try, superstition, curiosity, the thirst for knowledge, the passion
for penetrating the secrets of nature, the warfare of the huntsman by
night and by day against the beast of the forest and of the field, the
meditations of the shepherd in the custody and wanderings of his flocks,
the influence of the revolving seasons of the year, and the successive
garniture of the firmament upon the labors of the husbandman, upon the
seed time and the harvest, the blooming of flowers, the ripening of the
vintage, the polar pilot of the navigator, and the mysterious magnet of
the mariner--all, in harmonious action, stimulate the child of earth and
of heaven to interrogate the dazzling splendors of the sky, to reveal to
him the laws of their own existence.

"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 su