John Adams, second President of these United States, was a man of very firm convictions. Once he decided to support a cause, most notably American independence, nothing on this Earth could convince him to change his mind. In regard to religion he was raised a Congregationalist. Although described as a Unitarian, I find the evidence ambiguous in his writings and I suspect he remained at heart a fairly conventional Protestant. As such he was unsympathetic to the Catholic faith by heredity, creed and conviction. However, he did attend Mass on occasion, and his writings about these visits show attraction mixed with repulsion.
On October 9, 1774 Adams and George Washington attended a Catholic chapel in Philadelphia during the First Continental Congress. He reported his thoughts about the visit to his wife and constant correspondent Abigail:
“This afternoon, led by Curiosity and good Company I strolled away to Mother Church, or rather Grandmother Church, I mean the Romish Chapel. Heard a good, short, moral Essay upon the Duty of Parents to their Children, founded in justice and Charity, to take care of their Interests temporal and spiritual.
This afternoon’s entertainment was to me most awful (Adams here means awe-inspiring and not the more colloquial use of the term common in our time.) and affecting. The poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood, their Pater Nosters and Ave Marias. Their holy water– their crossing themselves perpetually– their bowing to the name of Jesus wherever they hear it– their bowings, and kneelings, and genuflections before the altar. The dress of the priest was rich with lace– his pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar piece was very rich– little images and crucifixes about– wax candles lighted up. But how shall I describe the picture of our Saviour in a frame of marble over the altar, at full length, upon the cross in the agonies, and the blood dropping and streaming from his wounds.
The music consisting of an organ, and a Choir of singers, went all the afternoon, excepting sermon Time, and the Assembly chanted– most sweetly and exquisitely.
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination. Everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and the ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.”
New England services in the time of John Adams were as plain as, well, as some Masses unfortunately are today in this country. The pageantry and power of traditional Catholicism obviously had an impact upon Adams although he was loathe to admit it.
On December 18, 1779, while abroad as an American diplomat, Adams attended Mass in Corunna, Spain and was impressed by the beauty of what he saw:
“Went into the church of a convent; found them all upon their knees, chanting the prayers to the Virgin, it being the eve of the Sainte Vlerge. The wax candles lighted, by their glimmerings upon the paint and gildings, made a pretty appearance, and the music was good.”
On July 30, 1780 Adams attended Mass at the Cathedral in Brussels:
“Sunday. Went to the cathedral, — a great feast, an infinite crowd. The church more splendidly ornamented than any that I had seen, hung with tapestry. The church music here is in the Italian style. A picture in tapestry was hung up, of a number of Jews stabbing the wafer, the ban Diett, and blood gushing in streams from the bread. This insufferable piece of pious villany shocked me beyond measure; but thousands were before it, on their knees, adoring. I could not help cursing the knavery of the priesthood and the brutal ignorance of the people ; yet, perhaps, I was rash and unreasonable, and that it is as much virtue and wisdom in them to adore, as in me to detest and despise.”
Once again we see Adams the aesthete attracted to the Mass. Adams of course then lashes out at “knavish priesthood”, but, rather remarkably for Adams, then admits that perhaps the worshipers had as much wisdom and virtue as he has. Such humility is very rare in the writings of Mr. Adams!
Adams attended other Masses and made similar observations. I think he was a man attracted at least to the externals of the Faith, but was intellectually impervious to the message that the externals sought to convey. The faith of Catholics at worship obviously unsettled him however, and I suspect that he felt an emotional attraction to the Faith he was a stranger to. As anyone who has read much of Adams’ writings can attest, John Adams was a complex man and therefore it is appropriate that this New England shunner of the papacy, against his will, felt the pull of “Grandmother Church”.
I’m fairly convinced that the Adamses — John, Abigail, and John Quincy — were theologically unitarian (which adds some irony to the Adams-Jefferson division over religion in the Election of 1800, as they would have both been effectively unitarians).
It’s not a stretch to believe it, as the Congregationalism of New England had begun to morph into unitarianism in the 1750s. The Adamses were active members of the First Parish Church in Quincy, which appears to have become unitarian in its doctrine by 1753.
Abigail, certainly, was a unitarian, writing in 1816:
“I acknowledge myself a unitarian – Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three.”
John Quincy, also, attended Unitarian Universalist churches throughout his adult life.
The Church will endure, but things are really dark at this moment and I don’t see them improving any time soon.
Compare and contrast the spiritual depth of a man who actually identified as a Christian (Adams) with the prophetic and profound spiritual words of a man who declared no faith (Lincoln). “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown…But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.” Abraham Lincoln 1863
That was written by Secretary of State Seward Ezabelle, although I am sure Lincoln agreed with it. The Second Inaugural was all Lincoln:
Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
My ancestors, both maternal and paternal, arrived 400 years ago. The Adams’ are my cousins. Wm Bradford is a grandfather, as are several other Pilgrims. That is a great deal of Protestantism to overcome, yet, unlike cousin John, I went beyond sightseeing. I converted sixteen moths ago. I’ve been reading your blog for much longer than that. Thanx
God be with you Webster.
Welcome home.
Amen, Philip.
Thanks Don. I’m in awe of the depth of Lincoln’s understanding of Gods Will and humanity and wonder where it came from. It had to be Divine. It’s as if he wrote them today.