Resting in God’s Loving Care
When we returned from the MassHOPE convention several weeks ago, I was bursting with things I wanted to tell you about Boston and about the family of John Adams. I hope you don’t mind another story about them.
In February and March of 1877, John Adams spent time in Baltimore, Maryland. As was his custom, he wrote several letters to his wife Abigail (in his own grammar, capitalization, and spelling). In one letter, he wrote, “I have been to Meeting, and heard my old Acquaintance Mr. Allison, a worthy Clergyman of this Town whom I have often seen in Philadelphia.” In another letter, he expressed his desire that “God almightys Providence protect and bless you and yours and mine.” In another he described a building he saw in Baltimore, saying it was “hung round with Pictures of our Saviour from his Birth to his Death, Resurrection and Ascention.”Â
While Ray and I were in Quincy, Massachusetts, we learned new lessons about the faith of President Adams and his son President John Quincy Adams. Minister John Hancock served the Congregational Church of Quincy in a large wooden church building. President John Adams helped the congregation build a new building which still stands across from the Hancock Cemetery. I was sad to learn that it is now a Unitarian church called First Parish Church. From my brief research online, this denomination appears to have gone far away from the faith John Adams expressed in our Savior’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
The building is a beautiful limestone structure with a gold dome.
President Adams gave the limestone from his own quarry and also gave a parcel of land so that the church could sell it and use the proceeds to help with the expenses of constructing the new church.
John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and his wife Louisa Catherine Adams are now interred in the basement of First Parish Church in two rooms the family purchased from the church for $1 each. These memorials to John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams hang in the sanctuary of the church.
Here Ray and I sit in the presidential pew.
I presume that John Quincy Adams was sitting here on Sunday June 29, 1845, when the church sang his paraphrase of Psalm 65, which had recently been included in the church’s new hymnal. Later that day he wrote this in his diary:
It was my verÂsion of the 65th Psalm; and no words can exÂpress the senÂsaÂtions with which I heard it sung. Were it posÂsible to comÂpress into one pulÂsaÂtion of the heart the pleaÂsure which, in the whole perÂiÂod of my life, I have enÂjoyed in praise from the lips of morÂtal man, it would not weigh a straw to balÂance the ecÂstaÂsy of deÂlight which streamed from my eyes as the orÂgan pealed and the choir of voicÂes sung the praise of AlÂmighty God from the soul of DavÂid, adaptÂed to my naÂtive tongue by me.
I can certainly see why John Quincy Adams was thrilled with the singing of Psalm 65. I love how it tells of God’s care for the earth He made and the people He created to live here. Today I pray that you rest in the love and care of the One Who made you and loves you.
By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation,
You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea;
Who establishes the mountains by His strength,
Being girded with might;
Who stills the roaring of the seas,
The roaring of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.
Psalm 65:5-8
