John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. XV 
For the last eight years of his life he was absorbed in pro- 
curing the blessings of good education for his native state, and 
especially in bringing forward the University of Virginia. He 
did not slacken his hand in this good work, though a new and 
dreaded evil pressed heavily upon him in his pecuniary embarrass- 
ments. 
The time was near when he must be gathered to his fathers. 
He had enjoyed great health and tolerable vigor, and never been 
obliged to claim the repose which age commonly demands. A 
disease of some standing made rapid advances; and though he 
submitted to the prescriptions that were ordered, he was 
conscious that his strength was failing. With his impressions 
and affections alive, he saw the advancing step of death; gave 
directions to his family upon many points, saying he committed 
his soul to God, and his daughter to his country, and dictating 
the words which should be inscribed on his tombstone, “The 
Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Preamble 
to the Religious Freedom Law, and Father of the University of 
Virginia”; and when fifty years had gone by from the day on 
which he associated his name with his country’s liberty, he passed 
out of life. 
You need not be reminded of the powerful and affecting 
impression made by the extraordinary concurrence of the death 
of these illustrious personages, and the augmented interest it 
gave to the posthumous honours they received. I have spoken 
to you of their biography. 
SEconpLy, a sketch of the events in which they acted might 
afford a basis of reflections upon the value, the dignity, the 
importance of their agency in founding our republic, and guiding 
its councils after their establishment. 
