CHAPTER XV.
"HAVE I A CHANCE?"
Blessed is he who lends good books to young people. There was such a man in Boston town named Adams, one hundred and ninety years ago. His influence still lives, for he lent such books to young Benjamin Franklin.
The boy was slowly learning what noble minds had done in the world; how they became immortal by leaving their thought and works behind them. His constant question was, What have I the chance or the opportunity to do? What can I do that will benefit others?
It was a November evening. The days were short; the night came on at six o'clock. These were the dark days of the year.
"There is to be a candle-light meeting in the South Church, and I must go," said Uncle Benjamin. "It will be pretty cold there to-night, Ben; you had better get the foot stove."
The foot stove was a tin or brass box in a wooden frame with a handle. It was filled with live coals, and was carried to the church by a handle, as one would carry a dinner pail.
Little Benjamin brought the stove out of a cupboard to the hearth, took out of it a pan, which he filled with hard coals and replaced it.
"Ben," said Uncle Ben, "you had better go along with us and carry the stove."
"I will go, too," said Josiah Franklin. "There is to be a lecture to-night on the book of Job. I always thought that that book is the greatest poem in all the world. Job arrived at a conclusion, and one that will stand. He tells us, since we can not know the first cause and the end, that we must be always ignorant of the deepest things of life, but that we must do just right in everything; and if we do that, everything which happens to us will be for our best good, and the very best thing that could happen whether we gain or lose, have or want. I may be a poor man, with my tallow dips, but I have always been determined to do just right. It may be that I will be blessed in my children—who knows? and then men may say of me, 'There was a man!'"
"'And he dwelt in the land of Uz'" said Uncle Ben.
"Wait for me a few minutes while I get ready," said Josiah Franklin. "I will have to shave."
The prospect of a lecture in the old South Church on the philosophical patriarch who dwelt in the land of Uz, and led his flocks, and saw the planets come and go in their eternal march, on the open plains or through the branches of pastoral palms, was a very agreeable one to little Ben.
He thought.
"Uncle Benjamin," he said, "a man who writes a book like Job leaves his thoughts behind him. He does not die like other men; his life goes on."
"Yes, that is what some people call an objective life. I call it a projective life. A man who builds men, or things, for the use of men, lives in the things he builds. He has immortality in this world. A man who builds a house leaves his thought in the form of the house he builds. If he make a road, he lives in the road; if he invent a useful thing, he lives in the invention. A man may live in a ship that he has caused to be constructed, or his mind may see the form of a church, a hall, or a temple, and he may so build after what he sees that he makes his thoughts creative, and he lives on in the things that he creates after he dies. It was so with the builders of cities, of the Pyramids. So Romulus—if there were such a man—lives in Rome, and Columbus in the lands that he discovered. The Pilgrim Fathers will always live in New England. Those who do things and make things leave behind them a life outside of themselves. I call such works a man's projected life."
Little Ben sat swinging the foot stove.
"He lives the longest in this world who invents the most useful things for others," continued Uncle Benjamin. "The thoughts of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton changed the world. Those men can never die."
Little Ben swung the stove in his hand.
Suddenly he looked up, and we fancy him to have said:
"Uncle Benjamin, have I a chance?"
Jamie the Scotchman came into the house, jingling the door bell as he shut the door.
"Philosophizing?" said he.
"Little Ben here is inquiring in regard to his chance of doing something in the world—of living so as to leave his thoughts in creative forms behind. What do you think about it, Jamie?"
"Well, I don't know; it is a pretty hard case. Drumsticks will make a noise, so any man may make himself heard if he will. Certain it is Ben has no gifts; at least, I have never discerned any. There are no Attic bees buzzing around him, none that I have seen, unless there be such things up in the attic, which would not be likely in a new house like this."
Uncle Ben pitied the little boy, whose feelings he saw were hurt.
"Jamie, I have read much, and have made some observation, and life tells me that character, industry, and a determined purpose will do much for a man that has no special gifts. The Scriptures do not say that a man of gifts shall stand before kings, but that the man 'diligent in his business' shall do so. Ben here can rise with the best of the world, and if he has thoughts, he can project them. It is thinking that makes men work. He thinks.—Ben, you can do anything that any one else of your opportunities has ever done. There—I hate to see the boy discouraged."
"The fifteenth child among seventeen children would not seem likely to have a very broad outlook," said Jamie, "but it is good to encourage him; it is good to encourage anybody. He is one of the human family, like all the rest of us.—Are you going to the lecture? I will go along with you."
Josiah Franklin was now ready to go, and the party started. Josiah carried a lantern, and little Benjamin the foot stove with the coals. As they walked along they met other people with lanterns and foot stoves.
Uncle Benjamin felt hurt at what Jamie had said, so he proceeded to encourage the boy as they went along.
"If you could invent a stove that would warm the whole church, you would have a projected life, for example," said he.
"Have I a chance?" asked again the future inventor of the Franklin stove.
"Or if you could print something original that might live; or found a society to study science—something might come out of that; or could make some scheme for a better government of the people in these parts; but that would be too great for you. There I go!"
Uncle Benjamin stumbled. Little Ben helped him up.
They came to the South Church, where many lanterns, foot stoves, and tallow dips were gathered, and shadowy forms were moving to and fro.
Little Ben set down the stove in the pew. The lecture began. He heard the minister read the sublime passage of the ancient poem beginning, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said." He heard about the "morning stars singing together," the "sweet influences of Pleiades," and the question, "Canst thou bind the sea?"
The boy asked, "Have I a chance? have I a chance?" The discouraging words of Jamie the Scotchman hung over his mind like a cloud.
The influence of the coals led Josiah Franklin to slumberland after his hard day's work. Little Ben saw his father nod and nod. But Uncle Benjamin was in the Orient with the minister, having a hard experience for the good of life with the patriarch Job.
"Have I a chance?" The boy shed tears. If he had not gifts, he knew that he had personality, but there was something stirring within him that led his thoughts to seek the good of others.
The nine-o'clock bell rang. The lecture was over.
"Good—wasn't it?" said Jamie the Scotchman as they went out of the church and looked down to the harbor glimmering under the moon and stars, and added:
"Ben, you will be sure to have one thing to spur you on to lead that 'projected life' your Uncle Benjamin tells about."
"What is that, sir?"
"A hard time, like Job—a mighty hard time."
"The true way to knowledge," said Uncle Benjamin encouragingly.
Uncle Benjamin felt a hand in his great mitten. It was little Ben's. The confidence touched his heart.
"Ben, you are as likely to have a projected life as anybody. A man rises by overcoming his defects. Strength comes in that way."
Little Ben went through the jingling door with a heart now heavy, now light. He set down the lantern, and climbed up to his bed under the roof.
He was soon in bed, the question, "Have I a chance?" still haunting him.
In summer there would be the sound of the wings of the swallows or purple swifts in the chimney at night as they became displaced from their nests. He would start up to listen to the whirring wings, then sink into slumber, to awake a blithe, light-hearted boy again.
All was silent now. He could not sleep. His fancy was too wide awake. Was Uncle Benjamin right, or Jamie the Scotchman? Had he a chance?