University of Virginia Library

TO JOHN ADAMS.[1]

Have pity upon me. Have pity upon me, O thou
my beloved, for the hand of God presseth me sore.

Yet will I be dumb and silent, and not open my
mouth, because thou, O Lord, hast done it.

How can I tell you, (O my bursting heart!) that
my dear mother has left me?—this day, about
five o'clock, she left this world for an infinitely
better.

After sustaining sixteen days' severe conflict, nature
fainted, and she fell asleep. Blessed spirit!
where art thou? At times, I am almost ready to
faint under this severe and heavy stroke, separated
from thee, who used to be a comforter to me in
affliction; but, blessed be God, his ear is not heavy
that he cannot hear, but he has bid us call upon him
in time of trouble.

I know you are a sincere and hearty mourner
with me, and will pray for me in my affliction. My
poor father, like a firm believer and a good Christian,
sets before his children the best of examples of
patience and submission. My sisters send their love
to you, and are greatly afflicted. You often expressed
your anxiety for me when you left me before,
surrounded with terrors; but my trouble then was
as the small dust in the balance, compared to what I
have since endured. I hope to be properly mindful
of the correcting hand, that I may not be rebuked in
anger.

You will pardon and forgive all my wanderings of
mind, I cannot be correct.

'T is a dreadful time with the whole province.
Sickness and death are in almost every family. I

have no more shocking and terrible idea of any distemper,
except the plague, than this.[2]

Almighty God! restrain the pestilence which walketh
in darkness and wasteth at noonday, and which
has laid in the dust one of the dearest of parents.
May the life of the other be lengthened out to his
afflicted children.