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02 - Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings by John Quincy Adams · Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings

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  Speaker 1: Section one of letters of John Quincy Adams to his
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  Speaker 1: son on the Bible and its teachings. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Dale Barclay, Letter one,
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  Speaker 1: Saint Petersburg, September eighteen eleven, My dear son, in your
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  Speaker 1: letter of the eighteenth January to your mother, you mentioned
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  Speaker 1: that you read to your aunt a chapter in the
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  Speaker 1: Bible or a section of Doddridge's annotations every evening. This
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  Speaker 1: information gave me real pleasure, for so great is my
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  Speaker 1: veneration for the Bible, and so strong my belief that,
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  Speaker 1: when duly read and meditated on, it is, of all
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  Speaker 1: books in the world, that which contributes most to make
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  Speaker 1: men good, wise and happy. That the earlier my children
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  Speaker 1: begin to read it, the more steadily they pursue the
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  Speaker 1: practice of reading it throughout their lives, the more lively
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  Speaker 1: and confident will be my hopes that they will prove
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  Speaker 1: useful citizens to their country, respectable members of society, and
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  Speaker 1: a real blessing to their parents. But I hope you
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  Speaker 1: have now arrived at an age to understand that reading,
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  Speaker 1: even in the Bible, is a thing in itself neither
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  Speaker 1: good nor bad, but that all the good which can
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  Speaker 1: be drawn from it is by the use and improvement
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  Speaker 1: of what you have read, with the help of your
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  Speaker 1: own reflection. Young people sometimes boast of how many books
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  Speaker 1: and how much they have read, when instead of boasting,
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  Speaker 1: they ought to be ashamed of having wasted so much
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  Speaker 1: time to so little profit. I advise you, my son,
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  Speaker 1: in whatever you read, and most of all, in reading
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, to remember that it is for the purpose
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  Speaker 1: of making you wiser and more virtuous. I have myself,
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  Speaker 1: for many years made it a practice to read through
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  Speaker 1: the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to
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  Speaker 1: read it with the same spirit and temper of mind
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  Speaker 1: which I now recommend to you, that is, with the
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  Speaker 1: intention and desire that it may contribute to my advancement
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  Speaker 1: in wisdom and virtue. My desire is indeed very imperfectly successful, for,
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  Speaker 1: like you and like the Apostle Paul, I find allah
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  Speaker 1: on my members warring against the laws of my mind.
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  Speaker 1: But as I know that it is my nature to
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  Speaker 1: be imperfect, so I know that it is my duty
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  Speaker 1: to aim at perfection and feeling and deploring my own frailties,
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  Speaker 1: I can only pray Almighty God for the aid of
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  Speaker 1: His spirit to strengthen my good desires and to subdue
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  Speaker 1: my propensities to evil. For it is from Him that
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  Speaker 1: every good and every perfect gift descends. My custom is
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  Speaker 1: to read four or five chapters every morning, immediately after
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  Speaker 1: rising from my bed. It employs about an hour of
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  Speaker 1: my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner
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  Speaker 1: of beginning the day. But as other cares, duties, and
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  Speaker 1: occupations engage the remainder of it, I have perhaps never
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  Speaker 1: a sufficient portion of my time and meditation upon what
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  Speaker 1: I have read. Even meditation itself is often fruitless unless
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  Speaker 1: it has some special object in view. Useful thoughts often
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  Speaker 1: arise in the mind and pass away without being remembered
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  Speaker 1: or applied to any good purpose, like the seeds scattered
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  Speaker 1: upon the surface of the ground, which the birds devour,
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  Speaker 1: or the wind blows away, or which rot without taking root,
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  Speaker 1: however good the soil may be upon which they are cast.
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  Speaker 1: We are, all, my dear George, unwilling to confess our
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  Speaker 1: own faults, even to ourselves, and when our own consciences
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  Speaker 1: are too honest to conceal them from us our self.
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  Speaker 1: Love is always busy, either in attempting to disguise them
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  Speaker 1: to us under false and delusive colors, or in seeking
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  Speaker 1: out excuses and apologies to reconcile them to our minds. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: although I am sensible that I have not derived from
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  Speaker 1: my assiduous perusal of the Bible, and I might apply
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  Speaker 1: the same remark to almost everything else that I do,
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  Speaker 1: all the benefit that I might and ought, I am
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  Speaker 1: as constantly endeavoring to persuade myself that it is not
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  Speaker 1: my own fault. Sometimes I say to myself, I do
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  Speaker 1: not understand what I have read. I cannot help it.
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  Speaker 1: I did not make my own understanding. There are many
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  Speaker 1: things in the Bible hard to understand, as Saint Peter
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  Speaker 1: expressly says of Paul's epistles. Some are hard in the
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  Speaker 1: Hebrew and some in the Greek, the original languages in
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  Speaker 1: which the scriptures were written. Some are harder still in
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  Speaker 1: the translations. I have been obliged to lead a wandering
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  Speaker 1: life about the world, and scarcely ever have at hand
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  Speaker 1: the book which might help me to surmount these difficulties.
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  Speaker 1: Conscience sometimes puts the question whether my not understanding many
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  Speaker 1: passages is not owing to my want of attention in
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  Speaker 1: reading them. I must admit that it is a full
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  Speaker 1: proof of which is that every time I read the
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  Speaker 1: book through I understand some passages which I never understood before,
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  Speaker 1: and which I should have done at a former reading,
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  Speaker 1: had it been affected with a sufficient degree of attention.
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  Speaker 1: Then in answer to myself, I say, it is true.
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  Speaker 1: But I cannot always command my own attention, and never
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  Speaker 1: can to the agree that I wish. My mind is
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  Speaker 1: oftentimes so full of other things, absorbed in bodily pain,
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  Speaker 1: or engrossed by passion, or distracted by pleasure, or exhausted
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  Speaker 1: by dissipation, that I cannot give to proper daily employment
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  Speaker 1: the attention which I gladly would, and which is absolutely
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  Speaker 1: necessary to make it fruitful of good works. This acknowledgment
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  Speaker 1: of my weakness is just. But for how much of
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  Speaker 1: it I am still accountable to God? I hardly dare
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  Speaker 1: acknowledge to myself. Is it bodily pain? How often was
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  Speaker 1: that brought upon me by my own imprudence or folly?
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  Speaker 1: Was it passion? Heaven is given to every human being
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  Speaker 1: the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects
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  Speaker 1: or loses it, the fault is his own, and he
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  Speaker 1: must be answerable for it was it pleasure? Why did
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  Speaker 1: I indulge? It? Was it dissipation? This is the most
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  Speaker 1: inexcusable of all, for it must have been occasioned by
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  Speaker 1: my own thoughtlessness or irresolution. It is of no use
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  Speaker 1: to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery
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  Speaker 1: prompts us to amendment. I have thought, if in addition
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  Speaker 1: to the hour which I daily give to the reading
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible, I should also, from time to time,
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  Speaker 1: and especially on the Sabbath, apply another hour occasionally to
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  Speaker 1: communicate to you the reflections that arise in my mind
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  Speaker 1: upon its perusal. It might not only tend to fix
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  Speaker 1: and promote my own attention to the excellent instructions of
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  Speaker 1: that sacred book, but perhaps also assist your advancement in
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  Speaker 1: its knowledge and wisdom. At your age, it is probable
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  Speaker 1: that you have still greater difficulties to understand all that
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  Speaker 1: you read in the Bible than I have at mine.
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  Speaker 1: And if you have so much self observation as your
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  Speaker 1: letters indicate, you will be sensible of as much want
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  Speaker 1: of attention, both voluntary and involuntary, as I hear acknowledge
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  Speaker 1: in myself. I intend, therefore, for the purpose of contributing
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  Speaker 1: to your improvement and my own, to write you several
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  Speaker 1: letters in due time to follow this, in which I
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  Speaker 1: shall endeavor to show you how you may derive the
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  Speaker 1: most advantage to yourself from the perusal of the scriptures.
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  Speaker 1: It is probable when you receive these letters you will not,
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  Speaker 1: at first reading entirely understand them. If that should be
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  Speaker 1: the case, ask your grandparents or your uncle or aunt
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  Speaker 1: to explain them. If you still find them too hard,
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  Speaker 1: put them on file and lay them by for two
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  Speaker 1: or three years, after which read them again, and you
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  Speaker 1: will find them easy enough. It is essential, my son,
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  Speaker 1: in order that you may go through life with comfort
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  Speaker 1: to yourself and usefulness to your fellow creatures, that you
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  Speaker 1: should form and adopt certain rules or principles for the
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  Speaker 1: government of your own conduct and temper. Unless you have
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  Speaker 1: such rules and principles, there will be numberless occasions on
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  Speaker 1: which you will have no guide for your government but
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  Speaker 1: your passions. In your infancy and youth, you have been,
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  Speaker 1: and will be, for some years, under the authority and
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  Speaker 1: control of your friends and instructors. But you must soon
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  Speaker 1: come to the age when you must govern yourself. You
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  Speaker 1: have already come to that age in many respects. You
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  Speaker 1: know the difference between right and wrong. You know some
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  Speaker 1: of your duties and the obligations you are under. To
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  Speaker 1: become acquainted with them. All it is in the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: You must learn them, and from the Bible how to
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  Speaker 1: practice them. Those duties are to God, to your fellow creatures,
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  Speaker 1: and to yourself. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,
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  Speaker 1: with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
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  Speaker 1: with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and
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  Speaker 1: thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments, Jesus Christ
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  Speaker 1: expressly says, hang all the law and the prophets. That
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  Speaker 1: is to say, the whole purpose of divine revelation is
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  Speaker 1: to inculcate them efficaciously upon the minds of men. You
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  Speaker 1: will perceive that I have spoken of duties to yourself,
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  Speaker 1: distinct from those to God and to your fellow creatures.
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  Speaker 1: While Jesus Christ speaks only of two commandments, the reason
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  Speaker 1: is because Christ and the commandments repeated by him consider
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  Speaker 1: self love as so implanted in the heart of every
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  Speaker 1: man by the law of as nature, that it requires
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  Speaker 1: no commandant to establish its influence over the heart. And
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  Speaker 1: how great do they know its power to be that
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  Speaker 1: they demand no other measure for the love of our
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  Speaker 1: neighbor than that which they know we shall have for ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: But from the love of God and the love of
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  Speaker 1: our neighbor result duties to ourselves as well as to them,
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  Speaker 1: and they are all to be learned in equal perfection
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  Speaker 1: by our searching the scriptures. Let us then search the scriptures, and,
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  Speaker 1: in order to pursue our inquiries with methodical order, let
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  Speaker 1: us consider the various sources of information that we may
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  Speaker 1: draw from in this study. The Bible contains the revelation
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  Speaker 1: of the will of God. It contains the history of
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  Speaker 1: the creation of the world and of mankind, and afterward
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  Speaker 1: the history of one peculiar nation, certainly the most extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: nation that has ever appeared upon the earth. It contains
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  Speaker 1: a system of religion and of morality, which we may
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  Speaker 1: examine upon its own merits, independent of the sanction it
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  Speaker 1: receives from being the word of God. And it contains
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  Speaker 1: a numerous collection of books, written at different ages of
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  Speaker 1: the world by different authors, which we may survey as
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  Speaker 1: curious monuments of antiquity and as literary compositions. In what
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  Speaker 1: light soever we regard it, whether with reference to revelation,
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  Speaker 1: to literature, to history, or to morality. It is an
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  Speaker 1: invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. I shall
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  Speaker 1: number separately those letters that I mean to write you
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  Speaker 1: upon the subject of the Bible, and as after they
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  Speaker 1: are finished, I shall perhaps ask you to read them
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  Speaker 1: all together, or to look over them again myself. You
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  Speaker 1: must keep them on separate file. I wish that hereafter
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  Speaker 1: they may be useful to your brothers and sisters, as
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  Speaker 1: well as to you, as you will receive them as
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  Speaker 1: a token of affection for you during my absence. I
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  Speaker 1: pray that they may be worthy to read by them
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  Speaker 1: all with benefit to themselves, if it please God that
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  Speaker 1: they should live to be able to understand them from
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  Speaker 1: your affectionate father, John Quincy Adams, end of Section one.