electricity was lightning,
that it was positive and negative, that it could be controlled, that
life could be made safe in the thunder gust, were but the beginning of a
series of triumphs that have come to make messengers of the lightning,
and brought the nations of the world in daily communication with each
other. But the wizardlike Edison has shown that the influences direct
and indirect of that June day of 1752 may have yet only begun. What
magnetism and its currents are to reveal in another century we can not
tell; it fills us with silence and awe to read the prophecies of the
scientists of to-day. The electrical mystery is not only moving us and
all things; we are burning it, we are making it medicine, health, life.
What may it not some day reveal in regard to a spiritual body or the
human soul?

The centuries to come can only reveal what will be the end of Franklin's
discovery that lightning might be controlled to become the protector and
the servant of man. Even his imagination could hardly have forecast the
achievements which the imp of the magical bottle would one day
accomplish in this blind world. It is not that lightning is electricity,
but that electricity is subject to laws, that has made the fiery
substance the wonder-worker of the age.

If Uncle Ben, the poet, could have seen this day, how would his heart
have rejoiced!

Jane Mecom--Jenny--heard of the fame of her brother by every paper
brought by the post. She delighted to tell her old mother the weekly
news about Benjamin. One day, when he had received honors from one of
the great scientific societies, Abiah said to her daughter:

"You helped Ben in his early days--I can see now that you did."

"How, mother?"

"By believing in him when hardly any one else did. We build up people by
believing in them. My dim eyes see it all now. I love to think of the
past," she continued, "when you and Ben were so happy together--the days
of Uncle Benjamin. I love to think of the old family Thanksgivings. What
wonderful days were those when the old clock-cleaner came! How he took
the dumb, dusty clock to pieces, and laid it out on the table! How Ben
would say, 'you can never make that clock tick again!' and you, Jenny,
whose faith never failed, would answer, 'Yes, Ben, he can!' How the old
man would break open a walnut and extract the oil from the meat, and
apply it with a feather to the little axles of the wheels, and then put
the works together, and the clock