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Browsing: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 2
Sunday 26th.
Docno: DCA02d1174
Date: 1828-10-26
The weather very warm and sultry today. Went to St. John’s this morning and heard Mr. Hawley preach a Sermon. I admire the Episcopal service. If I consulted my own feelings, I would always attend the Church of that sect. It is the only one in which my feelings of devotion are excited. One feels less the want of merit in a Preacher because you feel yourself capable of partaking equally in the services. This cannot be where you must trust a man to pray for you. He may not and probably will not draw your attention. In the afternoon, I wrote and sent a letter to Mr. Brooks on the subject of my marriage.1 It is gratifying to think the thing off my mind. The result will soon come, and all I can trust to is the purity of my motives. I have done my duty as far as I can.
1. CFA’s letter was an argument against further extending his engagement. Recognizing that the combined allowances promised by JQA and by P. C. Brooks would “barely suffice to support us,” CFA stiffly reminded his prospective father-in-law that his financial prospects were not likely to improve in the immediate future, for it would be years before he earned his living at
{p. 300}
the bar. An objection to CFA on this ground, therefore, would be “equally good for ten years as for a day.” “If it prevails,” CFA warned, “I have already frankly told Abby that our engagement must cease” (CFA to P. C. Brooks, 26 Oct. 1828, LbC, Adams Papers).
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/