John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

13. V. Sunday—

Another sleepless, but not wholly cheerless night— Heard a young man from Roxbury, by the name of Robbins, in the morning from John 6.12. [“]Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost” and in the afternoon from John 7.49—[“]But this People, who knoweth (know) not the Law are cursed.” The discourses were sensible: that of the morning especially—but the delivery was sluggish and drawling— The auditory was very thin—the day being tempestuous and showery— There was rain almost all night— I read the third Sermon of the 5th. Volume of Saurin—upon the last Discourses of Jesus Christ to his Apostles— For the first Sunday of Lent; or of what he calls the Passion Weeks— The text is the first verse of the 14th. Chapter of John, and there is a note that to derive any useful fruit from the Sermon, it is indispensably necessary, before perusing it, to read the 14th. 15th. and 16th. chapters of John. It is less impressive than some other Discourses of the same collection— The Dutch reformed Churches, and those of the French Protestants, keep the festivals of Christmas and Easter, and this volume is occasional; containing a Sermon delivered upon each of the days having reference to the Birth, Death or Resurrection of Christ— This was all the reading that I could accomplish this day, and with the minutes of Diary for yesterday and this day, absorbed my whole time— I heard my Granddaughter read twice, and in the evening wade through 30 pages of Professor Dew’s Review of the Debate, on the project for Slave emancipation. It is a monument of the intellectual perversion produced by the existence of Slavery in a free community— To the mind of Mr Dew, Slavery is the source of all Virtue in the heart of the Master.— His argument against the practicability, of abolishing Slavery by means of Colonization, appears to me conclusive, nor do I believe that emancipation is the object of the Colonization Society, though it may be the daydream of some of its members. Mr Dews argument that the danger of Insurrection among the Slaves diminished in proportion as their relative numbers increase over those of the white masters is an ingenious paradox in which I have no faith.