Joyanna Adams

John Adams Writes a Letter to a Friend

Nobody Flashes

I am still reading the biography of John Adams by his son John Quincy and HIS son Charles, and there is a letter in this book, in which he wrote to a friend, which is fit, I think to read, especially in these days of spring: Sometimes my days seem so alone, that I find comfort in reading the words of someone I seem to know so well.

His friend, wanted him to be a preacher. He answers him in this letter. It was written in 1756.

Long ago, when I was in a deep depression, my mother told me to read the letters of the Adams. When I found so many of my own thoughts right there on the page, and how many synchronicities I shared with all the Adams, it helped me understand WHY I was so….despondent. Relieved to find that so long ago, my ancestors had the same exact thoughts, and that I too could get through my sadness.

 Sadly, our schools do not let the kids read the very words of our founders. If they had done this, much that now is happening would probably not be happening.

Not many people know that all the Adam’s suffered from MUCH self-doubt and the family is filled with suicides. While the Presidents suffered much mental agitations greatly, they put their efforts into the goal, of bringing forth a country. They were beyond any doubt, great men, and honest men. Moral men. Passionate men. And most of all, patriots to the core of their bones.

And all believe in “the Being.”

I have to believe that most Americans are like the Adams, and they STILL fill our country today.  We have many great men and woman whose time has come, and with God’s help, maybe we will find a way out of this communistic takeover.

Anyway…. please enjoy it with me. And by the way, when you read this, think of Maxine Waters. Or even Liz Cheney. Or most of Congress. Think of anybody in our Congress writing this way, and then TRY not to get depressed.

I suggest you go out and look at the stars, and wonder…how far HAVE we sunk? With so MANY morons in Congress?

O dear.

It’s a fitting letter for a Sunday, and a good lesson for just finding your spirit.

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“My Friend,—I am set down with a design of writing to you. But the narrow sphere I move in, and the lonely, unsociable life I lead (He was teaching small children) can furnish letter with little more than complaints of my hard fortune. I am condemned to keep school two years longer. This I sometimes consider as a very grievous calamity, and almost sink under the wight of woe. But shall I dare to complain and to murmur against Providence for this little punishment, when my very existence, all the pleasure I enjoy now, and all the advantages I have of preparing of hereafter, are expressions of benevolence that I never did and never could deserve? Shall I censure the conduct of that Being who has poured around me a great profusion of those good things that I really want, because HE has kept from me other thing that might be improper and fatal to me if I had them? That Being has furnished my body with several senses and the world around it with objects suitable to gratify them. He has made me an erect figure, and has placed in the advantageous part of my body the sense of sight. And He has hung up in the heavens over my head and spread out in the fields of nature around me, those glorious shows and appearances with which my eyes and my imagination are extremely delighted. I am pleased with the beautiful appearance of the flower, and still more pleased with the prospect of forests and of meadows, of verdant fields and mountains covered with flocks: But I am thrown into a kind of transport when I behold the amazing concave of heaven, sprinkled and glittering with stars. That Being has bestowed upon some of the vegetable species a fragrance that can almost as agreeably entertain our sense of smell. He has so wonderfully constituted the air we live in that, by giving it a particular kind of vibration, it produces in us as intense sensation of pleasures as the organs of our bodies can bear, in all the varieties of harmony and concord. But all the provision that He has made for the gratification of my senses, though very engaging instances of kindness are much inferior to the proviso for the gratification of my nobler power of intelligence and reason. He has given me reason, to find out the truth and the real design of my existence here, and has made all endeavors to promote that design agreeable to my mind, and attended with a conscious pleasure and complacency. On the contrary, He has made a different course of life, a course of impiety and injustice, of malevolence and intemperance, appear shocking and deformed to my first reflection. He has made my mind capable of receiving an infinite variety of ideas, from those numerous material objects with which we are environed: and of retaining, compounding, and arraying the vigorous impression which we receive from these into all the varieties of picture and of figure. By inquiring into the situation, produce, manufactures, etc. of our own, and by travelling into or reading about other countries, I can gain distinct ideas of almost everything upon this earth at present: and by looking into history, I can settle in my mind a clear and a comprehensive view of the earth at its creation, of its various changes and revolution, of its progressive improvement, sudden depopulation by a deluge, and its gradual repeopling: of the growth of several kingdoms and empires , of  their wealth and commerce, their wars and politics: of the characters of their principal leading men: of their grandeur and power: their virtues and vies., of their insensible decays at first, and of the swift destruction at last. In fine, we can attend the earth from its nativity, through all the various turns of fortune: thought all it successive changes: through all the events that happen on its surface, and all the successive generation of mankind, to the final conflagration, when the whole earth, with its appendages, shall be consumed by the furious element of fire. And after our minds are furnished with the ample store of idea, far from feeling burdened or overloaded, our thoughts are freer and ace and clear than before, and we are capable of spreading our acquaintance with things much further. Far from being satiated with knowledge, our curiosity is only improved and increased: our thoughts rove beyond the visible diurnal sphere, range thorough the immeasurable region of the universe, and lose themselves among a labyrinth of worlds. And not contented with knowing what is, they run forward into futurity, and search for new employment there. There they can never stop. The wide, the boundless prospect lies before them! Here alone they find objects adequate to their desires. Shall I now presume to complain of my hard fate, when such ample provision had been made to gratify all my sense, and all the faculties of my soul? God forbid. I am happy, and I will remain so. While health is indulged to me, in spit of all the other adverse circumstances that fortune can place me in.

I expect to be joked upon, for writing in this serious manner, when it shall be known what a resolution I have lately taken. I have engaged with Mr. Putnam to study law with him two years, and to keep the school at the same time. It will be hard work: but the more difficult and dangerous the enterprise, a brighter crown of laurel is bestowed on the conqueror. However, I am not without apprehension concerning the success of this resolution, but I am under much fewer apprehensions then I was when I thought of Preaching. The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice and Calvinistic good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching. But the point is now determined, and I shall have liberty to think for myself wit out molesting other or being molested myself. Write to me the first good opportunity, and tell me freely whether you approve my conduct.

“Please to present my tenderest regards to our two friends at Boston, and suffer me to subscribe myself your sincere friend, …” John Adams”

John Quincy, his son said this about the letter:

Nothing written by him in after life bears more strongly the impress of his intellectual power, and none set fourth with equal clearances the principles to which he adhered to his last hour. He will hereafter be seen in the characters of a lawyer, patriot, statesman, founder of a mighty empire, upon the great and dazzling theatre of human affairs.

May 15, 2021 Posted by Joyanna Adams | Uncategorized | John Adams | Leave a comment