Few men retain the health and vigor with which Mr. Adams was blessed in extreme old age.  When most others are decrepit and helpless, he was in the enjoyment of meridian strength and energy, both of body and mind, and could endure labors which would prostrate many in the prime of manhood.  An instance of his powers of endurance is furnished in his journey to Washington, to attend the opening of Congress, when in the 74th year of his age.  On Monday morning he left Boston, and the same evening delivered a lecture before the Young Men’s Institute, in Hartford, Conn.  The next day he proceeded to New Haven, and in the evening lectured before a similar Institute in that city.  Wednesday he pursued his journey to New York, and in the evening lectured before the New York Lyceum, in the Broadway Tabernacle.  Thursday evening he delivered an address before an association in Brooklyn; and on Friday evening delivered a second lecture before the New York Lyceum.  Here were labors which would seriously tax the constitution of vigorous youth; and yet Mr. Adams performed them with much comparative ease.

His great longevity, and his general good health, must be attributed, in no small degree, to his abstemious and temperate habits, early rising, and active exercise.  He took pleasure in athletic amusements, and was exceedingly fond of walking.  During his summer residence in Quincy, he has been known to walk to his son’s residence in Boston (seven miles,) before breakfast.  “While President of the United States, he was probably the first man up in Washington, lighted his own fire, and was hard at work in his library, while sleep yet held in its obliviousness the great mass of his fellow-citizens.”  He was an expert swimmer, and was in the constant habit of bathing, whenever circumstances would permit.  Not unfrequently the first beams of the rising sun, as they fell upon the beautiful Potomac, would find Mr. Adams buffeting its waves with all the sportiveness and dexterity of boyhood, while a single attendant watched upon the shore.  When in the Presidency, he sometimes made a journey from Washington to Quincy on horseback, as a simple citizen, accompanied only by a servant.

More than four score years had sprinkled their frosts upon his brow, and still he was in the midst of his usefulness.  Promptly at his post in the Hall of Representatives stood the veteran sentinel, watching vigilantly over the interests of his country.  With an eye undimmed by age, a quick ear, a ready hand, an intellect unimpaired, he guarded the citadel of liberty, ever on the alert to detect, and mighty to repel, the approach of the foe, however covert or however open his attacks.  Never did the Union, never did freedom, the world, more need his services than now.  A large territory, of sufficient extent to form several States, had been blighted by slavery, and annexed to the United Sates.  A sanguinary and expensive war, growing out of this strengthening of the slave power, had just terminated, adding to the Union still larger territories—­now free soil indeed, but furnishing a field for renewed battles between slavery and liberty.  New revolutions were about to break forth in Europe, to convulse the Eastern Hemisphere, and cause old thrones to totter and fall!