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Ben Franklin’s 320th birthday is January, 17. He was born in 1706. This piece is excerpted from Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War by Jane Hampton Cook.
When the young businessman rolled his wheelbarrow through the streets of colonial Philadelphia in the 1730s, he hoped people would take notice. Benjamin Franklin wasn’t merely showing off his wheels. He wanted his neighbors to observe his hands on the handlebar. They were symbols of something close to his heart: his diligence. After all, if people saw him working hard, then they might trust him with their business. Here’s how Franklin described it:
“To show that I was not above my business I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas’d at the stores thro’ the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem’d an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly,” he reflected years later.
Franklin learned his diligent work ethic from his father, who frequently cited Proverbs 22:29 (KJV): “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”
Franklin took his father’s philosophy to heart and turned it into a motto. “I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encourag’d me, tho’ I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner,” Franklin wrote in his memoirs.
With his conscientious compass set, Franklin became a print-maker and a postmaster. In addition, this entrepreneur was always tinkering with new inventions. He was so mindful about paying off his debts, especially his printing house mortgage, he wore the wardrobe of a saver, not a spender. “In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly,” he wrote.
Franklin also avoided any appearance of laziness. “I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch’d me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal,” he jested.
His hard work and reading made him a renaissance man, accomplished in science, literature, business, politics, and diplomacy. Diligence was possibly Benjamin Franklin’s strongest character trait throughout his eighty-four years. And while not every hardworking person meets five kings, diligence and conscientiousness are still valued today by the King of kings.[i]
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men” (Proverbs 22:29).
Prayer: Give me the strength today to work diligently as if for a king. And although my labor may not bring me recognition by others, help me take satisfaction in knowing that you value hard work.
[i] Benjamin Franklin, “A Man Diligent in his Calling, 1729–1732,” in American History Told by Contemporaries, ed. Albert Bushnell Hart, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1902), Vol. 3, 229–35.
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