who usually saw something to remedy in every situation, when he joined the embassy in Paris, according to Parton, at once "objected to the disarrangement of the papers, and very properly addressed himself to the task of putting the embassy in order. He procured letter books and pigeon-holes, and performed a great deal of useful, and perhaps some superfluous, labor, in arranging and rectifying the affairs of the office. In a word, he put the office into red tape."

Fully realizing the need for all the check he could put upon his tendency to neglect the observance of Order in his affairs, Franklin early in life devised a plan to cover the twenty-four hours of the day, as follows:

THE MORNING (5) Rise, wash, and addrefs () Powerful Goodness!

Question. What good fhall I do this day?

Always a deep thinker on all important subjects, Franklin meditated long and earnestly upon that of religion and as a result formulated his own creed, which he said he felt contained the essentials of every known religion. It was as follows:

"That there is one God who made all Things. "That he governs the World by his Providence. "That he ought to be worshipped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving.

"But that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to Man.

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'That the Soul is immortal.

And that God will certainly reward Virtue and punish Vice, either here or hereafter."

Conceiving God to be the fountain of all wisdom, he supplemented his creed with this prayer of his own composition:

"O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase in me that wifdom which difcovers my trueft intereft. Strengthen my refolutions to perform what that wifdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to Thy other children as the only return in my power for Thy continual Favors to me.

CHAP. VII.

In Philadelphia Again as Foreman of
Keimer's Shop.

MR

R. DENHAM set up his store in Water Street. He and his young clerk took living quarters together and for six months everything went along satisfactorily to both. Then both fell ill and although Franklin recovered Mr. Denham did not. The store was taken charge of by his executors and Franklin was under the necessity of finding a new position.

He tried to secure employment as a merchant's clerk, but, nothing offering, he accepted an offer from Samuel Keimer to take charge of his shop, in which was now employed a force of several hands. None was efficient, however, and it was for the

purpose of making them so that Keimer offered Franklin what was at that time a high rate of wages.

Franklin saw that what Keimer evidently had in mind was to employ him until the workmen, two of whom were bound servants, had attained some measure of the skill at the printing trade which Franklin had brought back from London, and then to dispense with the instructor's services. Notwithstanding that fact, however, the foremanship was accepted. The position was made attractive further, by the fact that Keimer closed his shop on Saturday and Sunday, which gave additional time for reading and study.

The new foreman proceeded to set the shop in order and to instruct the workmen. As they increased in usefulness Keimer began to grumble at what he said were the high wages he was paying to Franklin. At the end of the second quarter he demanded a rearrangement at a lower rate of pay. He became dictatorial in his manner, made frequent complaints, and the break finally came over a trivial occurrence which is described in the Autobiography" as follows:

"At length a Trifle snapp'd our connections; for, a great noise happening near the Court-Houfe, Í put my Head out of the window to fee what was the matter. Keimer, being in the ftreet look'd up and saw me, call'd out to me in a loud Voice

and angry Tone to mind my Bufinefs, adding fome reproachful Words, that nettl'd me the more for their publicity, all the Neighbors who were looking out on the fame occafion, being Witnesses how I was treat'd. He came up immediately into the Printing-Houfe, continu'd the Quarrel, high Words paff'd on both fides, he gave me the quarter's Warning we had ftipulat'd, expreffing a wifh that he had not been oblig'd to fo long a Warning. I told him his wifh was unneceffary, for I would leave him that inftant; and so, taking my Hat, walk'd out of doors, defiring Meredith, whom I faw below, to take care of fome things I left, and bring them to my lodgings."

Hugh Meredith, referred to above, is described as a "Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work, honest, sensible, had a great deal of folid Obfervation, was fomething of a Reader, but given to drink." He called upon Franklin in the evening to talk matters over. He disapproved of Franklin's determination to return to Boston, and suggested that they set up a partnership together, saying that his father would furnish the necessary capital as an offset to Franklin's knowledge of printing, on a basis of an equal distribution of the profits. The father being in town, a further consultation was held, with a result that an inventory of a printing shop was given to a merchant with instructions to send it to London to be filled.