To John Adams.
"The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding-. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more w-here words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the time is not very distant at which we are to deposit in the same casement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you, and support you under your heavy affliction.
Side by side in the Congregational church in Quincy, to which he had given the donation to erect it with, lie the mortal remains of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Within the same house, a plain white marble slab, on the right hand of the pulpit, surmounted by his bust, bears the following inscription, written by his eldest son:
