21. Fireside Chats
Something happened between Ben and George in the mid-1740s that cemented their relationship. In 1742 and 1743 they were passing acquaintances, both recovering from George’s exhausting tour. Savvy businessmen, they used each other for economic gain, but can we call them friends? Hardly. George was too fanatical. Ben was too skeptical. They’ll join for profitable publishing enterprises, but don’t invite them to the same party.
America itself was recovering from that first tour. Converts were struggling to grow in their newfound commitment. When your faith is forged in a divine lightning strike, what do you do when the fire goes out? In England, John Wesley was using his great organizational skills to form Methodist “societies”—ongoing small groups for Bible study, prayer, and mutual accountability (not unlike the original Holy Club). Whitefield had tried to do the same in America, with limited success. Especially in New England, Christians were divided. Whitefield had criticized the clergy, and they were striking back. Many parishioners were caught in the middle, distrusting the established church but having nothing to replace it. Various revivalists, like the Tennents and over-the-top James Davenport, tried to follow in Whitefield’s train—again, with limited success. Opponents who had kept mum at the height of Whitefield-mania now gained the courage to speak out against him, often sending critical letters and articles to newspapers. Newspapers like the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Ben printed a number of these attacks—not only in the newspaper, but in books, pamphlets, and broadsides. Ever since the dance-hall flap, he had tried to maintain neutrality. He would print whatever served the public interest, and at this point he apparently felt the public needed to sort things out.
This was good for business, of course. Not only was the anti-Whitefield crowd a previously untapped market, but every attack would generate a response—which would also need to be published. Ben played both sides. He sold the controversy.
Some historians have highlighted Franklin’s mercenary qualities in this matter. More than anything, they say, he was a shrewd businessman. That he was, but he was also a public servant who loved a win-win situation, in which he could serve the public and make some money in the process. Ben would have loved the Whitefield controversy—both sides of it—because it got people thinking and talking about religion. It jolted those prissy Anglicans and docile Quakers into action. Ben did all he could to promote good citizenship, and an active religion made good citizens. Whitefield’s theology could be right or wrong, but he had started a chain reaction among the religious folks of America, and Ben wanted to keep that going.
Would George understand and accept Ben’s independence? His journals and letters in this period don’t tell us, but published attacks were nothing new to him. He was used to having enemies. The South Carolina Gazette ran a continuing pro-con debate throughout much of 1740, and the Boston Evening Post printed regular diatribes against him. In England and Scotland he faced angry mobs; his agent, William Seward, was killed by one. So George might not have felt very threatened by mere words on a page printed by B. Franklin.
However, his previous publishing experience had been with a loyal supporter, James Hutton in London, and it would be hard to find a more devoted associate than Seward, who had faithfully managed his press relations. But Seward was now gone, a martyr for the cause. Hutton had shifted his loyalty elsewhere and was now refusing to print Whitefield’s work. Perhaps George viewed the attacks Ben printed as another defection.
In any case, it seems the relationship went silent for several years. In his letter of November 26, 1740, presumably just weeks after a personal meeting, George pushed his evangelistic appeal upon Ben one more time: “Apply to God; be willing to do the divine will, and you shall know it.” There is no recorded reply. In fact, after that, we have no record of communication between them until 1745.1 Ben continued to publish some Whitefield sermons, so there might have been some business transactions, but the friendship lay dormant.
Rekindling
Whitefield had ridden his personal fame back to the British Isles and carried his revival to Scotland. He set up a tabernacle in Moorfields, one of his favorite open-air preaching spots, to accommodate even larger congregations. He bought a magazine and used it to promote his meetings. Yet wherever he went, he continued to spark controversy. Opposition came from all corners—the theater crowd, the established church, even Wesleyan Methodists. Unwittingly he got embroiled in Scottish church politics when a radical Calvinist group claimed him as one of their own and reacted badly when he refused to sever ties with the moderates. Wherever he went, crowds were wildly enthusiastic, but there were angry protests too. He took some protesters to court, and won, but he and his supporters still met with violence. We shouldn’t be surprised that this preacher who passionately called for passionate faith would arouse a full array of passions in his hearers—negative as well as positive.
Planning a return to America in mid-1744, George had to delay the trip as he recovered from injuries sustained in a confrontation with late-night intruders. (His powerful voice, yelling “Murder!” scared them off and probably saved his life.) He finally set off in the closing months of that year, heading straight for Boston, the most contentious of the American cities he had visited.
“Circumstances from without and within now compelled the boy preacher to grow up,” wrote one biographer.2 And these early months of his third American tour show evidence of a new maturity in George as he turned thirty. He made a point of garnering support from the clergy. He apologized for causing division in the churches. He even tried to reconcile with opponents at Harvard. “I have no intention . . . to stir up people against their pastors,” he wrote, and later in the same letter, “I ask public pardon for any rash word I have dropped, or anything I have written or done amiss.”3 This sweeter tone did not quell all opposition, but it greatly improved the situation. From a historical perspective, this reconnection with churches helped make the Great Awakening more than just a passing fancy.
It was probably late summer of 1745 when Ben heard from George again. George was in Boston, coming soon to Philadelphia, but his previous host in the city had moved to Germantown and so he wasn’t sure where he would stay. As Ben related this story in his autobiography, it’s not clear that George was asking for lodging. Surely he had many other friends in Philadelphia who would offer hospitality. He was probably just saying he’d be in town, but he didn’t know where. Surely these two had new business to discuss, so George probably suggested that they meet up.
Ben replied, “You know my house, if you can make shift with its scanty accommodations you will be most heartily welcome.”
It was a sweet response to an old colleague. Perhaps Ben felt he had put enough distance between them at this point. Maybe he liked what he was hearing about a kinder, gentler Whitefield who had been mending fences in New England. Maybe he wanted to mend his own fences with his best client. In any case, this kind offer led to a fascinating exchange, as Ben described it: “He replied, that if I made that kind offer for Christ’s sake, I should not miss of a reward. And I returned, Don’t let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ’s sake, but for your sake.”
This is a classic Franklin witticism, but it’s plump with meaning. Ben himself observed wryly that “knowing it to be the custom of the saints, when they received any favour, to shift the burden of obligation from off their own shoulders, and place it in Heaven, I had contrived to fix it on Earth.”4
George lived in a world of Christian charity, Christian hospitality, Christian duty. Every kindness was a bit of treasure stored in heaven. God would reward the good deeds of the faithful. While Ben appreciated the good deeds of faithful Christians, he focused more on the earthly effects of those deeds. Hospitality made the world a better place—not because there was some divine payoff ahead, but because it led to hospitality in return. Kindness begat kindness, creating a pleasant society.
A mercenary view of Franklin would see here an expectation of quid pro quo: “I’m being nice to you, George, so you’d better give me more sermons to publish.” But with Ben, it’s always both/and. Friendship is a great thing in its own right, but there’s also an exchange involved. Let’s treat each other right—not “for Christ’s sake,” with some eternal reward, but because we see value in being friends here and now. And might Ben also be saying, in subtext, “Stop trying to convert me all the time, just friend me”?
This marked a major step in the restoration and deepening of their friendship. If Whitefield stayed in the Franklin home, he would have had some quality time with Ben—not just a rushed meeting in a print shop, but a relaxed conversation by the fire (or by the new “Pennsylvania stove” that Franklin had recently invented). The differences between them were still great, but now they would be able to understand each other, perhaps to learn from each other. Make no mistake: they were still very busy people. They would not have had a lot of time to lounge, but surely they would have found occasional moments to chat—not working through any particular agenda, but just sharing their lives and thoughts.
Once again, Philadelphia served as a hub for Whitefield’s travels in America from 1744 to 1748. This itinerary was not as well documented as that of the previous trip, but we can piece some of it together. It appears that George first stayed with the Franklins in September 1745, but he was also in Philadelphia most of the summer of 1746, and he came through again in May or June of 1747. It’s unclear whether he continued to stay with the Franklins every time, but it’s reasonable to think he returned there at least occasionally.
Conversation Pieces
So what would they talk about, by the fire, as they unwound from their hectic days?
George’s wife, Elizabeth, accompanied him to America, though she didn’t join him on every leg of his journey. (She had some health problems along the way, so she might have stayed put at the orphanage or elsewhere as George traveled.) Still, she might have joined in some of these Franklin visits. Even if she wasn’t there, Ben would have asked about her, and George would have gotten to know Deborah.
We know from later correspondence that Ben’s sister, Jane Mecom, living in Boston, had become a fan of Whitefield. This was also true of Ben’s brother John, whose wife proudly showed her friends a letter written by Ben about some encounter with George. It’s rather amusing that, while Jane and John took their brilliant brother for granted, they seemed very impressed that he knew the great George Whitefield.
The Franklins and Whitefields would also be united in tragedy. George would still be grieving the death of his four-month-old son, John, in 1743. In addition, Elizabeth had suffered several miscarriages. The Franklins had lost a four-year-old son, Franky, to smallpox in 1736. We can’t assume that George would open up to Ben about such personal misfortune (especially when we see little about it in his correspondence with other friends), but who knows? This might have been an odd role reversal—the skeptic offering grief counseling to the clergyman. Yet, from his own painful experience, the older Franklin might have been able to offer wisdom to the younger Whitefield. Was it also a bittersweet reminder to see little Sally Franklin toddling around the house? Born in 1743, she was the age the Whitefields’ son would have been.
Publishing
Of course the two men would talk shop. But this wasn’t just a printer and his best-selling author; these were two publishing moguls. They were enterprising entrepreneurs revolutionizing the industry. Ideas they shared over the course of their partnership benefited both of them.
Franklin had brought his extraordinary wit into the otherwise mundane field of almanac publishing. He had outpaced two competitors to edit the best newspaper in America’s biggest city. He had made an art of subscription sales, a goof-proof approach to speculative printing. He had assembled a network of printers throughout the colonies for effective distribution of books and news. And he had established a newspaper as an independent, neutral voice, a “fifth estate” that would serve its society as a free marketplace of ideas.
But let’s not overlook Whitefield’s contribution to the fields of publishing and publicity. Stockbroker Seward got him started by advertising his preaching gigs, but Whitefield continued this after Seward’s death, writing news items for local papers and supplying publishers (Franklin, but also others) with sermons and pamphlets to print. George found great success in serializing the publication of sermons and journals, rolling out a bit at a time to maintain interest and to keep the market wanting more. In this he adapted techniques used by the secular press in England. He also pioneered pricing strategies. In 1748 he would write, “I think practical books cannot be too reasonable. The poor must have them cheap, and the rich will like them the better for it.”5
Ben had tried his hand at publishing a magazine for about six months in 1741. Now George had recently bought up a magazine in England, the Weekly History, and retooled it into a widely accessible revival update, delivered to people’s homes at the price of one penny. “And for consumer convenience, the magazine would be made available in pocket size,” wrote Frank Lambert in a study of George’s business skills, noting that this was “perhaps an innovation Whitefield borrowed from Franklin, who produced a pocket-sized version of his almanac.”6
Lambert also notes that Whitefield could have gained his merchandising skills from the time he spent working with his brother James, a sea captain and successful trader. Among George’s close friends in Gloucester were Gabriel Harris, whose father ran the local bookstore, and Robert Raikes, son of the newspaper editor. Unlike other religious leaders of the time, George saw no conflict between faith and commerce. He was in the marketplace, sometimes literally, competing for attention with sellers of other wares.
In 1745 Whitefield was also assembling an impressive network of letter writers who could quickly disseminate news of his revivals to supporters throughout the colonies. This was another innovation in communication, an independent news stream that presaged the Twitterverse of modern times. Two decades later, George would use this network to save the reputation of his friend Ben.
The War with France
The conflict known in America as the French and Indian War did not begin until 1754, part of a worldwide Seven Years’ War between England and France, but tensions had already erupted in North America. England was always at war with France and, despite truces and treaties, would continue to be for quite some time.
As Ben and George sipped tea on Market Street in 1745, one of them had already been swept into the conflict, and the other would get heavily involved later.
The French had built a fortress at Louisbourg at Nova Scotia, from which they harassed some of the sea travel, shipping, and fishing around New England. It was rumored that the French would launch a full-scale attack from there on the British colonies. The colonists decided on a pre-emptive strike. The commanding officer, Colonel Pepperell, was a devout Christian and a friend of George Whitefield. In early 1745, shortly after George arrived in New England, the officer asked the evangelist for help in rallying the troops. Whitefield turned out to be an excellent recruiter, and it should come as no surprise that he gave an effective pep talk to the largest expeditionary force yet assembled in the British colonies. (Ben’s brother John was part of this army.) The powerful preacher likened the walls of Louisbourg to those of the biblical Jericho, formidable but ready to fall before the people of God. (The conflict between England and France was regularly viewed as Protestant vs. Catholic. While Whitefield was notably interdenominational in his revival ministry, that acceptance did not extend beyond Protestants.)
Coming at a time when George was restoring relations in America, this involvement in the war effort helped him greatly. For his role in energizing these troops, he was viewed as an American patriot—especially when the expedition succeeded. On June 17, after an effective siege, the French forces at Louisbourg surrendered. (Three years later, the British gave the fortress back to France in exchange for some Belgian border towns—only to reconquer it in the Seven Years’ War.)
Fundraising for the Orphan House
George and Ben shared an interest in money. Neither could be described as greedy. Both lived rather frugally, considering the vast sums they were responsible for, and yet both seemed fascinated by how money worked. Ben invested in property, business, and various social improvements. George’s project was, of course, the Bethesda Orphan House. He raised a great deal of money in England and America, but the charity swallowed that up. It was a major undertaking—buying land, constructing buildings, hiring staff, and providing food and clothing for the orphans. In a colony with great economic needs, George found it hard to say no to anyone. “We have a house that will hold 100 and hearts that will hold 10,000,” he wrote.7
He kept running the numbers, tweaking the business model, trying to make it work. Could Bethesda grow its own food? Could it employ the residents in making products that could be shipped and sold elsewhere? Later George thought of creating a college on the premises. And how many offerings would he have to collect—and how many sermons would he have to give—to keep this operation solvent?
We must not underestimate the importance of the orphan house to Ben Franklin. As we’ve seen, Ben had his problems with George’s theology of rebirth, and he didn’t share George’s rigorous commitment to abstain from worldly pleasures. The one thing he really loved about George’s ministry was the orphanage. In a letter sometimes connected with Whitefield, Franklin wrote:
The Faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world. . . . But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it: I mean real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon-reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers. . . . Your great Master thought much less of these outward appearances and professions than many of his modern disciples. He preferred the doers of the Word to the mere hearers . . . and those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick.”8
Ben could easily write off George Whitefield as another puritanical preacher—if it weren’t for the orphan house. This ambitious attempt to help the needy validated everything else George said and did. From his own accounts, Ben donated a substantial sum to Bethesda, and he also came up with a great idea. Subscriptions.
Together, they had used this concept for book sales—why not donations? Ben suggested that they publish a general appeal in the newspapers, asking people to commit a regular sum to the orphanage each month. He even wrote an introduction for that appeal, but George rejected the idea. “I thank you heartily for your kind preamble to the subscription,” he wrote to Ben on June 23, 1747. “I only object against its being made public so as to engage persons in America and Great Britain.” He was afraid it would show a lack of confidence in God’s provision. “I think a private subscription among my friends here and elsewhere would raise as much as I want.”9
A number of people did sign up for such a subscription, but the unreliability of the mail kept it from working as well as it should have.
Education
As early as 1743, Ben had discussed with the Junto his dream of starting a college in Philadelphia. His thoughts continued to percolate through that decade, and in 1749 he published a proposal in pamphlet form. He sent this to George, who responded early in 1750 with some thoughts of his own. As you might expect, the two men had different visions of what that college should look like.
While Ben had laid out a broad curriculum of mental, social, and physical education, covering the arts and sciences as well as training in particular professions, George wanted more of Christ in it. He urged Ben to find “proper masters that are acquainted with the world, with themselves, and with God,” and (unsurprisingly) he suggested that a “Christian orator” be employed to help the students with public speaking. His own involvement, he admitted “would be of very little service.”10
As it turned out, George got involved in a roundabout way. Back in 1740, his Philadelphia supporters had put up a building for him to preach in, and he had used it that fall before it even had a roof (in fact, he got snowed out one night) and on his next visits in 1745, 1746, and 1747. It had been intended as a place for Whitefield’s converts to continue meeting even when he wasn’t there, but it had never really caught on in this way. As a result, the association that owned the building (of which Franklin was a board member) was having trouble paying the bills. Now Ben was raising money for a college and looking for a building in Philadelphia to house it. He was able to negotiate a win-win (his specialty): the college would use the building but reserve part of it as a hall for visiting preachers. The school would open in 1751, and it later became the University of Pennsylvania—which now honors both Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield as founders.
This conversation and correspondence about higher education might have planted a desire in George Whitefield that he developed later—the addition of a college to the Bethesda project.
Retirement
During George’s visits in 1747, Ben might have mentioned the next step he planned to take in his career: retirement. His printing business was making a great deal of money. He could live comfortably on half of it—and that’s exactly what he did the following year. Foreman David Hall took over the business after signing an agreement giving Franklin half the profits for the next eighteen years.
The Franklins moved to a larger home at Second and Sassafras (now Race), allowing Hall to move into the house on Market adjoining the shop. Now Ben would have time to pursue new interests—science, inventions, civic leadership, and more. He had been doing all these things already, but now he’d have the time to focus on them. “I am in a fair way of having no other tasks than such as I like to give myself,” he wrote to a friend in 1748, “and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men as are pleased to honour me with their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business.”11 What’s more, he was now a man of leisure. He had always portrayed himself as a common tradesman, and he continued to do so when it suited him, but now—with his wealth and free time—he could almost be considered a gentleman. He had a portrait painted. He learned European languages. And, while he kept writing his almanac, now with the title Poor Richard Improved, it now had a more patronizing tone.
Social status might have been a significant point of connection for these two men, especially now that Franklin was on the verge of stepping up. While both were genuinely humble in character, they shared a sense of upward mobility. Yes, they saw themselves as servants—of God or of the common good—and they worked extremely hard, but both chafed at the haughtiness of certain higher-class “gentlemen” they encountered. Opposition to Whitefield’s ministry was not just theological, but also social. He was bypassing the normal leadership of society and taking his message directly to the people. Clearly this populist spirit was one reason Franklin supported him. In Ben’s case, the aristocrat Thomas Penn, absentee governor of Pennsylvania, was a common object of ire. Ben had already done a thousand times more for the colony; why should Penn have all the power?
In the following years, as George returned to England he would also do some stepping up, largely through the patronage of Lady Selina Hastings. This upper-class widow was a Methodist convert who took a special interest in Whitefield and introduced him to her high-society friends. He dazzled them, just as he had dazzled the coal miners. When Ben heard about this, he sent a letter commending George for the new direction of his ministry. “I am glad to hear that you have frequent opportunities of preaching among the great. If you can gain them to a good and exemplary life, wonderful changes will follow in the manners of the lower ranks.” The upper classes set the style for the general public, Ben observed. There are many who “perhaps fear less the being in Hell, than out of the fashion.”12 This letter might say more about where Ben was, or wanted to be, in the early stages of his retirement than about George’s mission.
Back in 1747, as George kicked off his shoes at Ben’s place, he was thinking of a different kind of retirement. He was exhausted. Doctors soon began urging him to take a break. Surprisingly, he did so, spending a few months of 1748 in Bermuda. Of course he preached there too, but not as often.
Faith
It is inconceivable that George would spend significant time with Ben and not talk about faith in Jesus. This was a frequent part of their correspondence; it would surely get into their conversation. But, given the fact that these two remained friends for several decades without Ben’s conversion, we must assume that they figured out a way to disagree without alienating each other.
Ben discussed theology with a number of his correspondents. Some of these letters give the impression that he was continuing a debate he began with Whitefield—even if he was writing to someone else. In some letters he mentioned George specifically: in one he complained about Whitefield equating deists with atheists. This rankled him, because he thoroughly believed in God—something he had to keep telling his worried sister.13 He just didn’t buy the whole born-again thing.
This conversation would continue for the next twenty years.