“He has his own comforts, his own happiness, his own existence, identified with theirs.  He sees the Creator in creation, and calls upon creation to declare the glory of the Creator.  When Pythagoras, the philosopher of the Grecian schools, conceived that more than earthly idea of ’the music of the spheres’—­when the great dramatist of nature could inspire the lips of his lover on the moonlight green with the beloved of his soul, to say to her:—­

  ’Sit, Jessica.—­Look how the floor of Heaven
   Is thick inlaid with pattens of bright gold! 
   There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
   But in his motion like an angel sings,
   Still choiring to the young eyed cherubim!’

“Oh, who is the one with a heart, but almost wishes to cast off this muddy vesture of decay, to be admitted to the joy of listening to the celestial harmony!”

CHAPTER XV.

Mr. Adams’ last appearance in public at Boston—­his health—­lectures on
his journey to Washington—­remote cause of his decease—­struck with
paralysis—­leaves Quincy for Washington for the last time—­his final
sickness in the house of representatives—­his death—­the funeral at
Washington—­removal of the body to Quincy—­its interment.

The last time Mr. Adams appeared in public in Boston, he presided at a meeting of the citizens of that city, in Faneuil Hall.  “A man had been kidnapped in Boston—­kidnapped at noon-day, ’on the high road between Faneuil Hall and old Quincy,’ and carried off to be a slave!  New England hands had seized their brother, sold him into bondage forever, and his children after him.  A meeting was called to talk the matter over, in a plain way, and look in one another’s faces.  Who was fit to preside in such a case?  That old man sat in the chair in Faneuil Hall.  Above him was the image of his father and his own; around him were Hancock and the other Adams, and Washington, greatest of all.  Before him were the men and women of Boston, met to consider the wrongs done to a miserable negro slave.  The roof of the old Cradle of Liberty spanned over them all.  Forty years before, a young man and a Senator, he had taken the chair at a meeting called to consult on the wrong done to American seamen, violently impressed by the British from an American ship of war—­the unlucky Chesapeake.  Now an old man, clothed with half a century of honors, he sits in the same Hall, to preside over a meeting to consider the outrage done to a single slave.  One was the first meeting of citizens he ever presided over; the other was the last:  both for the same object—­the defence of the eternal right!” [Footnote:  Theodore Parker.]