Once upon a time Carlyle took Milburn, the blind preacher, out on to Chelsea embankment and showed the sightless man where Franklin plunged into the Thames and swam to Blackfriars Bridge.  “He might have stayed here,” said Thomas Carlyle, “and become a swimming-teacher, but God had other work for him!” Franklin had many opportunities to stop and become a victim of arrested development, but he never embraced the occasion.  He could have stayed in Boston and been a humdrum preacher, or a thrifty sea-captain, or an ordinary printer; or he could have remained in London, and been, like his friend Ralph, a clever writer of doggerel, and a supporter of the political party that would pay the most.

Benjamin Franklin was twenty years old when he returned from England.  The ship was beaten back by headwinds and blown out of her course by blizzards, and becalmed at times, so it took eighty-two days to make the voyage.  A worthy old clergyman tells me this was so ordained and ordered that Benjamin might have time to meditate on the follies of youth and shape his course for the future, and I do not argue the case, for I am quite willing to admit that my friend, the clergyman, has the facts.

Yes, we must be “converted,” “born again,” “regenerated,” or whatever you may be pleased to call it.  Sometimes—­very often—­it is love that reforms a man, sometimes sickness, sometimes sore bereavement.

Doctor Talmage says that with Saint Paul it was a sunstroke, and this may be so, for surely Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians was not in love.  Love forgives to seventy times seven and persecutes nobody.

We do not know just what it was that turned Franklin; he had tried folly—­we know that—­and he just seems to have anticipated Browning and concluded: 

    “It’s wiser being good than bad;
    It’s safer being meek than fierce;
    It’s better being sane than mad.”

On this voyage the young printer was thrust down into the depths and made to wrestle with the powers of darkness; and in the remorse of soul that came over him he made a liturgy to be repeated night and morning, and at midday.  There were many items in this ritual—­all of which were corrected and amended from time to time in after-years.  Here are a few paragraphs that represent the longings and trend of the lad’s heart.  His prayer was: 

“That I may have tenderness for the meek; that I may be kind to my neighbors, good-natured to my companions and hospitable to strangers.  Help me, O God!

“That I may be averse to craft and overreaching, abhor extortion and every kind of weakness and wickedness.  Help me, O God!

“That I may have constant regard to honor and probity; that I may possess an innocent and good conscience, and at length become truly virtuous and magnanimous.  Help me, O God!

“That I may refrain from calumny and detraction; that I may abhor deceit, and avoid lying, envy and fraud, flattery, hatred, malice and ingratitude.  Help me, O God!”.