On the other side of the pulpit (right facing the audience) is another tablet, exactly similar, mounted by a bust of John Quincy Adams, and bearing these inscriptions : ALTERO SECULO. Near this Place Reposes all that could die of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Beside him Lies his partner for fifty years, Son of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams, Daughter of Joshua and Catherine (Nuth) Sixth President of the United States. Born 11 July, 1767, Amidst the storms of civil commotion, For more than half a century, Which restored Peace within her borders. Of eloquent defense of the lessons of his youth, By dying at his post In her great National Council. A Son worthy of his Father, A Citizen shedding glory on his Country, This Christian sought to walk humbly Johnson, Living through many vicissitudes and "Herein is that saying true, one soweth, are entered into their labors." CHAPTER XXVIII. MR. ADAMS'S RELIGION-THE MAN, HIS CHARACTER AND A WRITINGS. S in other things, so in religious matters, Mr. Adams left a tolerably full record of himself. There is, at all events, no need of a shadow of doubt as to the great moral and religious principles and practices of this President of the United States. When referring, in one of his letters, to the apprehensions he entertained as to the success of his engagements to teach school and study law, he wrote: "But I am under much fewer apprehensions than I was when I thought of preaching. The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolic malice, and Calvinistic good-nature, never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching." The following extract from one of his letters in 1756, will serve to show the religious tendencies of his mind, as well as its wide range of thought at the outset of his career, and the principles that largely governed him in life. It is, too, one of the most beautiful passages found in his writings: "But shall I dare to complain and to murmur against Providence for this little punishment, when my very existence, all the pleasure I enjoy now, and all the advantages I have of preparing for hereafter, are expressions of benevolence that I never did and never could deserve? Shall I censure the conduct of that Being who has poured around me a great profusion of those good things that I really want, because He has kept from me other things that might be improper and fatal to me, if I had them? That Being has furnished my body with several senses, and the world around it with objects suitable to gratify them. He has made me an erect figure, and has placed in the most advantageous part of my body the sense of sight. And He has hung in the heavens over my head and spread out in the fields of nature around me, those glorious shows and appearances with which my eyes and my imagination are extremely delighted. I am pleased with the beautiful appearance of the flower, and still more pleased with the prospect of forests and meadows, of verdant fields and mountains covered with flocks; but I am thrown into a kind of transport, when I behold the amazing concave of the heavens, sprinkled and glittering with stars. That Being has bestowed upon some of the vegetable species a fragrance that can almost as agreeably entertain our sense of smell. He has so wonderfully constituted the air we live in, that, by giving it a peculiar kind of vibration, it produces in us as intense sensations of pleasure as the organs of the body can bear, in all the varieties of harmony and concord. But all the provisions that he has made for the gratification of my senses, though very engaging instances of kindness, are much inferior to the provision for the gratification of my nobler powers of intelligence and reason. He has given me reason, to find out the truth and the real design of my existence here, and has made all endeavors to promote that design agreeably to my mind, and attended with a conscious pleasure and complacency. On the contrary He has made a different course of life, a course of impiety and injustice, of malevolence and intemperance, appear shocking and deformed to my reflection. He has made my mind capable of receiving an infinite variety of ideas, from those numerous material objects with which we are environed; and of retaining, compounding, and arranging the various impressions which we receive from these into all the varieties. of picture and of figure. By inquiring into the situation, produce, manufactures, etc., of our own, and by traveling into or reading about other countries, I can gain distinct ideas of almost every thing upon this earth at present; and by looking into history, I can settle in my mind a clear and a comprehensive view of the earth at its creation, of its various changes and revolutions, of its progressive improvement, sudden depopulation by a deluge, and its gradual repeopling; of the growth of several kingdoms and empires, of their wealth and commerce, their wars and politics; of the characters of their principal leading men; of their grandeur and power; their virtues and vices; of their insensible decays at first, and of their swift destruction at last. In fine, we can attend the earth from its nativity, through all the various turns of fortune; through all its successive changes; through all the events that happen on its surface, and all the successive generations of mankind, to the final conflagration, when the whole earth, with its appendages, shall be consumed by the furious element of fire. And after our minds are furnished with this ample store of ideas, far from feeling burdened or overloaded, our thoughts are more free, active, and clear than before, and we are capable of spreading our acquaintance with things much further. Far from being satiated with knowledge, our curiosity is only improved and increased; our thoughts rove beyond the visible diurnal sphere, range through the immeasurable regions of the universe, and lose themselves among a labyrinth of worlds. And not contented with knowing what is, they run into futurity, and search for new employment there. There they can never stop. The wide, the boundless prospect lies before them! Here alone they find objects adequate to their desires. Shall I now presume to complain of my hard fate, when such ample provisions have been made to gratify all my senses, and all the faculties of my soul? God forbid. I am happy, and I will remain so, while health is indulged to me, in spite of all the other adverse circumstances that fortune can place me in." Mr. Adams's religious habits were always of the most exemplary character. After entering upon the practice of his profession, and commencing to travel on his circuit, he scrupulously attended church every Sabbath, and seldom passed a Sabbath without reading some religious work. These things he usually noted with care in his Diary, as well as any reflections on the sermon, and mostly wrote the text in full or gave its place in the Bible. During his first journey to Congress in 1774, he did not travel on the Sabbath, and usually attended church. This practice he continued in his subsequent trips to Philadelphia. In his writings is found the following beautiful language: "One great advantage of the Christian religion is, that it brings the great principle of the law of nature and nations,Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you would that others should do to you,-to the knowledge, belief, and veneration of the whole people. Children, servants, women, and men are all professors in the science of public and private morality. No other institution for education, no kind of political discipline, could diffuse this kind of necessary information, so universally among all ranks and descriptions of citizens. The duties and rights of the man and the citizen are thus taught from early infancy to every creature. The sanctions of a future life are thus added to the observance of civil and political, as well as domestic and private duties. Prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude are thus taught to be the means and conditions of future, as well as present happiness." The following is an extract from a letter to Dr. Rush, dated January 21, 1810:— "I have not seen, but am impatient to see Mr. Cheetham's life of Mr. Paine. His political writings, I am singular enough to believe, have done more harm than his irreligious ones. He understood neither government nor religion. From a malignant heart, he wrote virulent declamations, which the enthusiastic fury of the times intimidated all men, even Mr. Burke, from answering as he ought. His deism, as it appears to me, has promoted rather than retarded the cause of revolution in America, and, indeed, in Europe. His billingsgate, stolen from Blout's Oracles of Reason,' from Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Berenger, etc., will never discredit Christianity, which will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have any thing moral or intellectual left in it. The Christian religion, as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, selfexistent, independent, benevolent, all-powerful, and all-merciful Creator, Perserver, and Father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world. Neither savage nor civilized man, without a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it. Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Prot |