manner some five years, the Legislature of the province in 1736 elected him clerk of that body, which enabled him to retain the printing of the notes, laws, paper money, and other public jobs, which he tells us were very profitable.