hom their fathers slew; they shall seek through all the
world for gold of fineness fit to chronicle such names. I cannot wait;
but I will honor such men now, not adjourn the warning of their voice,
and the glory of their example, till another age! The church may cast
out such men; burn them with the torments of an age too refined in its
cruelty to use coarse fagots and the vulgar axe! It is no loss to these
men; but the ruin of the church. I say the Christian church of the
nineteenth century must honor such men, if it would do a church's work;
must take pains to make such men as these, or it is a dead church, with
no claim on us, except that we bury it. A true church will always be
the church of martyrs. The ancients commenced every great work with a
victim! We do not call it so; but the sacrifice is demanded, got ready,
and offered by unconscious priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did
not Christianity begin with a martyrdom?

* * * * *

From "Historic Americans."

=_170._= CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.

His was the morality of a strong, experienced person, who had seen the
folly of wise men, the meanness of proud men, the baseness of honorable
men, and the littleness of great men, and made liberal allowances for
the failures of all men. If the final end to be reached were just, he
did not always inquire about the provisional means which led thither. He
knew that the right line is the shortest distance between two points, in
morals as in mathematics, but yet did not quarrel with such as attained
the point by a crooked line. Such is the habit of politicians,
diplomatists, statesmen, who look on all men as a commander looks on his
soldiers, and does not ask them to join the church or keep their hands
clean, but to stand to their guns and win the battle.

Thus, in the legislature of Pennsylvania, Franklin found great
difficulty in carrying on the necessary measures for military defence,
because a majority of the Assembly were Quakers, who, though friendly
to the success of the revolution founded contrary to their principles,
refused to vote the supplies of war. So he caused them to vote
appropriations to purchase bread, flour, wheat, _or other grain_. The
Government said, "I shall take the money, for I understand very well
their meaning,--other grain is gunpowder." He afterwards moved the
purchase of a fire-engine, saying to his friend, "Nominate me on the
committee, and I will nominate