college, and whose wife was a person whom to know was both to respect and love. He confirmed the account here given. The article is entitled "Courtship of the Elder Adams."

Some ten years ago I spent a college vacation in the town of Weymouth, Norfolk County, Massachusetts. While there, I attended church one Sunday morning at what was called the Old Weymouth Meeting-house, and heard a sermon from the venerable pastor, Rev. Jacob Norton. About the same time, I made Mr. Norton a visit, and became much interested in the old gentleman. I mentioned my agreeable visits to an aged lady of the parish, whose acquaintance I had made. She informed me that Mr. Norton was ordained their pastor when he was about twenty-one years of age, and that he had been with them nearly forty years. She observed that most of his parishioners could remember no other pastor; but that she could well remember his predecessor, the Rev. Mr. Smith, and that he and Mr. Norton had filled the same pulpit for the better part of the last eighty years.

"Mr. Smith," said she, "was an excellent man, and a very fine preacher, but he had high notions of himself and family; in other words, he was something of an aristocrat." My informant said to me one day: "To illustrate to you a little the character of old Parson Smith, I will tell you an anecdote that relates to himself and some other persons of distinction. Mr. Smith had two charming daughters - the eldest of these daughters was Mary, the other's name I have forgotten - who were the admiration of all the beaux, and the envy of all the belles of the country around. But while the careful guardians of the parson's family were holding consultation on the subject, it was rumored that two

young lawyers, both of the neighboring town of Quincy, a Mr. Cranch and a Mr. Adams, were paying their addresses to the Misses Smith. As every woman and child of a country parish in New England is acquainted with whatever takes place in the parson's family, all the circumstances of the courtship soon transpired. Mr. Cranch was of a respectable family of some note, was considered a young man of promise, and altogether worthy of the alliance he sought. He was very acceptable to Mr. Smith, and was greeted by him and his family with great respect and cordiality. He was received by the oldest daughter as a lover. He afterwards rose to the dignity of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts, and was the father of the present Hon. Judge Cranch of the District of Columbia.

The suitor of the other daughter was John Adams, who afterwards became President of the United States; but at that time, in the opinion of Mr. Smith and family, he gave but slender promise of the distinction to which he afterwards arrived. His pretensions were scorned by all the family, excepting the young lady to whom his addresses were especially directed. Mr. Smith showed him none of the ordinary civilities of the house; he was not asked to partake of the hospitalities of the table; and it is reported that his horse was doomed to share with his master the neglect and mortification to which he was subjected, for he was frequently seen shivering in the cold, and gnawing the post at the pastor's door, of long winter evenings. In fine, it was reported that Mr. Smith had intimated to him that his visits were not acceptable, and he would do him a favor by discontinuing them. He told his daughter that John Adams was not worthy of her,-that his father was an honest tradesman and farmer, who had tried to initiate John in the arts of husbandry and shoe-making, but without success,

and that he had sent him to college as a last resort. He, in fine, begged his daughter not to think of making an alliance with one so much beneath her.

"Miss Smith was among the most dutiful daughters, but she saw Mr. Adams through a medium very different from that through which her father viewed him. She would not, for the world, offend or disobey her father; but still John saw something in her eye and manner which seemed to say 'persevere,' and on that hint he acted.

“Mr. Smith, like a good parson and an affectionate father, had told his daughters, if they married with his approbation, he would preach each of them a sermon on the Sabbath after the joyful occasion, and they should have the privilege of choosing the text.

"The espousal of the eldest daughter, Mary, arrived, and she was united to Mr. Cranch in the holy bonds of matrimony, with the approval, the blessing, and benedictions of her parents and her friends. Mr. Smith then said: My dutiful child, I am now ready to prepare your sermon; what text do you select for next Sunday?' 'My dear father,' said Mary, 'I have selected the latter part of the 42d verse of the 10th chapter of Luke: "Mary hath chosen that good part which shall never be taken from her.""

"Very good, my daughter,' said her father, and so the sermon was preached.

"Mr. Adams persevered in his suit in defiance of all opposition. It was many years after and on a very different occasion, and in a resistance of very different opposition, that he was supposed to have uttered those memorable words, sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my heart and hand to this measure.' But, though the measures were different, the spirit was the same. Besides, he had already carried the main

point of attack, the heart of the young lady, and he knew the surrender of the citadel must soon follow. After the usual hesitation and delay that attend such. unpleasant affairs, Mr. Smith, seeing that resistance was fruitless, yielded the contested point with as much grace as possible, as many a prudent father has done before and since that time, and Mr. Adams was united to the lovely Miss Smith. After the marriage was over, and all things settled in quiet, Mrs. Adams said to her father: You preached Mary a sermon on the occasion of her marriage; won't you preach me one likewise?'

6

"Yes, my dear girl,' said Mr. Smith; choose your text and you shall have your sermon?' Well,' said the daughter, I have chosen the 33d verse of the 7th chapter of Luke': "For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil.","

The old lady, my informant, looked me very archly in the face when she repeated this passage, and observed, "If Mary was the most dutiful daughter, I guess the other had the most wit."

I could not ascertain whether the last sermon was ever preached.

The integrity, conscientiousness and stern justice of John Quincy Adams were conspicuous in every station, and in the multiplied and responsible offices he filled. At the age of fifty-eight -the same with that of the first five Presidents of the United States when they entered on that office - he was inaugurated as President. With no partisan temper, he selected for his Cabinet men of different political opinions. He was too impartial in all things to secure his own re-election

While in Congress freedom of the en

"

as the candidate of his party. he espoused the cause of the slaved, and, with more and more decision and moral courage, battled for the Right of Petition," on the side of Emancipation, to the last day of his long career in the National House of Representatives. For the whole fifty-three years of his public service, faithfulness was his motto; and when, in 1836, I saw him in his seat in that House, where he was always, early and late, at his post, I felt a reverence which no other moral hero of our whole country could awaken. The grandest historic citizen of America, it was a study to look at that venerable man in the House of Representatives in Washington, and think over the events of his long and distinguished life.

It was difficult to realize that he was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence was adopted; that he had gone abroad when a boy with his father, John Adams, and might have heard Chatham, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan in the British Parliament; that he had seen George the Third and most of the crowned heads and eminent statesmen who had lived in the preceding fifty years; that he had seen and conversed with Washington; had been intimate with Jefferson and Madison; had been Secretary of State to James Monroe ; and finally, that he had been President of the United States.

On the day of his burial there might have been seen at the Capitol of this country, in which he