connected;
in the first place to your Great Preserver, in the next to Society in General,
in particular to your Country, to your parents and to yourself.
The
only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is Religion. Let
this important truth be engraven upon your Heart, and that the foundation
of Religion is the Belief of the one only God, and a just sense of his attributes
as a Being infinately wise, just, and good, to whom you owe the highest
reverence, Gratitude and Adoration, who superintends and Governs all Nature,
even to Cloathing the lilies of the Field and hearing the young Ravens when
they cry, but more particularly regards Man whom he created after his own
Image and Breathed into him an immortal Spirit capable of a happiness beyond
the Grave, to the attainment of which he is bound to the performance of
certain duties which all tend to the happiness and welfare of Society and
are comprised in one short sentance expressive of universal Benevolence,
"Thou shalt Love thy Neighbour as thyself" and it elegantly defined
by Mr. Pope in his Essay on Man
"Remember,
Man, the universal cause
Acts not by partial, but be general laws
And makes what happiness we justly call
Subsist not in the good of one but all
Theres not a Blessing individuals find
But some way leans and hearkens to the kind."
Thus
has the Supreme Being made the good will of Man towards his fellow creatures
an Evidence of his regard to him, and to this purpose has constituted him
a Dependant Being, and made his happiness to consist in Society[.]
Adams,
Abigail. Letter to John Quincy Adams, March 20, 1780. Adams Family Papers,
Massachusetts Historical Society. Published in Adams Family Correspondence,
Volume 3: April 1778 - September 1780 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 1973). Pages 310-313.
