. Franklin; and instead of lulling him to
sleep, it roused him to a display of the powers of his memory
and his reason. He repeated several of Watts's 'Lyric Poems,'
and descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of them
and of their pious author. It is natural for us to wish that
an attention to some ceremonies had accompanied that religion
of the heart which I am convinced Dr. Franklin always
possessed; but let us who feel the benefit of them continue
to practice them, without thinking lightly of that piety
which could support pain without a murmur, and meet death
without terror."

Franklin made a somewhat more definite statement of his views on the
subject of religion, in reply to an inquiry from President Styles of
Yale College, who expressed a desire to know his opinion of Jesus of
Nazareth. Franklin's reply was written the last year of his life, and
in the eighty-fourth of his age:--

"You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first
time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your
curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify
it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of
the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he
ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we
render to him is doing good to his other children. That the
soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in
another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to
be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard
them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly
desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he
left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to
see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting
changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in
England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a
question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it,
and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I
expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less
trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if
that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of
making his doctrines more respected and more observed;
especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme ta