who would plunge the country into war, and ruin all for a matter of
stamps." John was born and lived at the village of Braintree. He did not
really center his mind on politics until the British had closed all
law-courts in Boston, thus making his profession obsolete. He was
scholarly, shrewd, diplomatic, cautious, good-natured, fat, and took his
religion with a wink. He was blessed with a wife who was worthy of being
the mother of kings (or presidents); he lived comfortably, acquired
property, and died aged ninety-two. He had been President and seen his son
President of the United States, and that is an experience that has never
come and probably never will come to another living man, for there seems
to be an unwritten law that no man under fifty shall occupy the office of
Chief Magistrate of these United States.

Samuel was stern, serious and deeply in earnest. He seldom smiled and
never laughed. He was uncompromisingly religious, conscientious and
morally unbending. In his life there was no soft sentiment. The fact that
he ran a brewery can be excused when we remember that the best spirit of
the times saw nothing inconsistent in the occupation; and further than
this we might explain in extenuation that he gave the business indifferent
attention, and the quality of his brew was said to be very bad.

In religion, he swerved not nor wavered. He was a Calvinist and clung to
the five points with a tenacity at times seemingly quite unnecessary.

When in that first Congress, Samuel Adams publicly consented to the
opening of the meeting with religious service conducted by the Reverend
Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, he gave a violent wrench to his
conscience and an awful shock to his friends. But Mr. Duche met the issue
in the true spirit, and leaving his detested "popery robe" and prayer-book
at home uttered an extemporaneous invocation, without a trace of intoning,