The year is 1777 and one of the most romantic gestures makes it into the history books posthumously. Historians collecting documents for presidential libraries and trying to preserve documents written in the pen of our nation’s forefathers stumbled upon a set of five letters written on this date between Continental Congressman John Adams and his wife, Abigail. Adams would become the second president of the United States in 1797.
Adams is tending to congressional business in Philadelphia while his wife is over 300 miles away in Braintree, Massachusetts, caring for the family farm. The distance couldn’t separate their love and reliance on each other’s counsel. “In the second letter John drafted to Abigail on March 7, he comically declared that Philadelphia had lost its vibrancy during Congress’ removal to Baltimore. “This City is a dull Place, in Comparason [sic] of what it was. More than one half the Inhabitants have removed to the Country, as it was their Wisdom to do—the Remainder are chiefly Quakers as dull as Beetles. From these neither good is to be expected nor Evil to be apprehended. They are a kind of neutral Tribe, or the Race of the insipids.””1
In all, over 1,600 letters were discovered written between the two over the years. The content of the letters wasn’t just sentimental romance. The letters reflected that Abigail had her finger on the pulse of a fledgling nation. She would often share her observations concerning the military and the general air of patriotism among the citizens. She would bemoan the lack of fervor, wishing for more passion in the public. Her recommendations
concerning the military and government were well received and respected by her husband.
Did you ever write love letters? It seems that it is a practice of days gone by because the younger generation looks at you like you have two heads when you mention doing this. I guess that is understandable. Letter writing and card sending is rapidly becoming a part of the ancient past, especially since the cost of stamps continues to rise as well as the cost of a card. Emails, texts, social media posts, and IMs are free and instant. The Adams’ could have covered those 300 miles with instant communication had they lived in our era.
Still, it seems that there is something special about the written words. Jesus covered the span of several thousand years and the distance from His eternal home to get us His love letter, the Bible. 2 Peter 1:19-21 tells us, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (20) Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (21) For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Why would God have so carefully communicated with us? Why would He take such great care to have preserved His Word and insure that it would never disappear? To say that it was an act of love is an understatement! Let these final words of John 20 cause you to cling to the words of our Savior more and more each day.
John 20:30-31 reminds us, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: (31) But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”
1https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/five-letters-pass-between-abigail-and-john-adams
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