Rosicrucian Beacon Magazine - 2013-06 - AMORC

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In Part 1, we were introducedto the life and works ofBenjamin Franklin. In Part2, we discovered more detailsabout the early Rosicruciansin the New World and whathappened to Franklin inEngland and France.In this, the final part, we willdiscover his friendship withThomas Denham, whomFranklin considered as a secondfather, and who introduced himto ‘the inner life’.by Joel DisherPart 3: Another ViewURING THE early months of 1726,Franklin’s thoughts had been turning moreand more toward Philadelphia. He wasobviously becoming dissatisfied with thetrend of his experience in London and had adjusted hisliving and begun to save money for the passage home.Wygate, a young printing-house friend, and Sir WilliamWyndham almost persuaded him to another course ofaction. His Quaker merchant friend, Thomas Denham,however, came forward in this crisis as he had done earlier.He proposed that Franklin return to Philadelphia and bethe clerk in a store which he was opening.Little is known of Thomas Denham beyond whatFranklin reports of him, and yet he seems to have been aconfidant and advisor during this critical time in Franklin’slife. Their first meeting may have been altogetherfortuitous; yet, their deepening friendship could only haveresulted from Franklin’s recognition of his need of such amentor, and from Denham’s realisation that Franklin wasa young man of superb promise.20The Rosicrucian Beacon -- June 2013© Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC
Franklin return’s to Philadelphia.Even from the scant information available, it’splainly evident that Denham was a quiet man, successful,respected and of sound principles. I suspect also that manyof the conclusions Franklin sets down as his own originallystemmed from the observations of this man he so muchrespected. Being in no sense a sentimentalist, Franklinwould have felt, I believe, that he had given sufficientcredit in adopting the ideas espoused by Denham, withoutsaying more.The journal Franklin worked on during the longjourney home in the summer of 1726 when he was just20 years old, bears evidence of the weighty considerationsthat had occupied him for months. They were not matters,it is natural to think, which took root and fruited in hisown mind. They were more likely conclusions drawn fromhis long conversations with this trusted friend.The journal account is as fresh and self-revealingas anything Franklin ever wrote. Life’s purposes are stilltangled, the outcome of that decision is uncertain, andthere are suggestions of perplexity of mind and heart. Yetthere is beyond this a note of something more momentousthan merely a change of occupation. True, the printingtrade was seemingly being abandoned, but there is noindication that Franklin regarded it as Orders whose vowshe was renouncing. There was certainly nothing in theemployment about to be undertaken that would suggestthe necessity for soul-searching either.deeper purpose in the business of living.The close association with this quiet manmust have revealed the working of Providencein ways that momentarily set the youth back onhis heels. Franklin said as much as his utterlyunemotional nature permitted when he wrotethat Denham had been a second father to him.Is it possible that Denham, first attracted bysympathy to an inexperienced youth put uponby a shallow-minded man of the world, came tosee Franklin as one capable and deserving of ageoldcounsel, as a teacher might carefully observea bright and promising student and later call tohim for thorough instruction? When more isknown of Denham, it may be possible to say.The conversations between these twocan hardly have been confined wholly tomatters of business, for then Franklin would haveregarded Denham differently. For one thing, he wouldhave written more openly and objectively about him,setting down his limitations. That he didn’t is significant.There was something in their association patently abovebusiness, something which came out progressively astheir friendship advanced, especially on that memorablevoyage home. Had it been religion, Franklin would havediagnosed it; and the conclusions would have left nodoubt as to where he stood. Converted, he would havesaid so and given his reasons. Unconverted, he wouldA Second FatherFranklin may have suffered twinges of conscience overhis ‘errata’, but it is unlikely he was morbid about them.No more was his practical nature likely to indulge in idlephilosophising. It is more probable that his two yearfriendship with Thomas Denham had begun to reveal aThe precept of Order requiring that every part of business should have its allottedtime, one page in the little book contained the following scheme of employmentfor the twenty-four hours of a natural day.© Supreme Grand Lodge of AMORC The Rosicrucian Beacon -- June 201321
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSJune 2013, Vol 22, No. 3Par
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Rosicrucian Beacon Magazine - 2013-06 - AMORC

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