private capacity given just cause of offence to any one whatever), yet they are enemies, and very bitter ones; and you must expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you, so that your slightest indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order the more sensibly to wound and afflict me. It is therefore the more necessary for you to be extremely circumspect in all your behaviour, that no advantage may be given to their malevolence.

Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The act of devotion in the common prayer book is your principal business there, and if properly attended to, will do more towards amending the heart than sermons generally can do. For they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be; and therefore I wish you would never miss the prayer days; yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike, for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth. I am the more particular on this head, as you seemed to express a little before I came away some inclination to leave our church, which I would not have you do.

His advice to Sarah was not of the sort that is sometimes given to others and not followed by the giver himself. Franklin always liked a good sermon. He not only had many close personal friends among preachers of various affiliations, but he went to hear them preach. Such a letter as the following to Dr. Richard Price indicates that he had a strong preference for the type of sermon that he should hear from him. Price was a man of a high order of intellect and was widely known in his generation for his writings on political and financial questions. His pamphlet on "Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America," is said to have had a considerable share in determining the Americans to declare their independence. It would be interesting if we could know what Sunday trips Franklin and Sir John Pringle took to various churches about London to hear preachers who represented "rational Christianity." That such trips were made we cannot doubt.

Dear Sir,

TO RICHARD PRICE

Craven Street, Sept. 18, 1772.

Inclos'd I send you Dr. Priestly's last letter.
If he had come to town, and preach'd here

sometimes, I fancy Sir John P. would now and then have been one of his hearers; for he likes his theology as well as his philosophy. Sir John has asked me if I knew where he could go to hear a preacher of rational Christianity. I told him I knew several of them, but did not know where their churches were in town; out of town, I mentioned yours at Newington, and offered to go with him. He agreed to it, but said we should first let you know our intention. I suppose, if nothing in his profession prevents, we may come, if you please, next Sunday; but if you sometimes preach in town, that will be most convenient to him, and I request you would by a line let me know when and where. If there are dissenting preachers of that sort at this end of the town, I wish you would recommend one to me, naming the place of his meeting. And if you please, give me a list of several in different parts of the town, perhaps he may incline to take a round among them. At present I believe he has no view of attending constantly anywhere, but now and then only as it may suit his convenience. . . .

Yours most affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

Franklin's attitude toward churches has been baffling to many because while he evidently is not an ardent adherent of any church, and finds something to criticize in many of them, he is nevertheless a pew holder in a church most of his life and his name appears as a donor to many churches of many different forms of belief.

Nothing could be more wide of the mark than to place him with those who sit in "the seat of the scornful," or to conceive him as courting popularity by his widespread gifts, after the manner of the politician. He had the profoundest respect for religion as religion, but he had a half-amused, half-irritated feeling over the nonessentials that divided men into sects. He was no sectarian. Franklin was scarcely even a thoroughgoing nationalist. He could never be found in the shouting, flag-waving crowd. The great virtues and values that he found in England and France he did not deny or belittle, nor did he ever think to exalt the colonies by deriding the older countries. His attitude was singularly universal. To him a man was a man; a nation was a nation, and a sect was a sect-each a part of a whole and to be valued as such. This explains why he aided so many religious organizations although he

never gave any indication that he was in agreement with them.

An interesting instance of his feeling about creeds and their influence appears in an encounter with the leader of a group of Dunkers. It seems that the Dunkers had been the object of certain scandalous misrepresentations, and Franklin advised their leader to publish a creed that would set the public right as to their belief and observances. The Dunkers objected, saying that they hoped for still further disclosures of truth, and that if they were to print their confession of faith they might feel themselves bound, and confined by it. This attitude greatly impressed Franklin; so much so that he wrote, "This modesty in a sect is perhaps the singular instance in the history of mankind; every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man travelling in foggy weather; those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also people in the fields on each side; but near him all appear clear; though in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them."

Even more than in his gifts, Franklin's fundamental sympathy with religion is evidenced by