Adams' testimony

This summer I've read the fascinating biography of John Adams for which author David McCulloch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It is a story of inspiration and great pathos, an American story of patriotism, commitment and honor. John Adams, Massachusetts lawyer and farmer, Harvard graduate, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Vice-President to George Washington, second President of the United States, author of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, American emissary to France, The Netherlands, Great Britain, father of John Quincy Adams (sixth President) was a man of devout faith.

After his retirement from public life, he and his beloved wife Abigail were known to attend "meeting" (church services) twice each Sunday. Upon her death, Adams received a letter of condolence from another former President, Thomas Jefferson, himself gravely ill. Adams wrote back, affirming his faith in God and a life beyond this, knowing that Jefferson was not religious.

"I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe... would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework."

Adams was constantly amazed by the immensity and mystery of creation, and hence of the Creator. He wrote once: "I find my imagination...roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehensible universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole."

Having risen to the heights in his own land, met with kings and princes of others, John Adams humbly bowed before the God who is Lord of all.