"'That's sometimes the case, I fear, Sarah,' said I.
"'Well, and that was the case,' said she, 'with Benjamin Franklin. But be that as it may, David, since thee asks me about this great picture, I'll tell thee how it came here. Many weeks ago, as he lay, he beckoned me to him, and told me of this picture up stairs, and begged I would bring it to him. I brought it to him. His face brightened up as he looked at it; and he said, 'Aye, Sarah,' said he, 'there's a picture worth looking at! that's the picture of him who came into the world to teach men to love one another!' Then after looking wistfully at it for some time, he said, 'Sarah,' said he, 'set this picture up over the mantlepiece, right before me as I lie; for I like to look at it,' and when I had fixed it up, he looked at it, and looked at it very much; and indeed, as thee sees, he died with his eyes fixed on it.'"
Happy Franklin! Thus doubly blest! Blest in life, by a diligent co-working with "the great Shepherd," in his precepts of perfect love.—Blest in death, with his closing eyes piously fixed upon him, and meekly bowing to the last summons in joyful hope that through the force of his divine precepts, the "wintry storms" of hate will one day pass away, and one "eternal spring of love and peace encircle all."
Now Franklin in his lifetime had written for himself an epitaph, to be put upon his grave, that honest posterity might see that he was no unbeliever, as certain enemies had slandered him, but that he firmly believed "that his Redeemer liveth; and that in the latter day he shall stand upon the earth; and that though worms destroyed his body, yet in his flesh he should see God."
franklin's epitaph.
"THE BODY
OF
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRINTER,
LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK,
its contents torn out,
and stripped of its lettering and gilding,
lies here food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost;
for it will, as he believed, appear once more
IN A NEW
and more beautiful edition,
corrected and amended
BY
THE AUTHOR."
This epitaph was never put upon his tomb. But the friend of man needs no stone of the valley to perpetuate his memory. It lives among the clouds of heaven. The lightnings, in their dreadful courses, bow to the genius of Franklin. His magic rods, pointed to the skies, still watch the irruptions of the fiery meteors. They seize them by their hissing heads as they dart forth from the dark chambers of the thunders; and cradled infants, half waked by the sudden glare, are seen to curl the cherub smile hard by the spot where the dismal bolts had fallen.
THE END.
