AT the age of fifteen Franklin had avowed himself a deist, or theist, which must have grieved his parents, who were people of positive Christian faith. He loved to argue, and when he had learned the Socratic art of asking questions so as to lead one to confuse himself, and of answering questions in the subjunctive mood, he sought nothing more than disputations in the stanch Puritan town. His intimate friends were deists, but they came to early failure through want of faith or any positive moral conviction. Governor Keith was a deist. The reader may ask what we mean by a deist here. A deist or theist in Franklin's time was one who believed in a God, but questioned the Christian faith and system. He was not an atheist. He held that a personal governing power directed all things after his own will and purpose. Under the providence of this Being things came and went, and man could not know how or why, but could simply believe that all that was was for the good of all. At the age of twenty-two young Franklin began to see that life without faith had no meaning, but was failure. In the omnipotence of spiritual life and power the soul must share or die. Negations or denials did not satisfy him. This was a positive world, governed by spiritual law. To disobey these laws was loss and death. He had been doing wrong. He had done wrong in yielding to his personal feelings in leaving home in the manner which he did. He had committed acts of social wrong. He had followed at times the law of the lower nature instead of the higher. He had become intimate with two friends who had led him into unworthy conduct, and over whom his own influence had not been good. He saw that the true value of life lies in its influence. There were things in his life that tended to ruin influence. There were no harvests to be expected from the barren rocks of negation and denials of faith in the highest good. Sin gives one nothing that one can keep. He must change his life, he must obey perfectly the spiritual laws of his being. He saw it, and resolved to begin. Now began a struggle between Benjamin Franklin the natural man and Benjamin Franklin the spiritual man that lasted for life. It became his purpose to gain the spiritual mastery, and to obey the laws of regeneration and eternal life. Here are his first resolutions: "Those who write of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin to form a regular plan and design of our piece; otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new life; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature. "1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe.