What set him so vehemently against pride and extravagance, which besides starving all justice and hospitality among neighbours, tend to make them demons of fraud and cruelty to one another?
What made him, through life, such a powerful orator for industry, frugality, and honesty, which multiplied riches and reciprocal esteem and usefulness among men, and would make them all loving and happy as brothers?
In short, all those labours which doctor Franklin took under the sun—labours so various and unending, for public and private good, such as his fire-engines; his lightning rods; his public libraries; his free schools; his hospitals; his legacies for encouragement of learning, and helping hundreds of indigent young mechanics with money to carry on their trades after his death—whence originated all this, but from that love which is stronger than death, subduing all obstacles, and overleaping the narrow limits of this mortal life?
What but the ingenuity of love, eager to swell the widow's mite of charity into the rich man's talent could have suggested the following curious method of making a little do a great deal of good?
"Received of Benjamin Franklin, ten guineas, which I hereby promise, soon as I get out of my present embarrassments, to lend to some other honest and industrious man, as near as I can guess, he giving his obligation to act in the same way by the next needy honest man; so that by thus going around it may in time, though a small sum, do much good, unless stopped by a thief.
"JAMES HOPEWELL.
"Passy, Aug. 10, 1773."
What but the noble spirit of that religion whose sole aim is to "overcome evil with good" could have dictated the following instructions to Paul Jones, and his squadron, who after scouring the British channel, was about to make a descent on their coasts.
"As many of your officers and people have lately escaped from English prisons, you are to be particularly attentive to their conduct towards the prisoners you take, lest resentment of the more than barbarous usage which they have received from the English, should occasion a retaliation, and an imitation of what ought rather to be detested and avoided for the sake of humanity and the honour of our country.
"B. FRANKLIN.