Poor old Mr. Calamity must have viewed this growth and prosperity with eyes askance. His cane tapped more rapidly yearly as it passed the great newspaper office, notwithstanding that it bore more and more the weight of years.
Benjamin Franklin was a magnanimous man. He never wasted time in seeking the injury of any who ridiculed and belittled him. He had the largest charity for the mistakes in judgment that men make, and the opportunities of life were too precious for him to waste any time in beating the air where nothing was to be gained. Help the man who some time sought to injure you, and the day may come when he will help you, and such Peter-like experiences are among life's richest harvests. The true friendship gained by forgiveness has a breadth and depth of life that bring one of the highest joys of heaven to the soul.
"I will study many things, for I must be proficient in something," said the poet Longfellow when young. Franklin studied everything—languages, literature, science, and art. His middle life was filled with studies; all life to him was a schoolroom. His studies in middle life bore fruit after he was threescore and ten years of age. They helped to make his paper powerful.
Franklin's success greatly troubled poor old Mr. Calamity. After the printer made the great discovery that electricity was lightning, the old man opposed the use of lightning-rods.
"What will that man Franklin do next?" he said. "He would oppose the Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning—he would defy Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a dangerous man, the most dangerous man in all the colony."
Old Mr. Calamity warned the people against the innovations of this dangerous man.
One day, as he was resting under the great trees on the Schuylkill, there was brought to him grievous news. A clerk in the Pennsylvania Assembly came up to him and asked:
"Do you know what has been done? The Assembly has appointed Franklin as agent to London; he is to go as the agent of all the colonies."
"Sho! What do the colonies want of an agent in London? Don't the king know how to govern his colonies? And if we need an agent abroad, why should we send a printer and a lightning-rod man? Clerk, sit down! That man Franklin is a dangerous leader. 'An agent of the colonies in London!' Why, I have seen him carrying printing paper in a wheelbarrow. A curious man that to send to the court of England's sovereign, whose arms are the lion and the unicorn."
"But there is a movement in England to tax the colonies."