Pickering, John to Rev. Bernard Whitman
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05508.204 Author/Creator: Pickering, John Place Written: Boston, Massachusetts Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 14 November 1833 Pagination: 2 p. + addr. 24.5 x 19.8 cm Order a Copy
Responding to a letter from Whitman asking about the religious beliefs of various founders including Washington, John Quincy Adams, and Jefferson. For Washington and Adams, Pickering refers him to other people. About Jefferson he writes that a published letter he read had "no distinct acknowledgment of the divine mission of our Savior, but an equivocal sort of language, from which different inferences would be drawn by different readers," and that his political writing had the same quality. Pickering disapproves of Christians that do not actively counteract the doctrines of infidels.
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