But it is a valuable work.
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four
words, 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end;
as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four more, '_Ubi panis, ibi
deus_.' What all agree in, is probably right; what no two agree in, most
probably wrong. One of our fan-coloring biographers, who paints small
men as very great, inquired of me lately, with real affection too,
whether he might consider as authentic, the change in my religion much
spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what had
been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests, whom
I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was, 'Say
nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its
evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been
honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it
cannot be a bad one.' Affectionately adieu.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXL.--TO JOHN ADAMS, May 5, 1817
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Monticello, May 5, 1817.
Dear Sir,
Absences and avocations had prevented my acknowledging your favor of
February the 2nd, when that of April the 19th arrived. I had not the
pleasure of receiving the former by the hands of Mr. Lyman. His business
probably carried him in another direction; for I am far inland, and
distant from the great line of communication between the trading cities.
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