Men have often contended for right, and started enterprises, the
results of which the divinest prophet could never have foretold. When
John Pounds, the poor Portsmouth shoemaker, with a passion for doing
good to those who needed it most, gathered a few street-arabs into his
shanty to teach them something good, while he hammered his leather and
mended shoes, he did not dream that he was inaugurating a benevolent
enterprise that would spread throughout the Christian world. But he
did, and to-day the fifteen millions of old and young in the Sabbath
schools of our Republic are but the growth and development he began in
his shop. In like manner, the Franklin brothers inaugurated a measure
that culminated in the complete freedom of the press.
[1] Parton's Life of Franklin, vol. i, p. 88.
XVI.
THE BOY EDITOR.
For six months the _Courant_ continued its attacks upon the
government, after the editor came out of prison. It took up also, the
inconsistencies of church members, and discussed them with great
plainness. But the number of the paper for Jan. 14, 1723, was too much
for aristocratic flesh and blood, and almost too much for blood that
was not aristocratic. The Council was incensed, and adopted the
following order:
"IN COUNCIL, Jan. 14, 1723.
"WHEREAS, The paper, called _The New England Courant_ of this day's
date, contains many passages in which the Holy Scriptures are
perverted, and the Civil Government, Ministers, and People of the
Province highly reflected on,
"_Ordered_, That William Tailer, Samuel Sewell, and Penn Townsend,
Esqrs.
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