Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06965

Author/Creator: Adams, John Quincy (1767-1848)

Place Written: [s.l.]

Type: Autograph manuscript

Date: 27 May 1845

Pagination: 4 p. 25.5 x 20.4 cm

Summary of Content: Addressed to ”Fellow Citizens - Christians, Brethren and Sisters.” Adams’s hope for unity among all Christians; he even quotes an unnamed Roman Catholic poet at the beginning. While describing dissenssions between denominations in various countries, Adams suddenly stops and asks instead for people to pray for those who fight each other. He calls upon his listeners ”Let us teach them by the example of harmony among ourselves, how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren (and sisters) to dwell together in unity...when they shall have found...harmony among themselves, we shall be ready and rejoiced to receive them, discarding all points of doctrinal dissent....”

People: Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848.

Historical Era: National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860

Full Transcript: Fellow Citizens - [struck: Fellow] Christian Brethren and Sisters, Although myself here as an invited guest, I have been requested by the Committee of Arrangements of the Association to enjoy whose hospitality we are here assembled, to preside at this meeting and in their name to bid you a hearty welcome - I had once before been kindly [struck: been] invited to perform the same service; but my necessary absence form the Commonwealth at the time of the celebration had deprived me of the pleasure of accepting the invitation - In the early ages of Christianity these assemblages were called feasts of Love, and although we are here as the members of one variation of the protestant churches, yet it is not a sectarian spirit in which [inserted: we] meet, - but in a meek and quiet Spirit - in the Spirit of Christian Charity and of mutual toleration - We meet as brethren and sisters of one great family - not in hostility to others - not even in the spirit of controversy, but in the sentiment of the Roman Catholic Poet who said - For modes of faith let senseless zealots fight;, His can’t be wrong, whose life is in the right. , It is in this Spirit that I esteem it an honour to have been permitted to participate in this friendly and social meeting, and though conscious of my comparative unworthiness to preside over it, to undertake that pleasing duty indeference to the twice repeated request of the Committee of Arrangements of the Society - I have hoped that the smallest units of exertion which any one individual could contribute to smooth asperities and to promote the harmony of Christians, and of Christian churches with on e another might be as successful as at this present emergency it is [2] seasonable. - In the month of November last, at the invitation of a highly respectable Presbyterian Society at the City of Washington I cheerfully consented to serve them as their lay delegate at the numerous Convention held at Baltimore to promote the religious observance of the Lord’s day. I was not a member of their church but a [inserted: mere] pew holder in their house of worship and a frequent attendant at their divine service, listening with edification to the discourses of their pastor, the Revd. James Knox - No profession of faith was required of me at that Convention, which might have been attended in the bonds of mutual toleration and charity by Christians of every denomination. Diversities of opinion were manifested and discussed at that Convention, with regard to the times and manner of observing the Sabbath, but without a symptom of sectarian dissension. The proceedings of the Convention have been published and widely circulated - I hope they have done useful service to the community - Without calling upon the Legislative authorities of the Union or of the States for the carnal weapons of the Law to enforce the observance of the Lords day, they confined themselves to the spiritual armory of religion to exhortation to friendly counsel, to urgent intreaty to the young and the gay - to the men of business and the men of toil - to the owners [struck: of] and conductors of the steamboat and the rail way - to the wealthy capitalist and the indigent labourer - and by appealing at once to the individual interest and the social feelings of them all, with the soothing voice of persuasion, allured them at once to their own good and to that of their neighbours. , And this meeting of social festivity, graced and sanctified by the presences and participation of the fairest part of creation, though confined to Christians of one denomination, and holding with the regard to certain [3] points of doctrine [inserted: a belief] differing from the age of other churches with which they would readily hold communion, is in my estimation of no sectarian character - In the earliest ages of Christianity it was by witnessing the Love feasts of the disciples of Jesus, that the unconverted heathen was brought to exclaim - behold here these Christians love one another - and if to any denomination of Christians that Law of universal love, acknowledged by all to [struck: be] [inserted: embrace] the whole compass of the gospel dispensation, should be most emphatically dear; should it not be to that which comparatively small in numbers dissents from the rest only under the convictions of a conscience not under their own controul - ?, To such festivals, the time also appears to be peculiarly appropriate - A time when symptoms of internal commotion, yea of internal convulsion are agitating the bosom of many if not of all the churches of Christ - In France the portentous aspect is seen of the Church of Rome in the presence of the Monarch [inserted: at variance] with the University of France - In the British Islands, the Church of England and the Church of Rome find no resource to rescue them from the political dissolution of the United Empire, but in the fascinating charm of a war with these United States, while the Church of England herself is gasping in agony to return to the transubstantiations, and auricular confessions and money bought indulgences of the 15th. century of the Church of Rome. In our own Country…….No! - Let us turn our eyes from the scenes passing before them, in the Protestant Episcopal, the Presbyterian, the Methodist and Baptist Churches - Let us turn away our eyes not in enmity to them, but to watch and pray for them - To meditate on the causes of their dissensions and on the remedies they are resorting to, to heal them - To watch - that the infections of their distemper may never reach ourselves - to pray that some balm, and some physician in Gilead may be found to save or to retrieve them from the remedy of self inflicted dissolution., And in the example of this festal union, and in the self evident truth of universal freedom founded our universal love, [4] let us recall them in fraternal affection to the fundamental principles of the Christian faith - Let us teach them by the example of harmony among ourselves, how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren (and sisters) to dwell together in Unity - And let us assure them all that when they shall have found a charmer and a charm to sooth them into harmony among themselves, we shall be ready and rejoiced to receive them, discarding all points of doctrinal dissent, as brethren and sisters, to our arms.

Keywords/Subjects: Presidents, Religion

Sub Era: Age of Jackson