yond redemption-that a young man should have been requested to speak of the life and times of Benjamin Franklin on this occasion, and to deduce there from his individual conclusions. The fact that until I set about my preparation for this event I had never read even the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, much less his numerous writings and correspondence, may reflect upon my erudition-I am used to that; but it illustrates at the very outset the wisdom of the giver and the utility of the gift. My sometime ignorance does not discredit my present authority to speak, for I come to you fresh from a careful, attentive reading of all I could lay hands on, and the study of the philosophy and career of Benjamin Franklin, begun perfunctorily and in duty bound, has been to me one of the greatest pleasures of my life. I am deeply grateful to Joseph Medill for compelling me to undertake it!

I would not have my confession of unacquaintance with a man whose fame fills all the earth taken too literally, however. I did know something about Dr. Franklin; as much, probably, as the majority of my fellow-countrymen, this distinguished audience not excepted. I knew, for instance, that as a mere boy he had found his way from Boston to Philadelphia, and had entered the latter city with a penny roll in his mouth and another under each arm. That a little girl, subsequently his wife, espied him in this predicament and giggled, after the manner of little girls. I knew that he became a publisher in Philadelphia, and brought forth "Poor Richard's Almanac," a hotchpotch of the wise sayings of all nations which every

body had heard and which nobody ever heeded. I knew that he once flew a kite during a thunder storm, thereby demonstrating that lightning was nothing but electricity—a puerile performance that anybody could have done but didn't. I knew that he had signed the Declaration of Independence, and also the Constitution, and that he was otherwise a great man in the provinces. I also had a vague notion of his embassy abroad, and a still vaguer notion that he was in the habit of attending court levees in top-boots and a fur cap, to the disgust of the courtiers and the frantic delight of "the great unwashed." the great unwashed." I had also seen his numerously engraved portrait, and if I had been asked to portray him in words, according to my then conception of his mental, moral, and physical make-up, I should have said that here was a pudgy, unctuous, witty, good-natured old gentleman, with a vast repertoire of proverbs that passed for wisdom; a pragmatic old gentleman, with an ostentation of philanthropy but a weather eye to the main chance; a parsimonious old gentleman, whose tongue, thrust into his cheek, gave notice that he was up to snuff; a shrewd, crafty, secretive, calculating old gentleman, whose morals were as easy as his slippers. I know him now to have been, next to Washington, the greatest character of the Revolution—perhaps the greatest of his century. Never in the history of the world has there been a man of more varied and profound accomplishment, or one who more thoroughly united the sedentary habits of a student and the energy of an actor in the world's affairs. I would almost say that he was the very opposite to all that I had conceived him, and

yet not so: for he was everything that I had imagined modified by goodness. He was parsimonious; yes, but only with himself. To others he was generous often to his own undoing. Moreover, his parsimony had an object, which dignified and ennobled it: he was striving not for riches but for independence. When he had acquired a modest competence he quit his own business absolutely and never, so far as I can discover, attempted to make another dollar for himself. He was shrewd and crafty also, but not with that sinister distrust of his fellow-men that the words imply. His was the diplomacy of a child, than which, we are told, there is none more subtle. The people he loved and trusted, as did Lincoln; like Lincoln, also, he fathomed the designs of wicked men. This is what St. Paul would call a holy cunning. He was simple in his dress but scrupulous in his linen. He was polite even to the point of deference with whomsoever he conversed, whether it chanced to be a neighbor in the village of Philadelphia or some minister of state in the metropolis of London. This was an art that he had cultivated, for by nature he was obstinate and opinionated. In the course of his long life he made many inventions, such as the stove, the lightning-rod-minus its agent-and these he gave to his countrymen without royalty or patent. He discovered many secrets of nature which he revealed to the world freely and without reserve. But of all his discoveries there was one of signal and paramount importance; the one that made him what he was; the one that vitally concerns every human being for all time to come; the one that involves all others; and the

one that I have selected as the theme for what further

I may have to say-the discovery of how to make life happy.

For Benjamin Franklin was happy. Happy in his drudgery, happy in his extreme poverty, happy in his enforced economies, happy in his growing success, happy in his prosperity, happy in the service of his country and in the love and applause of the world at large. From youth to age he was actually, genuinely happy!—not the hypnotic ecstasy of an anchorite, mind you; not the pseudo-happiness of a voluptuary; not the stolid indifference of a stoic; not the glum complacency of a puritan; not even the rhapsody of a lover; but the tranquil, reasonable happiness which is so hard to achieve, and yet without which this life is scarcely worth the living.

When the ministers tell us that man was made in the image of the Creator we acquiesce; but what is meant by the phrase? Does it mean the corporeal image? That would constitute the Almighty a veritable biped. Benjamin Franklin believed in no anthropomorphic God; man's image of his Maker was a spiritual image; not perfected, but outlined, and upon man himself was devolved the responsibility to complete the likeness. This completion of himself, Franklin conceived to be man's business on earth, and therein could he realize his only happiness; for he exclaims with Cato:

"Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy."

All which, you observe, resolves itself into the saying of Poor Richard, "Be virtuous and you will be happy." But that, you say, is no secret; it is as old as the pyramids! Precisely so, and might possibly be fobbed off as an antiquity exhumed from the pyramids.

But if this statue should serve no other purpose than a mnemonic to remind Americans that to be virtuous is to be happy, it might be an anachronism in this materialistic age, but it harks back to a truth which Americans must some time learn, if not from

Christ, why, then from Franklin. For I repeat it, Franklin was happy, and happy because he was virtuous. His discovery was simply how to be virtuous.

Franklin in his time was not regarded as a Christian. Possibly he would be to-day, though opinions might still differ on the subject. The question depends on how much theology a man may dispense with and still be a Christian. He had been born into the Presbyterian Church and, indeed, was designed by his father for the Presbyterian ministry, for no better reason than that he was the tenth son-it transpiring that of seventeen children seven were daughters and was therefore a "tithing" actually due to the Church. I should surmise that the name "Benjamin" was given him by his mother, not only because he was her youngest son, but, please God, would continue to be so. It happened, however, that there were several doctrines of the faith to which the youthful Benjamin could not conscientiously subscribe-such as election, reprobation, etc., doctrines concerning which there has not been absolute una