You must not kill, you must not steal, you must not lie, you
must not slander your neighbor, you must not cheat him in a
bargain.

But there is another platform which not only includes all this, but
which introduces principles of an infinitely higher grade. It is the
platform enforced by Jesus Christ as essential to a life which shall
be pleasing to our Heavenly Father. Our Saviour says, You must love
God in whom you live and move and have your being: you must daily
pray to him with gratitude for the favors you receive. In the great
conflict, raging here below, between sin and holiness, your whole
heart must yearn with the desire that God's "kingdom may come and that
His will may be done on earth as in Heaven." Imitating the example of
your Saviour, who was God manifest in the flesh that by His life He
might show men how to live, you must do everything in your power to
lead your neighbors and friends to love God, to avoid everything in
thought, word, or deed, which you think will be displeasing to Him;
and you must do all in your power to prepare your heart for that world
of purity and love where the spirits of the just are made perfect. No
one can be blind to the fact that these principles are infinitely
above the principles of mere worldly morality. They are not a
substitute for those principles, but an addition to them.

At the age of sixteen, Franklin was disposed to adopt the lower of
these creeds as his rule of life; at times affirming that it was
superior to the teachings of Jesus Christ; while again there would be
the very clear and inconsistent avowal that, in this wicked world,
something more was needed than teachings which he could plainly see
seldom, if ever influenced a lost and degraded man, to be changed
from a Saul of Tarsus to a Paul the Apostle. No one can understand the
peculiar religious and moral character of Benjamin Franklin, without
bearing in mind these distinctions.

CHAPTER II.

_Developments of Character._

Views of the Sabbath--Writings of Collins and
Shaftsbury--The creed of Collins--Franklin at sixteen--The
Courant--Denunciations of the paper--Franklin's mode of
acquiring the art of composition--His success as a
writer--The Editor prosecuted--Benjamin becomes Editor and
Publisher--Jealousy of his brother--The runaway
apprentice--The voyage to New York--Great
disappointment--Eventful Journey to Philadelphia--Gloomy
prosp