diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has
an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which
seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call
on him again, but my short stay would not admit. We took our leave at
ten, and I retired to my lodgings."

The convention to frame a Constitution for the United States assembled
at this time in Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin was elected to bring his ripe
statesmanship into this great work.

He was a poet in old age. When past eighty he fulfilled one of the hopes
of Uncle Ben. When the Constitution had been adopted by a majority of
the States, the event was celebrated by a grand festival in
Philadelphia. There were a long procession of the trades, an oration,
the booming of cannon, and the ringing of bells. Some twenty thousand
people joined in the festivities. They wanted a poet for the joyful
occasion. Poets were not many in those days. Who should appear? It was
Silence Dogood, the Poor Richard of a generation gone.

To the draft of the Constitution of the United States Benjamin Franklin
placed his signature, and thus again honored his Boston writing-master
of seventy years ago.

But he gave to this august assembly an influence as noble as his
signature to the document that it produced. Franklin had been skeptical
in his youth, and a questioner of religious teachings in other periods
of his life. Mature thought had convinced him of the glory of the
Christian faith, of the doctrine of immortality and the power of prayer.
The deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly were long, and they
were sometimes bitter. In the midst of the debates, the divisions of
opinion and delays, Dr. Franklin arose one day--it was the 28th of June,
1787--and moved

"That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its
blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning
before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of
this city be requested to officiate in that service."

In an address supporting this resolution he said: "I have lived, sir, a
long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of
this truth: _That_ GOD _governs in the affairs of men!_ And if a sparrow
can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an
empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the
Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in
vain th