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: