"In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be called by their own Names: _Adam_ was never called _Master_ Adam; we never read of Noah _Esquire_, Lot _Knight_ and _Baronet_, nor the _Right Honourable_ Abraham, Viscount of Mesopotamia, _Baron_ of Canaan; no, no, they were plain Men, honest Country Grasiers, that took care of their Families and Flocks. Moses was a great Prophet, and _Aaron_ a priest of the Lord; but we never read of the _Reverend_ Moses, nor the Right Reverend Father in God Aaron, by Divine Providence, _Lord Arch-Bishop_ of Israel; Thou never sawest _Madam_ Rebecca in the Bible, my _Lady_ Rachel: nor Mary, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the death of _Joseph_, called the Princess Dowager of Nazareth."
This was funny, irreverent, and reckless, and shows a mind entirely out of sympathy with its surroundings. In after-years Franklin wrote several humorous parodies on the Scriptures, but none that was quite so shocking to religious people as this one.
The _Courant_, however, was not again molested; but Franklin quarrelled with his brother James, and was severely beaten by him. Feeling that James dare not make public the secret articles of apprenticeship, he resolved to leave him, and was soon on his way to Philadelphia, as has been already related.
He had been at war with the religion of his native province, and, though not yet eighteen years old, had written most violent attacks upon it. It is not likely that he would have prospered if he had remained in Boston, for the majority of the people were against him and he was entirely out of sympathy with the prevailing tone of thought. He would have become a social outcast devoted to mere abuse and negation. A hundred years afterwards the little party of deists who gave support to the _Courant_ increased so rapidly that their opinions, under the name of Unitarianism, became the most influential religion of Massachusetts.[6] If Franklin had been born in that later time he would doubtless have grown and flourished on his native soil along with Emerson and Channing, Lowell and Holmes, and with them have risen to greatness. But previous to the Revolution his superb faculties, which required the utmost liberty for their expansion, would have been starved and stunted in the atmosphere of intolerance and repression which prevailed in Massachusetts.