In his public acts he seems animated by the thought that he stood in the presence of God. Though rather unphilosophical in his theology, resting to a great degree on the authority of tradition and the letter, and attaching much value to forms and times, he yet saw the peculiar excellence of Christianity,—that it recognized "Love as the paramount and transcendent law of human nature." I do not say that his Kfe indicates the attainment of a complete religious repose, but that he earnestly and continually laboured to achieve that. You shall find few statesmen, few men, who act with a more continual and obvious reference to religion as a motive, as a guide, as a comfort. He was, however, no sectarian. His devotion to freedom appeared, where it seldom appears, in his notions about religion. He thought for himself, and had a theology of his own, rather old fashioned, it is true, and not very philosophical or consistent, it may be, and in that he was not very singular; but he allowed others to think also for themselves, and have a theology of their own. Mr. Adams was a Unitarian. It is no great merit to be a Unitarian, or a Calvinist, or a Catholic, perhaps no more merit to be one than the other. But he was not ashamed of his belief when Unitarianism was little, despised, mocked at, and called "Infidelity" on all sides. When the Unitarian church at Washington, a small and feeble body, met for worship in an upper room — not large, but obscure, over a public bathing-house — John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State and expecting to be President, came regularly to worship with them. It was not fashionable ; it was hardly respectable, for the Unitarians were not then, as now, numerous and rich : but he went and worshipped. It was no merit to think with any sect, it was a great merit to dare be true to his convictions. In his theology, as in politics, he feared not to stand in a minority. If there ever was an American who loved the praise of God more than the praise of men, I believe Mr. Adams was one.
His devotion to freedom, his love of his country, his conscientiousness, his religion, are four things strong and noticeable in his character. You shall look long amongst our famous men before you find his equal in these things.[1]
- ↑ In a public address, Mr. Adams once quoted the well-known words of Tacitus (Annul VI. 39), Por negotiis neque supra,—applying them to
