After his marriage Franklin gave up what bad habits he had acquired, though he never lost his enjoyment of society.  He was what used to be called “a good liver,” and took but little exercise, thus laying the foundation for gout, a disease which tormented him in the decline of life.  He also somewhat amended his religious creed, and avowed his belief in a superintending Providence and his own moral accountability to God, discharging conscientiously the duties to be logically deduced from these beliefs,—­submission to the Divine will, and kindly acts to his neighbors.  He was benevolent, sincere, and just in his dealings, abhorring deceit, flattery, falsehood, injustice, and all dishonesty.

From this time Franklin rapidly gained in public esteem for his integrity, his sagacity, and his unrivalled good sense.  His humor, wit, and conversational ability caused his society to be universally sought.  He was a good judge of books for his infant library, and he took a great interest in everything connected with education.  He was the life of his literary club, and made reading fashionable among the Quakers, who composed the leading citizens of the town,—­a people tolerant but narrow, frugal but appreciative of things good to eat, kind-hearted but not remarkable for generosity, except to the poor of their own denomination, law-abiding but not progressive, modest and unassuming but conscious and conceited, as most self-educated people are.  It is a wonder that a self-educated man like Franklin was so broad and liberal in all his views,—­an impersonation of good nature and catholicity, ever open to new convictions, and respectful of opinions he did not share, provoking mirth and jollity, yet never disturbing the placidity of a social gathering by irritating sarcasm.

Franklin’s newspaper gave him prodigious influence, both social and political, in the infancy of journalism.  It was universally admitted to be the best in the country.  Its circulation rapidly increased, and it was well managed financially.  James Parton tells us that Franklin “originated the modern system of business advertising.”  His essays, or articles, as we now call them, had great point, vivacity, and wit, and soon became famous; they thus prepared the way for his almanac,—­originally entitled “Richard Saunders,” and selling for five-pence.  The sayings of “Poor Richard” in this little publication combined more wisdom and good sense in a brief compass than any other book published in America during the eighteenth century.  It reached the firesides of almost every hamlet in the colonies.  The New England divines thought them deficient in spirituality, rather worldly in their form, and useful only in helping people to get on in their daily pursuits.  But the eighteenth century was not a spiritual age, in comparison with the age which preceded it, either in Europe or America.  The acute and exhaustive treatises of the seventeenth century on God, on “fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge