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!'"