Genuine moral courage is a sterling quality that ennobles and dignifies the man. It invigorates the mind like an impregning cloud — shedding its gentle dews on the flowers of spring. It is a heavenly spark, animating the immortal soul with the fire of divinity that illuminates the path of rectitude. It is an attribute that opposes all wrong and propels its subject right onward to the fearless performance of all right. It is based upon virtue and equity, and spurns vice in all its borrowed and delusive forms. It courts no servile favours — it fears no earthly scrutiny. No flattery can seduce it, no eclat can allure it, no bribe can purchase it, no tyrant can awe it, no misfortune can bend it, no intrigue can corrupt it, no adversity can quench it, no tortures can subdue it. Its motto is — “Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.” [Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.] Without it, fame is ephemeral and renown transient. It is the saline basis of a good name that gives richness to its memory. It is a pillar of light to revolving thought, and the polar star that points to duty and leads to merit. It is the soul of reason, the essence of wisdom, and the crowning glory of mental power. It was this that influenced the signers of the declaration of independence and nerved them for the conflict.

      No one among them was more fully imbued with it than John Adams. He was a native of Quincy, Massachusetts, and born on the 19th of October (O.S.) 1735. He was the fourth in descent from Henry Adams, whose tomb bears this singular inscription — “He took his flight from the dragon persecution, in Devonshire, England, and alighted, with eight sons, near Mount Wollaston.” In childhood the career of John Adams was marked with a rapid developement of strong intellectual powers, which were skilfully cultivated by Mr. Marsh, at Braintree, a celebrated and successful teacher. At the age of sixteen years he entered Harvard College, at Cambridge, where he became a finished scholar and graduated at the age of twenty. He gained a high reputation for frankness, honesty and untiring industry, and was greatly esteemed by the professors and his classmates.

      From college he proceeded to Worcester, commenced the study of law under Mr. Putnam, and finished with Mr. Gridley, supporting himself in the mean time by teaching a grammar class. At that early age he possessed wisdom to perceive right, and moral courage to pursue it. In view of the past and present, he made a philosophic grasp at the future, as will appear from the following extract from a letter written by him on the 12th of October, 1755, shortly after he took up his residence at Worcester.

      “Soon after the reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, if we can remove the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest computations, will, in another century, become more numerous than England herself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas, and then the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves — is to disunite us. * * * Keep us in distinct colonies, and then some men in each colony, desiring the monarchy of the whole, will destroy each other’s influence and keep the country in equilibrio.”

      This