241From John Quincy Adams to George Washington Adams, 4 April 1813 (Adams Papers)
The imperfections of the Mosaic Institutions which it was the object of Christ’s Mission upon Earth to remove appear to me to have been these. 1. The Want of a sufficient sanction. The Rewards and the Penalties of the Levitical Law had all reference to the present life—There are many passages in the Old Testament which imply a state of existence after death, and some which directly assert a...
242From John Quincy Adams to George Washington Adams, 10 January 1813 (Adams Papers)
In the promise with which my last Letter to you, upon the Bible, was concluded, that I would next consider the Scriptures in their ethical character, as containing a system of morals, I undertook a task from the performance of which I have been hitherto deterred, by its very magnitude and importance. The more I reflected upon the subject, the more sensibly did I feel my own incompetency to do...
243From Abigail Smith Adams to George Washington Adams, 7 August 1815 (Adams Papers)
I have received your Letter written at Sea dated the 1st of May, and was pleased that you had kept your promise of writing to me, and I hope you will continue to inform me of what you see in your Tour, which you have marked out, in your Letter, when you tread upon the ground where Shakespear was born You will naturaly feel a veneration for the Spot, and wish for some spark of his genius. when...
244From John Quincy Adams to Charles Francis Adams, 21 August 1809 (Adams Papers)
It is related of Augustus Caesar, that being upon his death-bed, he turned just before he expired to the friends who were standing around, and asked them what they thought of the part which he had acted on the scene of human life—They express’d their admiration as their feelings or their prudence inspired—Then said he “Plaudite”. In the article of Death, Augustus was what he had been...