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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 94
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whom I allow'd two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more
than thirty thousand. This reconcil'd me to the newspaper accounts of his having
preach'd to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the antient
histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.
By hearing him often, I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly
compos'd, and those which he had often preach'd in the course of his travels.
His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every
accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd
and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not
help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with
that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick. This is an advantage itinerant
preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter can not well improve
their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals.
His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies;
unguarded expressions, and even erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching,
might have been afterwards explain'd or qualifi'd by supposing others that might
have accompani'd them, or they might have been deny'd; but litera scripta monet.
Critics attack'd his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason
as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their encrease; so that I
am of opinion if he had never written any thing, he would have left behind him a
much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case
have been still growing, even after his death, as there being nothing of his
writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his
proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of
excellence as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed.
My business was now continually augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily
easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost
the only one in this and the neighbouring provinces. I experienced, too, the
truth of the observation, "that after getting the first hundred pound, it is
more easy to get the second," money itself being of a prolific nature.
The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was encourag'd to engage in
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