SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN QUINCY.

BOSTON:

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN.

[ 1848 ]

The text of this and other superb works are available on-line from:

The Willison Politics and Philosophy Resource Center

http://willisoncenter.com/

Reprint and digital file June 8, 2002.

This funeral discourse serves to bring the substantial worth of sound Biblical theology that both Presidents Adams had clearly to the modern reader's mind. We have highlighted some important passages to that fact in bold italics in order to make it easier to find. Again, after reading this work, it would be impossible intellectually to claim a so-called "enlightenment" Deism or Atheism as the crucible of ideas that produced the American Revolution. Nothing could be farther from the truth. From baptism as an infant, to the New England Primer read as a grammer school student (and its Westminster Shorter Catechism), to membership classes one would have participated in to enter into church communion, J.Q. Adams and his contemporaries were well-steeped in Biblical Metaphysics, which in turn shaped their daily activities, "as unto the Lord."

A rather extensive Appendix accompanying the original document furnishes additional character traits which politicians today should emulate!

Willison Ed.

Page numbers in the original are shown in brackets, as thus: [ ]

The following begins the original text:

Voted, That Messrs. Josiah Brigham, Orange Clark, Daniel Baxter and William S. Morton, be a committee to carry the above resolution into effect.

REV. WILLIAM P. LUNT,

The undersigned, selected to communicate the above resolution to you, take great pleasure in performing that service, fully believing, that so beautiful and feeling a tribute to moral worth and greatness deserves our warmest thanks, and that your interesting and truthful illustration of the life and character of him who was "faithful unto death," should not be withheld from the public.

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To Messrs. Josiah Brigham , Orange Clark, Daniel Baxter and William S. Morton ; —

I have received through your hands, accompanied by your note, the Votes passed March 14, 1848, at a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements appointed, in behalf of the inhabitants of the town of Quincy, to superintend the funeral ceremonies at the interment of the late Ex-President JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

In compliance with the request contained in one of those votes, I will at once prepare for publication a copy of the Discourse delivered on the eleventh instant. It affords me satisfaction to be permitted to unite with the Committee of the native place of Mr. Adams, in the performance of what is really a Christian duty, rendering "honor to whom honor is due."

Accept my thanks, gentlemen, for the kind terms in which you have conveyed the votes and wishes of the Committee to which you belong, with assurances of respect and friendship from

The Congressional Committee charged with the interesting, but sorrowful duty of accompanying the remains of their late lamented brother, JOHN Q. ADAMS, to the place of their interment at Quincy, have desired me to solicit from you a copy of your Discourse delivered upon the occasion of his funeral.

Congress has already ordered that twenty thousand copies of the proceedings &c., attending the demise of Mr. Adams, should be printed ; and it would afford the Committee great pleasure to place in the hands of every member of Congress, and as far as possible, in the hands of their constituents, this eloquent tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead.

Could you, at your earliest convenience, transmit a copy of your address to me at Washington, you would greatly gratify the Committee, and particularly oblige,

Rev. Sir, very truly,

F. A. TALLMADGE,

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Quincy, March 17, 1848.

To Hon. F. A. TALLMADGE,

Your favor of the thirteenth instant, requesting, in the name of the Committee appointed by Congress, a copy of the Discourse delivered at the interment of your associate and our fellow. worshiper and fellow-townsman, the late JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, was not received in time for me to reply before you must have Left Boston.

The Committee, appointed to act in behalf of the inhabitants of the native place of Mr. Adams, and to make arrangements for his funeral, had, before the receipt of your kind letter, asked for the publication of the Discourse, and their request had been acceded to, and the manuscript is now in the hands of the printers.

This will not, however, prevent my complying with your wishes, and sending to you at Washington, at the earliest time possible, a copy of the Discourse, to be placed at the disposal of the Committee of which you are Chairman.

I beg you to convey to the several members of the Congressional Committee my grateful respects, and to assure them of the high value I shall ever attach to their approbation of my services on the recent affecting occasion.

With many thanks for the favorable terms in which you do me the honor to express yourself,

I am, Dear Sir,

DISCOURSE.

THE Apostle James uses language similar to that contained in my text, when he declares, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life."

In various modes of speech the Scriptures express the truth, that man’s life on the earth is a probation. Human beings, in this world, are on trial, and their qualities are put to the test. Their patience and confidence in Providence are tested — by what they suffer; their meekness and forbearance — by the wrongs and persecutions to which they are exposed; their general fidelity—by the amount of resistance which they oppose to the temptations that beset them. This trial goes on in the case of each individual, and ceases not until death terminates his probation. The

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"crown of life," which religion holds up in promise, is reserved until death puts an end to human efforts, and allows a fair and conclusive estimate to be made of the merits of those who have striven for that crown. None can be pronounced safe, except "he that endureth to the end"

But the judgments of the world are, in many material respects, different from the judgments of scriptural truth. The world is frequently ready to crown him who exhibits in his conduct some single virtue; who performs some one brilliant or commendable act. Struck with blind admiration of the solitary virtue, the world applauds, and offers a crown. But what security is there for the virtue which has only once or but a few times been practised, which is prompted very likely by sudden impulse, which has no root in a principle implanted in the soul? And how can we know that our own virtue or that of others has this rooted firmness of principle, until repeated trials give assurance of the fact? Religion, therefore, always leaves it as an open and undecided question whether a person is saved, whether he is entitled to the rewards of the perfect state, until death removes the possibility of his lapsing into error and sin. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," — is the declaration of Him who is holy and true.

And there is one other particular in which we may

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contrast the judgment of the world with the righteous judgment of God. The word of God declares that the "crown of life" will be awarded to the "faithful." Now faithfulness implies moral qualities. Not the favorites of fortune; not the gifted possessors of genius; not they who, by descent, are children of Abraham, while they fail to prove their title by showing the only proper vouchers, — the virtues of Abraham reproduced in their own characters; not the great of this world, who "exercise authority" over their fellow-men, who are greeted by their titles of kings, presidents, judges; — not these, without further question, shall, according to the perfect judgment of God, receive the "crown of life," but the "faithful." "The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance." "The memorial of virtue" is pronounced by the wise man to be "immortal. When it is present, men take example at it; and when it is gone, they desire it; it weareth a crown, and triumpheth forever."

And if the rewards of the future life are to be awarded according to moral desert, why should not our judgments of the characters and claims of those who are candidates for our suffrages, whose place in the consideration of the world is to be settled, whose reputation remains to he determined by their contemporaries or by posterity,— why should not our judgments be governed by the same principle? On whose

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head shall we, when called to decide upon the merits of our fellow-men, place the "crown of life?" Shall we not give it to him who has been "faithful unto death?" And the longer death is postponed by a gracious Providence, and the more hazards virtue has incurred by such postponement, is not the merit of the individual thereby enhanced, and are not his claims to distinction and honor proportionably strengthened?

And can any of us question whether the crown would be worthily bestowed, if we were to confer it, with deference to a tribunal higher than ours, upon that individual who has recently fallen, "the beauty of" our "Israel" upon the. "high places" of the land; and whose remains we are now to convey, with all suitable marks of respect and honor, to their final resting-place? The sacred edifice in which we are assembled brings up before the mind the venerable idea of him, who, in the interval between the annual suspension of his public duties, and the time for resuming them, at the capital of the nation, was always found here in his seat, a constant, candid, devout worshiper. With a simplicity of manner truly republican and christian, he walked to the house of God in company with his neighbors; prayed with us at this altar; communed with us at this table of the Lord; meditated with us, a brother with brethren, on that truth which has been revealed by God for human salvation; consented repeatedly to accompany the

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Pastor of this church, as a delegate, to assist in ordinations among the neighboring christian churches, according to our Congregational usages; asked for the prayers of the church in his own afflictions and bereavements; contributed the compositions of his devotional genius to the sacred songs in which we are wont to celebrate the perfections of God; and in every way lent the influence of his example to give increased efficacy to christian truth in the community. [ Bold italics added for emphasis, Willison Ed. ]

It is altogether fit and proper, therefore, that .the lifeless remains of our fellow-christian should be brought here, on their way to the place prepared for the dead; and that, while we express our sympathy with those whose hearts have been most deeply wounded by this providence, we should review his long, useful and illustrious life; recount the principal incidents in his career, although they may be familiar to many who are here present; and draw from the history of his public services and from his well known character, such lessons as may be edifying. That life is full of instruction for the young and for the old. The Scripture word "faithful" is to no one more applicable than to the departed. It is, in truth, the word, by which, more perhaps than by any other in the language, his character may best be described. He was "faithful unto death;" and to him belongs, so far as it is permitted to mortals to decide, the "crown of life"

[12 ]

John Quincy Adams, son of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams, was born, in a house still standing in the near vicinity of that in which his father had been born, within what is now Quincy, and was then Brain-tree, July 11, 1767; and as was usual with our Puritan ancestors, was baptized in the meeting-house of this church, by its Pastor, the Reverend Anthony Wibird, on the day following his birth, according to the entry in the Church Records in Mr. Wibird’s handwriting.

The name of John Quincy, which was given to the infant, had been borne by the maternal great grandfather of Mr. Adams, a man of wealth and deserved consequence in the town and colony, in honor of whom the town of Quincy, when it was separated from the old town of Braintree, and made a distinct corporation, was named, and who was dying when John Quincy Adams came into the world.

This gentleman, whose residence was at Mount Wollaston, within the limits of the town of Quincy, died July 13th, 1767, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a graduate of Harvard College, where (to use the words of an obituary notice which appeared in one* of the two papers which alone constituted the newspaper press of that period in the town of Boston,) "early in life a foundation was laid for his usefulness; it was not long after he received the honors of this Society before he appeared in public

*Boston Post-Boy.

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life. His first appearance was in the militia; he rose from the command of a company to that of a regiment. He was honored with divers civil commissions; those of a common justice of the peace, a special justice, a justice of the quorum, and a justice through the Province, He was early chosen to represent the town of Braintree, and was for a great number of years Speaker of the Honorable house of Representatives, and for many years one of his Majesty’s Council; all which important trusts he discharged with fidelity, honor, and to universal acceptance, ever approving himself a true friend to the interest and prosperity of the Province; a zealous advocate for, and vigorous defender of its liberties and privileges. He had a high sense of his accountableness to the Supreme Governor of the world, for the trusts reposed in him, and studiously avoided an ensnaring dependency on any man, and whatever should tend to lay him under any disadvantage in the discharge of his duty. [ Bold italics added for effect, Willison Ed. ] He was near forty years engaged in the service of the public. Being blessed with an ample fortune, he devoted his time, his faculties, and influence to the service of his country. In private life he was exemplary. He adorned the christian profession by an holy life, a strict observance of the Lord’s day, and a constant attendance upon the public ordinances of religion. In one word, he was a gentleman true to his trust, diligent

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and active in public business, punctual in promises and appointments, just towards all men, and devout towards God."

Such is the character given to the Honorable John Quincy by .his contemporaries. And to all who enjoyed only common opportunities of understanding the qualities that were blended in the character of the venerable Patriot whose remains are before us, it must be plain, that a name and a portion of his fortune were not the only inheritance which descended to the child who was then commencing, from the ancestor who was, at the same time, closing his earthly career. How much importance Mr. Adams attached, through life, to the circumstance in which a portion of his name originated, will appear from his own words, which I am allowed to quote from a letter addressed by him, on the subject, to a friend.

He says; "The house at Mount Wollaston has a peculiar interest to me as the dwelling of my great grandfather, whose name I bear. The incident which gave rise to this circumstance is not without its moral to my heart. He was dying when I was baptized; and his daughter, my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I might receive his name. The fact, recorded by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from

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earth to immortality. These have been among the strongest links of my attachment to the name of Quincy, and have been to me, through life, a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it."

Mr. Adams’s ancestors on the paternal side were worthy specimens of the Puritan emigrants who settled this northern portion of the American continent; who had left "dear England," as they affectionately called their native land, only for the sake of what to them was still dearer, freedom of the mind and soul. And if we separate into distinct parts the aggregate of the blessings which have accrued to the world, from the Christian enterprise, into the wilderness, of those heroic men and women, who, more than two centuries since, ventured their all here for God and for posterity, it is not perhaps too much to say, that no richer, riper fruit has dropped from the tree of the Pilgrims’ planting, than that which has now, alas! been plucked by insatiate Death.

Henry Adams, from whom the venerable man, lately deceased, traced his origin, came to New England early in the seventeenth century, and was probably here when this Christian Church was gathered, in 1639. He was the first town clerk of Braintree; he died October 8th, 1646, and was buried in the neighboring grave-yard, where the "forefathers of the hamlet sleep." Joseph, son of henry Adams, died December 6th, 1694, aged sixty-eight years. Joseph, son of

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Joseph, died February 12th, 1736, at the age of eighty-four years. His son, John, was a deacon of this ancient Church, and died May 25th, 1761, aged seventy years; John Adams, the second President of the United States, was son of the deacon of Brain-tree Church, and died, as is well known, on the fourth of July, 1826, at the advanced age of ninety-one years, just half a century after signing his name to the Declaration of Independence. So that the distinguished individual, who has recently been removed from life, belonged to the fifth generation in regular descent from the first settlers of this part of the country. The epitaph placed, by the first President Adams, upon one of the monuments erected by him in honor of his ancestors, makes mention of "their piety, humility, simplicity, prudence, patience, temperance, frugality, industry, and perseverance;" qualities which were certainly reproduced in the character of their illustrious descendant.

But if the remote stock from which Mr. Adams sprung was favorable to his character, he was even more blessed in his parents. The period, too, when he entered into life, and the circumstances which existed at that particular period, would not fail to make upon an ingenuous nature, a deep, solemn, and permanent impression. The difficulties between the mother country and her colonies on this continent, had commenced, and were assuming, from day to day, a

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more threatening aspect. The spirit of resistance, which had been awakened in the minds of the people by the writings and speeches of the friends of liberty, was fast ripening into acts of resistance. One scene after another of the great drama was unfolded before the young and wondering eyes of our departed friend. Blood was at length shed, and hostilities commenced.

The father is a prominent leader in the ranks of one of the contending parties. lie has quitted his family to attend upon the deliberations of the Continental Congress. The son, left at home with his mother, in the neighborhood of a besieged town; witnessing, as he did, from yonder eminence near his home, the flames of burning Charlestown, on the day, sacred in the national annals, when Warren was giving up his life in the cause of liberty; seeing and hearing, under the roof of his parents, where they were hospitably received, parties of volunteers who were on their way to join the patriot forces near Boston, and listening to the calm and pious counsels of the admirable matron, to whom he delighted through life, to acknowledge his indebtedness, and whom he speaks of, in a letter to a friend, as "my almost adored mother ;" — the son, under these circumstances, must have had kindled in his susceptible nature an enthusiasm which became the inward source of patriotic pulsations that continued through life. Such a childhood was a fit opening of the manhood and the age that followed.

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Nor was it only at home that the youthful Adams received into his soul those impressions which formed the best portion of his education.

In 1778, being then a lad in the eleventh year of his age, he was taken to France by his father, who was sent by Congress as joint commissioner with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, to the French court. The vessel in which they embarked, the frigate Boston, under the command of Captain Tucker, lay at anchor in Nantasket Roads, and a barge was sent for Mr. Adams and his son to the beach back of Mount Wollaston. While abroad, the son was placed at school, and instructed in the French and Latin languages. But his best school was, doubtless, the great world into which he was introduced, and his most valuable lessons, if we except the letters which he received from his mother, must have been derived from the conversations of the distinguished and excellent men to whose society he was admitted. He was especially fond of recalling, at the close of life, the delight he felt, as a boy, in listening to the amusing and instructive conversation of Dr. Franklin, who was a universal favorite with both sexes and with all ages. He returned home with his father the following year, in the French frigate La Sensible, the same vessel that brought the Chevalier de La Luzerne, who came as Minister from France to the United States. They arrived in this country in August, 1779.

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After a short stay at home, the elder Adams was once more despatched to Europe on public business, and the son again accompanied his father. They embarked on the 14th of November, 1779, from Boston, in the French frigate. The vessel was leaky, and was obliged to put into Ferrol, a port in Spain, and from thence they proceeded by land to France, and after a few months to Holland. While they remained in Holland, the son was some time at school in Amsterdam, and afterwards was a student in the University of Leyden.*

In 1781, John Quincy Adams, at that time only fourteen years of age, was placed under the care of the Honorable Francis Dana, who had been appointed Minister from the United States to Russia, and was taken by that gentleman, as his private secretary, to St. Petersburg. There he remained until October, 1782, when he left Mr. Dana, and made the journey alone to Holland, passing through Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, and Bremen. He arrived in Holland, where he joined his father, in April, 1783. He was in Paris when the Treaty of Peace was signed, which took place in September, 1783. After that important

* Mr. Adams was a student at Leyden at the same time when the late Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse was pursuing there his medical studies. Mr. Adams spoke repeatedly of having in his possession a Latin Dictionary, which Dr. Waterhouse gave him while they resided together at Leyden, and which he seemed to value greatly, not only as associated with his early studies, but as the memorial of a friendship which commenced in youth, and was only interrupted by death.

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event which closed the American Revolutionary war, he went over to England with his father, who was the first Minister from this country to the Court of St. James. He was present when George the Third announced from the British throne the termination of the American war; and witnessed the admission of George the Fourth into the house of Lords as Duke of Cornwall.

At the age of eighteen, he returned to his native country, and having been admitted to an advanced standing in Harvard College, at Cambridge, he graduated from that institution, as Bachelor of Arts, with high honor, in 1787. While in England, his father had made inquiries with a view to have his entered at Oxford; but finding that a subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England was indispensable, the advantages promised by a residence at that celebrated seat of learning were conscientiously relinquished. In the same conversation in which Mr. Adams recounted, to the author of this Discourse, the principal events of his life, he adverted to the false reasoning by which David Hartley endeavored to convince his father of the propriety of signing those articles, and of so gaining for his son the privileges of an English University. The articles in question were, it seems, contained in a separate book from that in which the signatures were entered; and this trifling circumstance was sufficient to reconcile

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the mind of such a man as Hartley to subscribing what he could not assent to.

After graduating at Cambridge, Mr. Adams entered the office of the celebrated lawyer, Theophilus Parsons, at that time a resident in Newburyport, and subsequently Chief Justice of this Commonwealth. Having devoted the usual term of three years to preparatory legal studies, he opened an office in Boston, where he continued in the practice of law four years, from 1790 to 1794. An extract from a letter written by him in 1828, will furnish interesting particulars in relation to this period of his life. He says:

"I had long and lingering anxieties in looking forward, doubtful even of my prospects of comfortable subsistence, but acquiring more and more the means of it, till in the last of the four years, the business of my profession yielded me an income more than equal to my expenditures. I had, during three of the four years, not the slightest encouragement or expectation of being engaged in public life, and never was more surprised than when about the 1st of June, 1794, I received a letter from my father, then Vice-President at Philadelphia, informing me, that Mr. Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, had called upon him to say, that President Washington had resolved to nominate me to the Senate as Minister Resident to the Netherlands. From that hour, with two intervals each of about one year, I have been devoted to the

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public service. I have gone through a succession of public trusts, to the greater part of which I have been appointed when distant thousands of miles from the place where the appointment was made. I say it not for vain boasting, but as fact and example —which it is my earnest desire that all my children should follow. I have never sought public trust. But public trust has always sought me. And when invested with it, I have given my whole soul to the fulfillment of its duties.

"You may perhaps inquire what it was that recommended me to the notice of President Washington at so early a period of my life. It was the three numbers of MARCELLUS, published in the Boston Centinel in April, 1793, and the five numbers of COLUMBUS in the same paper, in the winter of 1793 and 1794. They involved the discussion of interesting questions resorting from the Laws of Nations, and which at that moment were of high importance to the system of our public policy. My education and the previous course of my life had naturally turned my attention intensely to the Laws of Nations; and there were few persons in the country, certainly none of my age so conversant with them, and with the controversies arising from them as I had been. My Essays were, no doubt, the more satisfactory to President Washington, because they were devoted to the support of his administration, and rather stemmed than followed the prevailing current of popular opinion."

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From 1794, when Mr. Adams received, from President Washington, the unsolicited appointment of Minister to the Hague, he continued in Europe on public business, in various countries, till 1801, being then recalled by his father, just before the administration of the elder Adams closed. When President Washington was about to retire from office, he appointed Mr. Adams Minister to Portugal; but on his way to Lisbon, he received intelligence that his destination was altered, and was instructed to repair to Berlin. There he continued to reside from November 1797 to April 1801; and while in that country, negotiated an important Treaty of Commerce with the government of Prussia. He also wrote his Letters upon Silesia,* the fruit of a tour in that Province in the latter part of the year 1800. These Letters were first made public in the Port Folio, a periodical magazine published in Philadelphia, and were subsequently collected in a volume.

It was during this period of Mr. Adams’s career, in 1797, that George Washington pronounced him to be "THE MOST VALUABLE PUBLIC CHARACTER WE HAVE ABROAD, AND THE ABLEST OF ALL OUR DIPLOMATIC CORPS."

*The original publication was without the consent or knowledge of the author, which accounts for the free remarks they contain upon certain persons; a freedom which called forth severe censure from a leading English Review. They were, however, highly enough considered to be printed in England, where they were republished, and commended as giving "a faithful picture of the interesting Province of Silesia, by the hand of a gentleman, a scholar, and a statesman." They were also translated into French and German.

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Mr. Adams, soon after his return to this country, in 1801, became a member of the Massachusetts Senate, and in 1803, from the 4th of March, took his seat in the Senate of the United States. This place in the National Councils he held, till he "became," to use his own words, "obnoxious to the Legislature of his native State, from the support which he gave to parts of Mr. Jefferson’s administration;" and in consequence, he resigned his seat in the Senate in March, 1808. From 1806 to 1809, he was Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard College. He was the first to fill the chair of that important Professorship, and in the performance of the duties assigned to him in that office, delivered lectures which were much and generally admired, and which were afterwards published in two volumes.

In the summer of 1809, Mr. Adams was nominated a second time by President Madison, and confirmed as Minister to Russia, his first nomination to that embassy having been defeated in the Senate, and was abroad this time eight years. In Russia he was residing during Napoleon’s expedition into that country, and witnessed the enthusiasm of that people in opposition to the ambitious invader. On one occasion particularly he was present, during that excited period, when thirty thousand Russian peasants marched out in a body, after a most affecting leave-taking with their friends and relatives, to that contest from

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which only about two thousand of their number ever returned.

In 1811, Mr. Adams was selected by Mr. Madison to fill a vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, occasioned by the death of Judge Cushing; but this appointment he saw reason to decline.

His diplomatic services, while at the Court of St. Petersburg, were of the highest value to his country. The friendship of such a stable and powerful government as that of Russia, which his influence did very much to secure, and which has continued uninterrupted to the present time, has been greatly beneficial to the United States. One of the signal results of that friendship was the Emperor Alexander’s offer of mediation, which availed so effectually towards terminating the war of 1812, and restoring peace between England and this country.

Mr. Adams was in Paris when the allied armies entered that capital in 1815. He had been placed at the head of the Commissioners who negotiated at Ghent, in 1814, the Treaty of Peace, which put an end to the second war between Great Britain and the United States; and soon after that important transaction, he repaired to London, where he received from President Madison his commission as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. In this high station, which, by a remarkable coincidence, his father

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had occupied under similar circumstances before him, he remained till 1817, when he was called home, to fill the first place in the Cabinet of President Munroe. He discharged the duties of Secretary of State during the eight successive years of Mr. Munroe’s administration with acknowledged ability, laborious fidelity, and eminent success. Under his able and wise management of the foreign affairs of the country, the claims on Spain were settled, the national territory was enlarged by the acquisition of Florida, and the independence of the South American republics was recognized.

Before his own accession to the Presidency, therefore, there had been confided to Mr. Adams a succession of the most honorable and responsible public trusts, by every administration, with one exception, from the period of the organization of the general government; and during the greater part of the administration of Mr. Jefferson, from whom he received no appointment, he was a Senator in Congress from his native State. With the splendid qualifications that resulted from such a preparatory discipline, with the mature and comprehensive wisdom gathered on such a wide field of observation, study and action, with a patriotism and integrity which, amidst the temptations of official life, must have often been solicited, but had never been seduced, he was, in 1825, elevated to the head of the nation.

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In what manner he filled that exalted office, impartial history, to which he ever confidently appealed, will record. That he had most determined opposition to encounter is certain. That that opposition succeeded in his overthrow is also certain. That his mind, which valued highly "the praise of the wise and good," was bitterly sensible to the injustice he had experienced, his own words will help us to conceive. In a letter, written not long after he left the Presidency, he says:

"One of the most pathetic and terrible passages in that masterpiece of Shakspeare and of the Drama, is that exclamation of the dying Hamlet,—

"0 God Horatio, what a wounded name,

I cannot describe to you the thrill with which I first read those lines, generalizing the thought as one of the melancholy conditions of human life and death; nor say to you how often, in the course of my long career, I have applied those lines to myself. My name, conduct, and character have been many years open to the constant inspection of a large portion of the civilized world. Of that portion whose notice they have attracted, I am deeply conscious that the estimate they have formed of me has been and is neither just nor kind."

But it is equally certain, that, between the time when the words just quoted were penned, and his death,

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he lived long enough to have his name vindicated. He continued on the stage of action till he could put his ear to the confessional of posterity, and hear much that must have gratified a mind conscious of high aims and patriotic endeavors.

Having served his term of four years as President, and failing of being reelected, Mr. Adams retired for a season from public life. But his retirement was of brief duration; for in 1831 he once more put on the harness, appeared before the country and the world in a new field of action, and commenced, what, on many accounts, may well be regarded as the most remarkable period of his whole career. He served ten successive years as Representative in. Congress from the Twelfth Congressional District of Massachusetts, until, in 1841, upon a new distribution of political power,. he was chosen to represent the Eighth District of his native Commonwealth. In that capacity he was serving, when "death found him," to use the words of one * of his eulogists in the national senate, "at the post of duty ; — and where else could it have found him, at any stage of its career, for the fifty years of his illustrious public life?"

On Monday, February 21st, in this year of Christ 1848, while in his seat and attending as usual to his

* Hon. Mr. Benton, of Missouri.

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duties in the House, to which he belonged, he was seized suddenly with paralysis, which left him only the consciousness that it was for him "THE LAST OF EARTH." He remained in an insensible state till Wednesday, February 23d, at seven o’clock, afternoon, when, in the eighty-first year of his age, the spirit which had so long animated his mortal frame passed away.

"He gave his honors to the world again,

"His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace." —

"And to add greater honors to his age,

"Than man could give him, he died, fearing God."

Mr. Adams must be pronounced happy in the circumstances of his death, as his course through life had been marked and glorious. No excesses of a profligate youth, no vices of middle life had shattered and hurried to a premature dissolution the body in which such an incorruptible spirit resided. Nothing in his habits of life interfered with Nature, to whose gentle influences it was left to destroy gradually, and to restore, in a good old age, to its parent dust, the perishable part of our friend. The law of mortality, which knows no exception among the passing generations of our race, was executed in his case with as much tenderness and reserve, so to speak, as is ever permitted by Providence. The Angel of death came to him, a year before his departure, with a summons, which seemed to anxious friends to be peremptory and final. But we can imagine an expression

[ 30 ]

of reluctance in the angel’s face, as she turned away and kindly said, NOT YET. And there is reason to believe, that the year which was thus spared to the venerable Patriot has been a happy one. It was, in fact, the Indian summer of his life.

He was not left to be an object of compassion to friends and admirers. No painful contrasts forced them to revert in memory to better days. But with a mind unimpaired; with an interest in life unabated; with a cheerful relish of the same simple pleasures that he had ever enjoyed; with a self-command which protracted sickness had not destroyed; with a heart still warm and open to the impressions of nature and the universe; with an eye that still ranged with delight through the starry spaces, or watched the intricate and intervolved orbits of men’s passions and opinions on the nearer theatre of political, social, and religious life upon the earth; on the chosen field of his labors; in the place where his best services to his country had been rendered, and his noblest triumphs had been won; ministered to by the representatives of the nation, from North, South, East, and West, he passed to his rest. The Angel of death, when she came again to execute her office, left him only the consciousness that it was "the last of earth;" then drew a veil of oblivion over his faculties, and sat beside his couch two days, before the cord that bound him to this world was severed.

[ 31 ]

An English poet makes the first man ask of the angel, who is supposed to foreshow the future condition and destiny of his race, with regard to death;

Adam. "Is there no smooth descent? no painless way Of kindly mixing with our native clay?"

Raphael. "There is—but rarely shall that path be trod,

I shall not presume, on this occasion, to judge of the character of Mr. Adams, or to settle his claims as a scholar, a statesman, or a philosopher. I leave that task to others more competent for the office. The same principle which governs in criminal trials should also be adopted in judging of merit, absolute or relative, in any of the great departments of theoretical or practical life. Let a man be tried by his peers. To his peers, if they can be found, I leave the departed. The remainder of the discourse shall be devoted to the humbler work of pointing out certain obvious

[ 32 ]

features in his life, and in drawing from that life some of the christian lessons which it is so well adapted to inculcate and enforce.

And I think no one will dissent from the statement that the life which has recently been closed was an eminently useful life. Mr. Adams has not lived for himself. His great powers; his affluent resources; his abundant learning; his memory, which held with a tenacious grasp whatever had once passed into the treasury of his mind; his commanding influence beyond, probably, what any individual among his contemporary countrymen has ever exercised over public opinion; his dreaded controversial skill, which, like the mill-stone in Scripture, was fatal alike to those on whom it fell, and to those who fell upon it; the numerous offices which he has filled, from the time when, as a lad, he went to St. Petersburg as private Secretary to the Minister to that Court, through more than fifty years of public service abroad and at home, down to the very moment of his death ; — all these gifts, native and acquired, have been used by him to promote the welfare of his country and of mankind. He has been, what the Scripture declares the good magistrate to be, "a minister of God for good" to his native land. [ Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed. ] In peace and in war; in foreign courts contending against the insolence of power, and threading the labyrinth of political intrigue; in forming treaties upon which the fortunes and lives of thousands depended;

[ 33 ]

in adjusting territorial boundaries, and negotiating for an extension of our national domain; in guiding the ship of state, often amidst shoals and rocks and with a crew half disposed to mutiny; in maturing and carrying into execution, so far as he was allowed to do it, a wise prospective national policy; in efforts to promote the cause of education, of science, of freedom, of morals, of religion ; — he has lived for others; he has laid upon the altar of his country and his God his exalted talents. And this trait in his character is to be in a great measure traced to the counsels of that admirable mother, that more than Roman, that Christian matron, who stamped upon his impressible mind the image of her own virtues, and who charged him, from a child, to consecrate his faculties to his country and to his Creator.

And it adds to our estimate of his usefulness, that he united, which is rarely done, a life of contemplation and a life of action. He studied principles in the abstract, as they are collected, systematized and explained in books; and he was also perfectly familiar with the world’s business. He was profound in the one, and skilful, sagacious, methodical in the other. He had investigated that ideal truth, which philosophers in every age have sought for in their reasonings or in their dreams; and he was acquainted too with truth, as it presents itself to the practical man, who is called to do a portion of the work of life, not in

[ 34 ]

the best way he can imagine it might and should be done, but in the only way it can be done amidst the passions of society.

In this particular Mr. Adams illustrated, in his own character, the remark of Lord Bacon, that "knowledge is never so dignified and exalted, as when contemplation and action are nearly and strongly conjoined together." The man of mere learning, who employs his days and nights in amassing the ideas of others, may overload his own intellect, and bring nothing to pass. His habit of abstract study, of generalization, removes him out of the real world, makes him a companion of shadows, blinds him to the actual exigencies of life, and unfits him for a useful, energetic, and successful exercise and application of his powers. Mr. Adams was not encumbered by any such useless idealism, although a remarkably learned man. He had been educated not in the closet alone, but among men, and in the midst of affairs. He went into the world with book in hand, and was thus able to correct his speculations by observation and experience. To borrow the words of one * who offered, on the floor of Congress, a most eloquent tribute to his memory, "his was not the dreamy life of the schools; but he leaped into the arena of activity, to run a career of glorious emulation with the gifted spirits of the earth."

* Hon. Mr. Holmes, of South Carolina.

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But if it is true that Mr. Adams was not a mere man of learning, it is equally true and worthy of notice, that he was not a mere man of action and official routine. He did not reduce life to a mechanical performance of a certain amount of hand-work. It is a part of his glory that he carried principles and especially moral principles into public life. He did not adopt the mischievous maxim, that "in politics, all is fair." He did not allow himself to do whatever popular sentiment, often quite lax in regard to men’s public conduct, will permit or wink at. His morality was not the morality of expediency. He was not content with institutions and usages merely because they were established, He would bring them all to the standard of Christian right, of justice, of absolute truth, of God’s law. To him belongs the high distinction of a Christian statesman. [ Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed. ]

Who, it may safely be demanded, among the public men of our country and times, so worthy to be held up as a model before the youth of the land? Shall we go back to buried ages and to Pagan history, in search of an ideal model of the true statesman, when we have had among us one, upon whom death has but just laid his icy hand, greater, purer, better than pagan antiquity can boast? Mr. Adams’s character is no exotic; it is the genuine growth and product of the North American soil, composed of elements indigenous to that soil, blending in one harmonious and glorious whole those virtues which can alone give strength,

[ 36 ]

permanence, grace to the Republic. Let young America be fashioned and moulded by this noble pattern. Let the fresh generation that is coming on to serve their country, to occupy her high posts of honor, to go on her errands to other lands, or to execute her laws at home, study his character, emulate his pure fame, adopt his principles, drink in, from his fulness, the spirit of truth, liberty and virtue, which was the breath of his life. Then will the Republic be safe. Then shall our country fulfil the high and glorious destiny to which an almighty Providence invites her.

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life; his sense of the efficacy of prayer; his exalted idea of the person, mission, and offices of the Savior; his conviction of the need of spiritual influences ; —all bear testimony to the religious character of his mind. [ Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed. ]

I hope I do not offend the dead when I say, that my own mind has never been more solemnly impressed than when, on a visit to him to inquire for the health of one of his family, he requested me, to go with him to his private room, and unite in prayer. The memory of that scene, as we bowed together in supplication, in behalf of the child then dying under his roof, will, I am sure, never be effaced from my mind, but will perpetuate the conviction, which was then, if not created, strengthened, of the simple, genuine piety of the man.

In 1826, while he was President of the United States, Mr. Adams united himself to this Church, to which his ancestors, from the first settlement of the country, had, in their day and generation, belonged; and to his death, he was a true friend of this religious society, and a consistent, exemplary member of our Christian communion. Eighty-one years have elapsed since he was brought, an unconscious infant, to the font of this ancient church, to be baptized by a pastor of former days. Once again we see him brought hither, but alas! more unconscious still, before he shall be gathered to his fathers. He passed within

[ 38 ]

the veil. His spirit has returned to God who gave it. To use his own beautiful words, when speaking of himself in connection with a venerable contemporary* still among the living, "Like birds of passage, he has winged his flight to a more genial clime."

We shall miss him, we know not yet how much. But his memory remains with us, — that we will cherish. I-us noble and useful life remains,— that we will study. His Christian example survives, —that we will endeavor to imitate.

I cannot bring to a close the remarks suggested by this occasion, without claiming the privilege, and performing the duty, of which this seems to be the fitting time, if only the organ of its performance were fit also, of addressing a few words to the large Committee, who have been charged, by the Chamber to which the venerated dead belonged, to accompany his remains to the place of interment.

GENTLEMEN, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NATION, your mission has been a mournful, and yet a glorious one. And I venture to say that in no stage of your progress to this place, where, at the grave of Adams, your mission closes, have you met with aught but the most accordant sympathy. You bring us our friend, not as we could have wished he should return to the scenes so familiar and dear to his heart. But

* Hon. Albert Gallatin.

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the all-wise Providence of Heaven has ordained it to be thus; and we will not murmur against God. The Savior’s words to his chief apostle were, "When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old, another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." These sadly prophetic, words of the Blessed One, although originally intended to "signify what manner of death his apostle should die," and therefore not, in that primary sense, applicable to him who lies insensible before us, are yet, when used in a general sense, strikingly descriptive of the contrast between strong and self-sustained youth,. and the utter helplessness to which the strongest are sure to be reduced at last.

There is a sacredness attached, Gentlemen, by the imagination, to your errand. You come, like Joseph and his brethren, the twelve tribes of Israel, to bury one of the Fathers of the land in the grave which he had prepared for himself, among his own people, in this north country. We receive, with profound sensibility, these sacred relics from your hands. We thank you for your labor of love. In the name, first and foremost, of the little band of Christian brothers and sisters to whom this departed servant of the Republic was united in full Church Communion, according to the usages of our Congregational Churches; in the name of the religious Society of which our

[ 40 ]

friend was a member, and with whom he as constantly and punctually worshiped, in the seat now vacant, as you know his attendance to have been punctual and constant in the house to which you belong; in the name of the inhabitants of this town, the place of his nativity; of his immediate constituents, many of whom are around you; of the citizens of his own State of Massachusetts, represented, on this occasion, not only by the Executive and Legislative branches of her government, but by this vast throng of her people ; — I presume to speak, and beg you to accept, through even so humble an instrument, the gratitude which all hearts feel, for the love and respect which you have manifested for one so dear and venerable, to us all. From each State and Territory of our glorious Union, you have gathered here on this occasion, as if to fulfil, to the letter, the language of one* with whom you are associated in public duties. "It is not for Massachusetts to mourn alone. Her sister commonwealths gather to her side in this hour of her affliction, and, intertwining their arms with hers, they bend together over the bier of her illustrious son."

*Hon. Mr. McDowell, of Virginia.

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Church, first saw the light. In the neighboring grave-yard, where you are soon to leave your precious charge, may be seen the tomb and monument of Josiah Quincy, Jr., who lived only long enough to witness the breaking dawn of our nation’s day. In the pews where you sit, you see, in the book used by us in our Christian devotions, hymns composed by our departed fellow-christian. He who had occupied the throne of the people was, like the Hebrew monarch, also a Psalmist in our Israel. About a mile distant, to the south, from the place where we are assembled, may be seen two simple and modest buildings, standing in near vicinity, side by side, in one of which John Adams and in the other John Quincy Adams, two Presidents of the United States, were born. As you entered this Temple, you passed over the sleeping dust of the parents of him whom you have come to lay by their side. To the east, at a little distance, is the ridge, familiarly called Mount Wollaston, from the shore beyond which the elder Adams, then in the maturity of life, with his son, a lad of eleven years, embarked on his first mission, to solicit foreign aid in establishing the independence of our country. [ Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed. ]

Seventy years have elapsed since that point of time. But what miracles of beneficent and glorious, social and political change have been wrought in that interval! When the friend, whom we are assembled

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to bury, embarked with his father from Mount Wollaston, what was his country? Had he a country? The inscription on this coffin-lid, so simple, so comprehensive, answers the questions. He was "born an inhabitant of Massachusetts." How is it now? "He died a citizen of the United States." What a creation has been effected in that interval of seventy years! What an empire has the departed Patriot witnessed, springing into life, and "rejoicing like a strong man to run a race!"

When the career of the illustrious dead commenced, what interest, I pray you, had the inhabitants of this region in your mighty Mississippi, which now rolls its majestic tide between States? It belonged then to the countrymen of de Soto and Cortes. The beautiful Ohio was but the pathway for Canadian boatmen on their passage to the Gulf. No Anglo-Saxon settlement had as yet been made on the banks of the Ouisconsin. The florid regions of our extreme South were almost as unknown and romantic a territory, as when Juan Ponce de Leon sought there for the fountain that was to restore to his veteran limbs the freshness and vigor of youth. The vast prairies of the West, where towns and cities may now be seen, were then but wildernesses of verdure, the parks of Nature where the red nobles of the land hunted their game. The shores of the Pacific, which we have recently been surveying with our

[ 43 ]

battle-ships and war-parties, and where we are now busy drawing the line of our Western frontier, were almost as much a terra incognita to the American colonists as the whole Western Continent was to Columbus before his discovery. Only thirteen colonies, scattered along this Atlantic coast, comprised the territory possessed by Englishmen. What a marvellous change to have been effected in the course of a single life! When we attempt to conceive of what we know to have been accomplished, it seems as if the Muse of history had resigned her office to the Muse of poetry. Seventy years ago, the youth departs from these shores in the cause of a country which had yet hardly a name to live among the nations of the earth. And to-day you come hither, the representatives of twenty-nine Commonwealths, belonging to an Empire Union, to convey the remains of that boy without a country to his tomb in the midst of twenty millions of freemen. Where in history can you find so glorious a destiny assigned to a single life? Where in the range of fiction a more splendid series of marvels, brought within the experience of imaginary heroes?

You will not fail, Gentlemen, to carry with you to your distant homes, the lessons which this occasion, with its associated thoughts, however poorly expressed by me, must teach. Will you allow me, in parting, to say, that the chief lesson is a religious one,—

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"Be thou faithful unto death; and I will give thee a crown of life."

The duties of this occasion are nearly completed. When one more hymn shall have been chanted, let us rise up, and take these remains of the patriarch, and bury him with his fathers. There may he rest in peace till the resurrection at the last day.

 APPENDIX.

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PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING IN QUINCY.

At a meeting of the citizens of the town of Quincy, holden February 28, 1848, for the purpose of

adopting such measures as might be deemed proper to testify their respect to the memory of their

late distinguished townsman, the Honorable John Quincy Adams ;— The meeting was

organized by the choice of Hon. Thomas Greenleaf as Chairman, and Israel W. Munroe as

Secretary. A Committee was chosen, consisting of Hon. Thomas Greenleaf, Noah Curtis Esq.,

and the Selectmen, viz.: Daniel Baxter, B. B. Newcomb and Seth Spear, to prepare Resolves

for the consideration of the meeting; who, subsequently, reported the following resolutions,

which were unanimously adopted:

Whereas, it has pleased Divine Providence to remove from this life the Hon. John Quincy Adams, while engaged in the discharge of his duties, as a Representative in the Congress of the United States, from the Eighth Congressional District of Massachusetts, —Therefore, Resolved, That the inhabitants of the town of Quincy, in common with the whole country, mourn the loss of one of the ablest, wisest and most virtuous statesmen of modern

[46 ]

times ; — a Patriot, who has stood by his country in peace and in war, and who has guarded her interests at home and abroad; a scholar of the most varied attainments; an orator of surpassing eloquence; a friend and advocate of truth, freedom and justice; a man of unbending integrity in public and private life; and above all, a Christian, who, in the greatest press of official cares, never forgot or omitted his duties to God. [ Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed. ]

Resolved, That in reviewing Mr. Adams’s long career, we are specially impressed by the eminent usefulness of his life, and by the vast amount of service which he has rendered to his country and to the world; and that we regard this as a better title to a " perpetual memory," than the numerous offices which he so ably filled, or the honors so freely bestowed upon him by his admiring countrymen.

Resolved, That while, as Americans, we unite with all portions of the country in honoring the memory of one who consecrated his great powers to the service of the whole country, we esteem it a privilege to have been allowed, as his constituents, his fellow-townsmen and his neighbors, to stand in close relations to him; and that we take a just pride, as inhabitants of his native place, in having it said, in the language of the Scriptures, "that this man was born there."

Resolved, That since it is not permitted us to welcome back the living patriot to scenes familiar and dear to him, therefore a committee of twenty be appointed, whose duty it shall be, in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, to receive, whenever they shall arrive here, the remains of our venerated fellow-townsman, and to make all suitable arrangements, in deference to the wishes of the bereaved family, for their interment.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be immediately transmitted to the family of the deceased Ex-President Adams, with assurances of the most respectful sympathy for the loss they have sustained.

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The following gentlemen compose the Committee appointed to make all suitable arrangements for attending the funeral, viz.:

Thomas Greenleaf, Noah Curtis, Josiah Brigham, George W. Beale, James Newcomb, Samuel A. Davis, William S. Morton, Lemuel Brackett, George Baxter, John Savil, Henry Wood, Lysander Richards, William B. Duggan, Lewis Bass, John T. Burrill, Daniel Baxter, Bryant B. Newcomb, Seth Spear, Orange Clark, Josiah Bass.

Voted, That the proceedings of this meeting be entered in the Town Records; and also published in the newspapers.

FUNERAL CEREMONIES.

ON Saturday, March 11th, the remains of Ex-President ADAMS were taken, in the forenoon, from Faneuil Hall, and conveyed to the Depot, in Boston, of the Old Colony Railroad.

The Mayor of the city of Boston, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Jr., then formally consigned the body to the care of the Committee of Arrangements of the town of Quincy, who were waiting to receive it. On the arrival of the train that conveyed the body at the Depot in Quincy, a national salute was fired from President’s Hill, so called from its having belonged to two Presidents of the United States. The body was carried from the Depot to the venerable mansion of Mr. Adams, where it remained until the procession to the church was formed in the following order:

DIVISION I.

Military Escort.

Aids.{ Chief Marshal, John L. Dimmock.} Aids.

Citizens of Quincy.

Marshal.{ Officiating Clergyman.} Marshal

48

Committee of Arrangements.

Marshals.{ Pall Bearers. CORPSE. Pall Bearers.} Marshals.

Family and Relatives.

Marshals. {Congressional Committee of the House I} Marshals.

of Representatives.

DIVISION II.

Sheriff of the County of Norfolk. )

Marshal.{ Lt. Governor and Executive Council. } Marshal.

Governor and Suite.

Secretary of State and Treasurer.

President of the Senate and Speaker

Marshals {of the House of Representatives.} Marshals.

Members of the Senate.

Members of the House of Representatives.

Members and past Members of Congress.

Judges and other Officers of the United Marshals.

States and State Courts.

President and other Officers of Harvard

University.

Marshal. {Municipal Officers of Quincy. }Marshal.

Marshals.{ Members of the Clergy of Quincy and vicinity. }Marshals.

.

Officers of the Army and Navy, and

Marshals. {United States Civil Officers.} Marshals.

Officers of the Massachusetts Militia.

Corporation of the City of Boston.

Eighth Congressional District.

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Societies of which the deceased was a Member.

Marshals {Strangers and citizens generally. } Marshals.

The Committee, charged by Congress to accompany the remains of their late associate to the

place of interment, and who were present in Quincy on the day of the funeral, were as follows:

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Hon. Mr. Bingham, of Michigan.

Mr. CabeIl, Florida.

Mr. Kaufman, Texas.

Mr. Thompson, Iowa.

I. VOLUNTARY ON THE ORGAN.

II. Hymn. J. SHIRLEY, altered. [From Christian Psalter.]

1. The glories of our birth and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hands on kings.

2. Princes and magistrates must fall,

And in the dust be equal made,

The high and mighty with the small,

Sceptre and crown with scythe and spade.

3. The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds:

Upon death’s purple altar now

See where the victor victim bleeds!

4. All heads must come to the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Preserve in death a rich perfume,

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

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III. SELECTIONS FROM THE SCRIPTURES.

Almighty God, and most merciful Father—we rejoice that in Thee we have a sure refuge in every time of trouble and sorrow. And that we can look through the clouds that surround us in this vale of tears, and from the shadow of death even, and behold thy face smiling upon us as with Parental Love. Thou doest thy whole pleasure in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay thy hand, or say unto thee, what doest Thou, We would not stay Thy hand, 0 God, if we could; for we know that it is ever lifted and outstretched for our good. Nor would we question the rectitude and mercifulness of Thy appointments; for we are assured that all that takes place is ordered for our good.

We desire to be sensible, on this solemn occasion, how vain a thing our life on the earth is. Surely man that is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow. and continueth not. Thou takest away one in the morning of life, when his leaf is green, and his promise in great. Thou removest another in the midst of his days and usefulness. And thou sparest another still to a good oldl age so that he cometh unto his grave, like a shock of corn fully ripe and in his season. And seeing we are surrounded by these evidences of our frailty and mortality, wherein O God, is our hope? Our hope is in Thee, who changest not. One generation of our feeble race passeth away, and another generation cometh. But Thou art the same from everlasting to everlasting. We rejoice and thank Thee, merciful God, that in the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have a sure ground of confidence and hope. We thank Thee that thou hast sent on earth the Son of Thy love.

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to unfold unto us the principles of the Divine law; to bear in his own person our infirmities and sorrows; to teach us how to live and how to die; and to open to us, by his death and resurrection, the door of an everlasting life beyond the grave. We know and are assured by him, that although this earthly house in which we now dwell, may decay and perish in the dust, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We would comfort one another’s hearts, on this occasion, with these precious hopes and promises.

We acknowledge, heavenly Father, the dispensation of thy Providence, which has called us together at this time. It hath pleased thee, O God, with whom are the issues of life and death, to remove from life one who has long stood in the high places of the land, a counsellor and leader unto this people. Thou hast changed his countenance. His body, which was perishable, is now about to be committed to the ground; and his immortal spirit has already returned unto God who gave it. We trust that he has been accepted through the mercy of that Gospel upon which he relied; and that his disembodied spirit has already heard the approving sentence, — well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of thy Lord. We thank God, that thy messenger of death found him, and that the last of earth of which he was conscious was spent, in the midst of the discharge of his duties.

Almighty God, from whom cometh all consolation, we supplicate thy blessing upon those whose hearts have been most nearly touched and affected by this Providence; upon her, from whom Thou hast removed her chosen companion through the trials of many years; upon those who looked up to thy departed servant with filial tenderness and veneration; and upon all who were connected with him by the ties of kindred and affection. Will the Lord be gracious unto them? Will the Lord lift upon them the light of his countenance, and give

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them that peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away?

Almighty Father, whose gracious design it is that all events shall be improved by thy children for their instruction, we beseech thee to sanctify this Providence to this ancient Church of Christ, with which thy departed servant was so long connected in the bonds of Christian fellowship; to the religious Society with whom he so many years worshiped the God of his fathers; to his neighbors and friends the inhabitants of this town, the place of his nativity; to his constituents, whose interests he so faithfully served; to the State which rejoiced to number him among her sons; and to the associated Commonwealths, represented on this occasion, which acknowledged and honored him as a leader of this whole people, in the days that are gone. And grant, that the lessons of truth, of integrity, of patriotism, of Christian fidelity, which were taught in his life and in his death, may be deeply impressed upon all hearts. [Italics added for emphasis, Willison ed.]

Almighty Father, who dost employ, in thy Providence, fit agents, to execute the work which it is thy pleasure should be done in the world, — raise up, we beseech thee, and send forth those who shall fill the places of the great and good who Are passing from the midst of us, and grant that they may prosper in the work whereunto they are sent.

We commend to thee, Almighty God, our beloved country. Rule in the hearts of our rulers. Give unto them that wisdom which is profitable to direct, and inspire them with that fear of thee which casteth out all other fear.

We beseech thee, O God, to pardon our sins, and to accept us in our devotions, for the sake of thy ‘nfinite mercy in Christ.

And now that we are about to commit these remains to the ground, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes, we desire to do it, with a firm faith in the resurrection of the dead by Jesus Christ, and in the confident assurance that neither death nor

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life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In his name we come unto Thee, and through him, offer unto Thee everlasting praises. AMEN.

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VI. Discourse.

VII. FUNERAL ANTHEM.

Vital spark of heavenly flame.

-4-

MONUMENTS IN HONOR OF MR. ADAMS’S ANCESTORS. (pg. 15.)

In the burying ground in Quincy are four Monuments, erected by President John Adams in honor of his ancestors. They are solid, simple structures of granite, bearing the following inscriptions:

I.

IN MEMORY OF

HENRY ADAMS,

Who took his flight from the Dragon persecution in Devonshire, in England, and alighted with eight Sons, near Mount Wollaston. One of the sons returned to England; and after taking time to explore the Country, four removed to MedIIeld and the neighboring towns; two to Chelmsford. One only, Joseph, who lies here at his left hand, remained here, who was an original proprietor in the Township of Braintree, incorporated in the year 1639.

This stone and several others have been placed in this yard, by a great-great grandson, from a veneration of the piety, humility, simplicity, prudence, patience, temperance, frugality, industry and perseverance of his ancestors, in hopes of recommending

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II.

Dedicated

to the memory of

III.

In memory of

JOSEPH ADAMS, son of

Joseph Senior and grandson of

Bass, a daughter of

Thomas Bass and Ruth Alden; parents of John Adams,

and grand parents

of the lawyer

JOHN ADAMS.

Erected December₁ 1823.

iv.

Sacred

to the memory of

MR. JOHN ADAMS,

who died

May 25, A. D. 1761,

aged 70,

and

of SUSANNA his Consort,

born Boylston,

who died April 17, A D. 1797, aged 88.

The sweet remembrance of the just

Shall flourish when they sleep in dust.

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MR. ADAMS’S ADMINISTRATION. (p. 27.)

In a letter to a friend, under date of February 2, 1837, Mr. Adams, alluding to the time when he

held the office of President of the United States, says:

The great effort of my administration was to mature into a permanent and regular system the application of all the superfluous revenue of the Union to internal improvement —improvement which, at this day, would have afforded high wages and constant employment to hundreds of thousands of laborers, and in which every dollar expended would have repaid itself fourfold in the enhanced value of the public lands. With this system, in ten years from this day, the surface of the whole Union would have been checkered over with railroads and canals. It may still be done, half a century later, and with the limping gait of State legislation and private adventure. I would have done it in the administration of the affairs of the nation. I had laid the foundation of it all by a resolution offered to the Senate of the United States, in 1806, and adopted by that body under another’s name, (the journals of the senate are my vouchers.) It called forth the first report of Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, upon internal improvement."

TRAIT IN MR. ADAMS’S CHARACTER. (p. 33.)

One remarkable quality in Mr. Adams, to which reference has been made in the discourse, was the simplicity of his character. This was apparent in his personal appearance, his manners, his mode of intercourse with his fellow-men, his habits of life, as well as in his public and official conduct. He was entirely accessible to any who sought his society, even the humblest. He exacted nothing on account of the stations he had filled. He gave those, who differed from him in conversation or public

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debate, a fair chance to make the best of their opinions. At St. Petersburg and at London, instead of attempting a style of living in imitation of that which prevailed among the representatives of aristocratic governments, he was content to appear as he was, the representative of a plain republic. Of mere official consequence he seemed to think nothing. He did not find in the stations he had filled a reason for declining any services that his fellow-citizens or fellow-christians might call him to perform. An instance of this is seen in his willingness to act as representative of a small fraction of the people, after having been the acknowledged and honored head and leader of the whole people ; a position which some persons among us thought he ought not to have allowed himself to be placed in. But he had his own ideas of what constitutes true dignity.

Some few years since, Mr. Adams was invited by the school committee of the town of Quincy, to accompany them in their round of visits to the several district schools in the town. He complied very readily; gave his attention, during a session of three hours in the forenoon and three in the afternoon of each day, to the lessons of the pupils; and entered into the humble work before him with as much interest, and addressed the schools with as much animation of manner, as he would have evinced in political discussions, or in managing the affairs of a nation. Lord Bacon has said that "He who cannot contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty." This mark of true greatness was not wanting in Mr. Adams.

CHRISTIAN PSALTER. (p. 41.)

In 1841, when the author of this Discourse was preparing a new Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the use of the Religious

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Society to which he ministers, Mr. Adams was kind enough to place in his hands, for such use as he might choose to make of it, an entire metrical version of the Psalms, together with a few other pieces of devotional poetry. From these compositions twenty-two pieces were selected, and are contained in the book published under the name of THE CHRISTIAN PSALTER.

REMAINS OF PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS. (p. 41.)

The remains of President John Adams and of Abigail his wife, lie entombed under the portico of the Granite Church, in which the First Congregational Society in Quincy worship. In a letter addressed in 1820, by Mr. J. Q. Adams to Thomas Greenleaf and others, supervisors of the temple and school fund, given by John Adams to the town of Quincy, is this proposal: "I propose that when the Congregational Society in this town shall determine to commence the erection of the Temple, they should adopt a resolution authorizing you to conclude with me an agreement, whereby at my expense, a vault or tomb may be constructed, under the temple, wherein may be deposited the mortal remains of the late John Adams, and of Abigail, his beloved and only wife." In accordance with this request of Mr. Adams, there was conveyed to him by indenture, a "portion of the soil in the cellar, situated under the porch at the entrance of the said temple, and partitioned off by walls, being the central division of the said cellar under the porch, and containing fourteen feet in length and fourteen in breadth." By the same indenture liberty was granted to affix to any part of the walls of the temple, tablets with obituary inscriptions. Accordingly, on the east end of the edifice, at the side of the pulpit, a mural monument was erected, surmounted by a bust of John Adams, from the chisel of Greenough.

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On the tablets, beneath the bust, are the following inscriptions:

LIBERTATEM, AMICITIAM, FIDEM RETINEBIS.

D. O. M.

Beneath these walls

are deposited the mortal remains of

JOHN ADAMS,

Son of John and Susanna (Boylston)

Adams;

Second President of the United States;

Born October, 1735;

On the Fourth of July, 1776,

He Pledged his Life, Fortune, and Sacred

Honor

To the Independence of his Country;

On the third of September, 1783,

He affixed his seal to the definitive Treaty

With Great Britain,

Which acknowledged that Independence,

And consummated the redemption of his

pledge.

On the Fourth of July, 1826,

He was summoned

To the Independence of Immortality,

And to the Judgment of his God.

This house will bear witness to his piety;

This town, his birth-place, to his

munificence;

History to his Patriotism;

Posterity to the depth and compass

of his mind.

At his side

Sleeps, till the Trumpet shall sound,

His beloved and only wife,

Daughter of Win, and Elizabeth (Quincy)

Smith

In every relation of life a pattern

Of Filial, Conjugal, Maternal and Social

virtue.

Born Nov. 22, 1744,

Deceased 28 Oct. 1818,

AEt. 74.

Married 25 Oct. 1764.

During an union of more than half a

century,

They survived, in harmony of sentiment,

principle, and affection,

The tempests of civil commotion

Meeting undaunted, and surmounting

The terrors and trials of that Revolution

Which, secured the Freedom of their

Country,

Improved the condition of their times;

And brightened the prospects of futurity

To the race of man upon Earth.

PILGRIM,