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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 85
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considered themselves as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and
were join'd by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him of heterodoxy before
the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan, and
contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we combated for him
a while with some hopes of success. There was much scribbling pro and con upon
the occasion; and finding that, tho' an elegant preacher, he was but a poor
writer, I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or three pamphlets, and one
piece in the Gazette of April, 1735. Those pamphlets, as is generally the case
with controversial writings, tho' eagerly read at the time, were soon out of
vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now exists.
During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause exceedingly. One of our
adversaries having heard him preach a sermon that was much admired, thought he
had somewhere read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search he
found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Reviews, from a
discourse of Dr. Foster's. This detection gave many of our party disgust, who
accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd our more speedy discomfiture in
the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather approv'd his giving us good
sermons compos'd by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the
latter was the practice of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me
that none of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory was such as
enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only. On our
defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune, and I quitted the
congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu'd many years my
subscription for the support of its ministers.
I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much a master of
the French as to be able to read the books with ease. I then undertook the
Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, us'd often to tempt me to
play chess with him. Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare
for study, I at length refus'd to play any more, unless on this condition, that
the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either in parts
of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, etc., which tasks the
vanquish'd was to perform upon honour, before our next meeting. As we play'd
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