kes it
amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of
the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.

"I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having
experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me
prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its
continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit
of meriting such goodness. My sentiments on this head you
will see in the copy of an old letter inclosed, which I wrote
in answer to one from an old religionist whom I had relieved
in a paralytic case by electricity, and who, being afraid I
should grow proud upon it, sent me his serious though rather
impertinent caution."

[Signature: John Bigelow]

OF FRANKLIN'S FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE

From the 'Autobiography,' in Bigelow's Edition of Franklin's Works

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England about 1682. The conventicles having been
forbidden by law and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable
men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was
prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy
their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four
children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all
seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his
table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married. I was the
youngest son and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston,
New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of
Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom
honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church history of
that country, entitled 'Magnalia Christi Americana,' as "_a goodly,
learned Englishman_," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard
that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was
printed, which I saw now many years since....

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was
put to the grammar school at eight years of age, my father intending
to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
My early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very
early, as I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of
all his friends that I should certainly make a good scholar,
encouraged him in th