James, with Collins, with
Ralph, and now he parted with Keimer in the same way. After an interval
of a few months, during which he was again for a while in the
employment of Keimer, he entered into partnership with one of the
hands, Meredith by name, and in the spring of 1728 started an
independent printing-house.

At this point Franklin interrupts the narrative of his life to give
some account of his religious beliefs, and we will follow his example.
And first of all let us say frankly that Parton, whose work is likely
long to remain the standard biography of Franklin, gives a false color
to the religious experience of his hero. Of regeneration there is in
Franklin no sign, but instead of that a constant growth,--which is far
more wholesome. He was always an amused and skeptical observer of the
revivals and wild enthusiasms kindled by his friend Whitefield and by
the inspired preacher of Northampton. And it is quite absurd to speak
of Franklin as "the consummate Christian of his time." There was in him
none of the emotional nature and little of the spirituality that go to
make the complete Christian. His strength lay in his temperance,
prudence, justice, and courage,--eminently the pagan virtues; and
indeed he was from first to last a great pagan, who lapsed now and then
into the pseudo-religious platitudes of the eighteenth century deists.

His family had early adopted the reformed faith, and had possessed the
courage to continue of this faith through the bloody persecutions of
Queen Mary. Under Charles II. Benjamin's father went a step further,
casting in his lot with the non-conformist Presbyterians; and it was
the persecutions of that society which drove him with his family to
America. Independence, or even recalcitrance, together with broad
toleration of the faith of others, was in the family blood, and
Benjamin continued the good tradition. From revolt against Rome to
revolt against the established English Church, and from this to
complete independence of individual belief, was after all a natural
progression.

Among the books which Franklin had read in Boston were Shaftesbury and
Collins, representative deistical writers of the time, and he had been
led by them, as he says, to doubt "many points of our religious
doctrines." Now there are in religion two elements quite distinct and
at times even antagonistic, though by the ordinary mind they are
commonly seen as blended together. These are the emotional and th