Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
preach against the war.
All this needs to be remembered in judging of Mr. Adams. True he was
regularly bred to politics, and "to the manor born;" but he was a New
England man, with northern notions, northern habits, and though more
than fifty years in public life, yet he seems to have sought the object
of New England far more than the object of the South. Measure his
greatness by his service; but that is not to be measured by immediate
and apparent success.
* * * * *
In a notice so brief as this, I can say but little of the details of Mr.
Adams's life, and purposely pass over many things, dwelling mainly on
such as are significant of his character. He was born at Quincy, the
11th of July, 1767; in 1777 he went to Europe with his father, then
Minister to France. He remained in Europe most of the time, his powers
developing with rapidity and promise of future greatness, till 1785,
when he returned and entered the junior class in Harvard College. In
1787, he graduated with distinguished honors. He studied law at
Newburyport, with Judge Parsons, till 1790, and was a lawyer in Boston,
till 1794.
That may be called the period of his education He enjoyed the
advantages of a residence abroad, which enabled him to acquire a
knowledge of foreign languages, modes of life, and habits of thought.
His father's position brought the son in contact with the ablest men of
the age. He was Secretary of the American minister to Russia at the age
of fourteen. He early became acquainted with Franklin and Jefferson, men
who had a powerful influence on his youthful mind. For three years he
was a student with Judge Parsons, a very remarkable man. These years,
from 1767 to 1794, form a period marked by intense mental activity in
America and in Europe. The greatest subjects which claim human
attention, the laws that lie at the foundation of society, the State,
the church, and the family, were discussed as never before. Mr. Adams
drew in liberty and religion from his mother's breast. His cradle rocked
with the Revolution. When eight years old, from a hill-top hard by his
house he saw the smoke of Charlestown, burning at the command of the
oppressor. The lullaby of his childhood was the roar of cannon at
Lexington and Bunker Hill. He was born in the gathering of the storm, of
a family that felt the blast, but never bent thereto; he grew up in its
tumult. Circumstances like these make their mark on the character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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