the national councils.  He was conscious of the possession of talents, knowledge, experience, and all the qualifications which would enable him to become highly useful, not only in acting as the representative of his direct constituents, but in promoting the welfare of our common country.  This conviction once becoming fixed in his mind, decided his course.  He felt he had no choice left but to comply unhesitatingly with the demand which had been made upon his patriotism.  In adopting this resolution—­in consenting, after having been once at the head of the National Government, to assume again the labors of public life in a subordinate station, wholly divested of power and patronage, urged by no influence but the claims of duty, governed by no motive but a simple desire to serve his country and promote the well-being of his fellow-man—­Mr. Adams presented a spectacle of moral sublimity unequalled in the annals of nations!

For many years Mr. Adams was a member, and one of the Vice Presidents, of the American Bible Society.  In reply to an invitation to attend its anniversary in 1830, he wrote the following letter:—­

“Sir:—­Your letter of the 22d of March was duly received; and while regretting my inability to attend personally at the celebration of the anniversary of the institution, on the 13th of next month, I pray you, sir, to be assured of the gratification which I have experienced in learning the success which has attended the benevolent exertions of the American Bible Society.

“In the decease of Judge Washington, they have lost an able and valuable associate, whose direct co-operation, not less than his laborious and exemplary life, contributed to promote the cause of the Redeemer.  Yet not for him, nor for themselves by the loss of him, are they called to sorrow as without hope; for lives like his shine but as purer and brighter lights in the world, after the lamp which fed them is extinct, than before.

“The distribution of Bibles, if the simplest, is not the least efficacious of the means of extending the blessings of the Gospel to the remotest corners of the earth; for the Comforter is in the sacred volume:  and among the receivers of that million of copies distributed by the Society, who shall number the multitudes awakened thereby, with good will to man in their hearts, and with the song of the Lamb upon their lips”

“The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith.  Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth.  Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time.  And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper, till the Lord shall have made ’bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’