Excerpt from Life of Doctor Franklin

"Franklin appreciated the devout and transcendent labors of such men as Jonathan Edwards, in laying the foundations, and could empty his pockets at the heart-stirring appeals of Whitefield. His friendships, in England and America, were with bishops and divines. The Bishop of St. Asaph, of Sodor and Man, no less than the Methodist Whitefield, were his friends, and he could cast an eye backward with affection and reverence from the glittering salons of Paris to the dark shades of Puritan ancestors. There was a sound vein of piety in his composition, which bore its fruits, nor had French levity, or companionship with the encyclopædists, blunted his religious education. His warning hand, raised to Paine on the eve of his infidel publication, deserves to be remembered." - Duyckinck's Cyclopædia.

"One of the most grateful things in my experience among the middle classes in England, France, and Germany, is, that I have been there recognized as the countryman of Franklin, and by virtue of this, have been often received as a friend." - Goodrich's Recollections of a Lifetime.

"Zealous theologians have attacked the orthodoxy of his creed, casuists have cavilled at the materialism of his ethical precepts, but he was doubtless a good man, he was unquestionably a great man, and he richly merits the title of 'the most useful man of any age' - a title which he would have envied beyond all the gifts of fortune and laurels of fame." - Macaulay.

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