Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14
I have recd yours of 24th and thank you for your relation of our little
domestic affairs at Quincy. Brisler did not arrive last night as you
callculated. His Children may detain him longer than you expected.— some of
the public Offices are about removing to Phyladelphia this Week. I can Send
James with my Horses and Charriot to meet you at Hoebucken Ferry or
Elizabeth Town or any other Place you may appoint and at any time you will
appoint, if you can be Sure of your Planns and measures. If Mrs Smith and Caroline come on, you will want
more room and more horses. write exactly your determination.
I have been forenon and afternoon to Church to hear
Parson Waddell, who gave Us two Discourses good and wholesome for soul, Body
and Estate. He is a good Picture of “Stalled Theology” and is Said to have a
good Estate.1 Last sunday I
went to the Presbyterian Church and heard Mr
Grant an ingenious young Gentleman. There is something more chearful and
comfortable in an Episcopalian than in a Presbyterian Church.— I admire a
great Part of the divine service at Church very much. It is very humane and
benevolent, and sometimes pathetic & affecting: but rarely gloomy, if
ever. Their Creeds I could dispense with very well because, the scriptures
being before Us contain the Creed the most certanily orthodox. But you know
I never write nor Talk upon Divinity. I have had more than I could do, of
Humanity. Benevolence and Beneficence, Industry, Equity & Humanity
Resignation and submission, Repentance and Reformation are the Essence of my
Religion. Alass! how weakly & imperfectly have I fulfilled the Duties of
my own Religion! I look back Upon a long Life very poorly Spent in my own
Estimation. Busy as it has appeared to some, to me it appears to have been
very much too idle, inactive, slothful and sluggish. I fear it is too late
to amend.— My Forces are far Spent and by too much Exertion I should soon
exhaust them all. I am not in the Vapours but in very good Spirits
notwithstanding this penetent Confession of my faults. Write me every
day.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address:
“Mrs A”; endorsed: “J A octbr 27th / 1799.”
Rev. Henry Waddell (ca. 1746–1811) was pastor of St.
Michael’s Church in Trenton, N.J., from 1798 to 1811. Despite Waddell’s
salary being in arrears by £67 in 1801 and $1,079 40 in 1808, he continued to serve as
pastor until his death. JA was quoting Edward Young, The Complaint; or, Night Thoughts, Night
IV, line 73 (Hamilton Schuyler, A History of St.
Michael’s Church, Trenton, Princeton, N.J., 1926, p. 139, 141,
143, 144).