Before the receipt y of your letter I was extremely anxious about you and should have written to enquire what could occassion your long silence. if I had known where to find you. for tho you informed me when in Alexandria that you should stay at your Cousin thompsons I did not know what part of...

on the subject of religion, a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his maker, in which no other, & far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

we must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus ... there will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse...

I have great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch of our government.

of publishing a book on religion, my dear Sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. of these there must be at least ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all are wrong but his own. to...

I have recieved your letter of the 20th in which you mention for the first time, the accident which happened to you last month. oh how sincerely I thank you for not permitting the girls to tell me of it for I should for it would have made me very miserable. even now I cannot help feeling...

You ask if I mean to publish any thing on the subject of a letter of mine to my friend Charles Thompson? certainly not. I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. on the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind,...

say nothing of my religion. it is known to my god and myself alone. it’s 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.

I learn from Mr Jefferson that Walsh has informed him very lately of a striking change in the countenance and appearance of Mr Correa, accompanied by a manifest sinking of his spirits. I am greatly distressed at the intelligence; for it can only proceed from a serious decline in his health. There...

I find from the letters recieved from your Mama and yourself this week that neither of you recieved my last— The old mode of keeping christmas seems to be going generally out of fashion—It has changed very much since my recollection Formerly all classes of society kept it as a kind of feast—It is...

were I to be the founder of a new sect, I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee, advise them to extract the honey of every sect. my fundamental. principle would be ... that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not...

presents his compliments to mr Greenleaf and his thanks for the pamphlet on grammar which came to hand yesterday. the torpor of age and drudgery of letterwriting give him little time to read, and little power of profiting by the advances & improvements in every branch of science. he rejoices...