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!".

Then, in addition, he formed rules of conduct and wrote them out and
committed them to memory. The maxims he adopted are old as thought, yet
can never become antiquated, for in morals there is nothing either new or
old, neither can there be.

On that return voyage from England, he inwardly vowed that his first act
on getting ashore would be to find Deborah Read and make peace with her
and his conscience. And true to his vow, he found her, but she was the
wife of another. Her mother believed that Franklin had run away simply to
get rid of her, and the poor girl, dazed and forlorn, bereft of will, had
been induced to marry a man by the name of Rogers, who was a potter and
also a potterer, but who Franklin says was "a very good potter."

After some months, Deborah left the potter, because she did not like to be
reproved with a strap, and went home to her mother.

Franklin was now well in the way of prosperity, aged twenty-four, with a
little printing business, plans plus, and ambitions to spare. He had had
his little fling in life, and had done various things