The present was exciting enough. The summer of 1788 brought news of reforms in France conferring rights on non-Catholics. “The arrêt in favour of the non-catholiques gives pleasure here,” Franklin wrote a Paris friend, “not only from its present advantages, but as it is a good step towards general toleration, and to the abolishing in time all party spirit among Christians, and the mischiefs that have so long attended it.” As one who always deplored sectarian intolerance, Franklin was especially gratified. “Thank God, the world is growing wiser and wiser; and as by degrees men are convinced of
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