Happy Fathers Day, 2008: Father to son: John Quincy Adams to George Washington Adams, September, 1811

from the AMERICAN CHRISTIAN HISTORY INSTITUTE
EAGLE’S AERIE by James and Barbara Rose

Happy Fathers Day, 2008

Father to son: John Quincy Adams to George Washington Adams, September, 1811:

“… so great is my veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated upon, it is of all books in the world that which contributes most to make men good, wise and happy, that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more steadily they pursue the practice of reading it throughout their lives, the more lively and confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful Citizens of their Country, respectable Members of Society, and a real blessing to their Parents…

I have myself for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year… My custom is, to read four – five Chapters of the Bible, every morning immediately after rising from bed. It employs about an hour of my time…

It is essential, my Son, in order that you may go through this life with comfort to yourself and usefulness to your fellow creatures, that you should form and adopt certain rules or principles for the Government of your own conduct, and temper… It is in the Bible that you must learn them, and from the Bible how to practice them. Those duties are to God, to your fellow creatures, and to yourself. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thy self.” (Luke x.27 / Matt xxii.40 ) “On these two commandments (Jesus Christ expressly says) hang all the law and the prophets” – that is to say that the whole purpose of divine revelation is to inculcate them efficaciously upon the minds of men…

Let us then search the Scriptures…The Bible contains the Revelation of the Will of God, it contains the History of the Creation of the World and of mankind . . . It contains a System of Religion, and Morality, which we may examine upon its own merits, independent of the sanction it receives from being the Word of God…”

(John Quincy Adams in a letter to his son George Washington Adams on 1&8 September 1811)

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