He had also become, as he
remains to-day, America's most widely read colonial writer. When he died in
1790, the American Congress and the National Assembly of France went into
mourning.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE-PAGE TO "POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC" FOR
1733]
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.--As an author, Franklin is best known for his
philosophy of the practical and the useful. Jonathan Edwards turned his
attention to the next world; Franklin, to this world. The gulf is as vast
between these two men as if they had lived on different planets. To the end
of his life, Franklin's energies were bent toward improving the conditions
of this mundane existence. He advises honesty, not because an eternal
spiritual law commands it, but because it is the best policy. He needs to
be supplemented by the great spiritual teachers. He must not be despised
for this reason, for the great spiritual forces fail when they neglect the
material foundations imposed on mortals. Franklin was as necessary as
Jonathan Edwards. Franklin knew the importance of those foundation habits,
without which higher morality is not possible. He impressed on men the
necessity of being regular, temperate, industrious, saving, of curbing
desire, and of avoiding vice.
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