"Samuel, I have not always done my best, but I resolve more and more to be worthy of the love of all men when I think of what a character your father developed. He thought of himself last. He did not die poor. His hands were empty, but not his heart, and there sleeps no richer man in the Granary burying ground than he. "Samuel, he parted with his library containing the notes of his best thoughts in life in his efforts to come to America to give me the true lessons in life because I bore his name. It was a brotherly thought indeed that led my father who loved him to name me for him." "You speak of his library--his collection of religious books and pamphlets, which he wrote over with his own ideas; you have touched a tender spot in my heart. He wanted that I should have those pamphlets, and that I should try to recover them through some London agent. You are going to London. Do you think that they could be recovered after so many years?" "Samuel, there is a strange thing that I have observed. It is this: When a man looks earnestly for a thing that some one has desired him to have, his mind is curiously influenced and has strange directions. It is like blindfolded children playing hot and cold. There is some strange instinct in one who seeks a hidden object for his own or others' good that leads his feet into mysterious ways. I have much faith in that hidden law. Samuel, I may be able to find those pamphlets; I thought of them when I was in London. If I do, I will buy them at whatever cost, and will bring them to you, and may both of us try to honor the name of that loving, forgiving, noble man until we see each other again. It may be that when I shall come here another time, if I do, I will bring with me the pamphlets." "If you were to find them, I would indeed believe in a special Providence." The two parted. Poor Uncle Benjamin had sold his books for money, but was his life a failure, or was he never living more nobly than now? Franklin went to the Granary burying ground, where the old man slept. Great elms stood before the place. He thought of what his parents had been, how they had struggled and toiled, and how glad they were that Uncle Benjamin had come to them for his sake. He resolved to erect a monument there. He recalled Uncle Benjamin's teaching, that a man rises by overcoming his defects, and so gains strength. He had tried to profit by the old man's lesson in answer to his own question, "Have I a chance?" He had not only struggled to make strong his conscious weaknesses of character, but those of his mental power as well. His old pedagogue, Mr. Brownell, had been unable to teach him mathematics. In this branch of elementary studies he had proved a failure and a dunce. But he had struggled against this defect of Nature, as against all others, with success.